Published December 9, 2024
On Monday, December 9, 2024, EPPC Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow Mary Rice Hasson and EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson, in partnership with the Thomas More Society and LiMandri & Jonna LLP, filed a Supreme Court amicus curiae brief in support of petitioners in Chiles v. Salazar. The petition challenges a Tenth Circuit ruling upholding a Colorado state law that requires therapists serving minors to use a “gender affirming” model of care despite mounting scientific evidence from European and American medical communities that this approach relies on low-quality evidence and leads to serious, irreversible harms.
The brief states:
Rigorous evidence reviews, the emergence of de-transitioners (formerly transgender-identified youth harmed by gender transitions), and whistleblowers have exposed the substandard evidence base of gender affirmative interventions and focused a spotlight on the medical scandal surrounding gender transitions for minors.
Since 2020, multiple European countries have limited or banned gender transition interventions in minors, citing the low-quality evidence base and undeniable harms (including sterility and sexual dysfunction) of gender affirmative practices.
Global concerns about gender affirmation are echoed by U.S. clinicians, families, and lawmakers. Since 2021, 26 states have examined the evidence for youth gender affirmation and responded by passing laws restricting or banning most gender transition interventions for minors.
Because gender identity, unlike sex, can change, counselors should consider and respond to a client’s goals, including a client’s desire to explore change. In contrast, counseling restrictions exert a chilling effect on therapists, discouraging the careful psychological assessments and counseling that minors need. Gender identity “conversion therapy” laws effectively impose the gender affirmative viewpoint—and the novel and faulty anthropology on which it is based—on all counselors and their clients.
We urge the Court to consider the serious ethical concerns raised by Colorado’s counseling restriction.
Read the full brief here.
Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded and directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that educates and equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology.
