Gavin Newsom slams Supreme Courtroom ruling hanging down ban on conversion remedy

California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted a U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling Tuesday hanging down Colorado’s ban on conversion remedy for minors, calling the follow “junk science” and warning the choice might endanger weak younger folks.

“Conversion remedy is discredited junk science that inflicts hurt on LGBTQ youth,” Newsom wrote on X. “The Supreme Courtroom’s resolution is disappointing and places weak youngsters in danger.”

Conversion remedy is discredited junk science that inflicts hurt on LGBTQ youth.

The Supreme Courtroom’s resolution is disappointing and places weak youngsters in danger. https://t.co/VKAPSwemkF

— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) March 31, 2026

Supreme Courtroom justices dominated 8-1 that Colorado’s legislation prohibiting licensed therapists from performing talk-based conversion remedy on minors possible violates the First Modification, siding with a Christian counselor who argued the restriction amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Greater than 20 states, together with California, prohibit licensed therapists from performing conversion remedy on minors. California grew to become the primary state to ban conversion remedy for minors in 2012. 

The legislation makes it unlawful for licensed psychological well being professionals to attempt to change an adolescent’s sexual orientation or gender id. California’s legislation doesn’t apply to adults and doesn’t regulate non secular counseling.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for almost all, mentioned the legislation improperly targets speech based mostly on ideology, framing counseling conversations as protected expression reasonably than regulated medical conduct. 

“We don’t doubt that the query ‘how finest to assist minors’ scuffling with problems with gender id or sexual orientation is presently a topic of ‘fierce public debate,’” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for almost all in a 23-page opinion.

“However Colorado’s legislation addressing conversion remedy doesn’t simply ban bodily interventions. In instances like this, it censors speech based mostly on viewpoint. Colorado might regard its coverage as important to public well being and security. Definitely, censorious governments all through historical past have believed the identical,” Gorsuch added.

The ruling reverses a decrease court docket resolution and will open the door to challenges in opposition to comparable legal guidelines nationwide.

Conversion remedy — a follow geared toward altering an individual’s sexual orientation or gender id — has been extensively criticized by main medical organizations, together with the American Medical Affiliation, which have linked it to melancholy, nervousness and elevated suicide danger amongst LGBTQ youth.

Gorsuch countered throughout oral arguments that scientific understandings change over time, noting that homosexuality within the Nineteen Seventies was typically seen as a psychological well being dysfunction.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that states ought to retain authority to manage dangerous medical practices, warning the choice might weaken protections for sufferers.

Newsom, a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights, has usually pointed to his private ties to the neighborhood, together with his transgender godson, Nats Getty, a designer and activist who publicly got here out as a trans man in 2021. 

The governor has referenced Getty in defending insurance policies geared toward defending transgender Californians.

“I’ve a trans godson — there’s no governor that’s signed extra pro-trans laws than and nobody has been a stronger advocate for the LGBT neighborhood,” Newsom mentioned on the Ezra Klein podcast.

Authorized specialists say Tuesday’s ruling is prone to set off new challenges to California’s legislation and others prefer it, establishing a broader authorized combat over the stability between free speech, non secular liberty and protections for LGBTQ youth.

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