Attorney General Alan Wilson applauds Court ruling against a state’s ban on “conversion therapy”

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson applauded a federal Appeals Court ruling against Michigan’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy,” and upholding counselors’ free speech rights. He co-led a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, which focuses on how to best help minors with gender dysphoria.

“If parents of a child with gender dysphoria want to get religious counseling for their child, Michigan’s law prevents that and blocks a therapist’s freedom of speech,” Attorney General Wilson said. “This is straight-up censorship and is not in the best interest of these children.”

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s ruling that upheld Michigan’s law and ordered the district court to issue a preliminary injunction to block it from being enacted while this lawsuit is decided.

The Court of Appeals’ majority ruling says, “Under a law recently enacted in Michigan, therapists are free to offer their minor clients ‘counseling that provides assistance to an individual undergoing a gender transition.’ But if a minor client (with his parents’ consent) seeks counseling to ‘change’ his ‘behavior or gender expression’ to align with his biological sex, his therapist can lose her license if she provides it. The plaintiffs here offer counseling in the form of ‘talk therapy’: literally, spoken words and nothing more. They argue that this regime restricts their speech based on its content and viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment. The district court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that the plaintiffs’ therapy amounts to conduct—specifically ‘treatment’--rather than speech.

We disagree and reverse.”

Earlier this year, Attorney General Wilson called on the City of Columbia to repeal its ban on so-called “conversion therapy,” which the city did.

You can read the Court of Appeals’ ruling here.

You can read the brief that Attorney General co-led here.