Court rules talk-based conversion therapy is legal in Virginia

A Henrico County Circuit Court judge ordered that licensed counselors be allowed to engage underage clients in a controversial form of talk therapy about gender identity and sexual orientation that medical and mental health experts say can be harmful.

The case underpinning the new consent decree with the Virginia Department of Health Professions stemmed from a 2020 state law banning “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Last year, Front Royal-based counselors John and Janet Raymond  challenged the ban. 

“The Raymonds desired to engage in talk therapy with minors through voluntary conversations, prayer, and providing written materials such as Scripture, but Virginia’s law and regulations prohibited them from doing so,” read a Tuesday statement from the Founding Freedoms Law Center, the Family Foundation’s legal arm that represented the Raymonds in the case. The Center hailed the court’s ruling as a “landmark free speech victory.”

Conversion therapy entails attempts to change or influence a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The American Psychological Association has denounced conversion therapy, stating that it is not an accepted form of therapy based on medical or scientific evidence, as has the American Medical Association. The groups and advocates have also said conversion therapy is used as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and lifestyles. 

Conversion therapy treatments have garnered national controversy over the years and range from inducing nausea, providing electric shocks to having people snap an elastic band around their wrist when they become aroused by same-sex erotic images or thoughts.

The Raymonds told the court they previously practiced talk therapy for conversion therapy clients, as they do with their other clients. The ban meant they couldn’t have conversations to try to guide clients away from embracing their sexual or gender identities. The new consent decree means they can practice conversion therapy again.

Opponents of the practice have argued that conversion therapy can put LGBTQ+ people at higher risk of mental health issues like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse or suicide. 

The Raymonds emphasized that the talk therapy they engage in with their clients is voluntary and stressed that nothing about their case should be construed as allowing any counselor to perform acts associated with conversion therapy, such as electro-shock therapy. 

“With this court order, every counselor in Virginia will now be able to speak freely, truthfully and candidly with clients who are seeking to have those critical conversations about their identity and to hear faith-based insights from trusted professionals,” said Josh Hetzler, the couple’s legal counsel with the Founding Freedoms Law Center. 

The Family Foundation is a Christian and conservative advocacy group and legal firm that opposes same-sex marriage, supports more parental input in public education, and supports increased restrictions on abortions. While the consent decree was ordered on June 4, Family Foundation and the plaintiffs announced it on July 1. 

“We thank God that He gives us the freedom to speak, to believe, to seek His wisdom,” John Raymond said Tuesday in the Family Foundation’s office in Richmond — formerly a house that Confederate General Robert E. Lee rented following his surrender at Appomattox that ended the Civil War. 

Raymond said he felt like Virginia’s 2020 law gave him no choice but to challenge it and called it a “hostile ideological invasion within our country.”

Likewise, Hetzler noted a “growing number of parents” seeking counseling services with a religious lens for their children “in an era when gender dysphoria has become a contagion among young people.”

Virginia lawmakers weigh in

Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, noted on a press call Tuesday that there have been bipartisan efforts to support LGBTQ constituents in Virginia’s legislature in recent years. When the conversion therapy ban was clearing the House of Delegates five years ago, 11 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting for it. Seven Republican lawmakers — to include then-delegate and now Attorney General Jason Miyares — abstained from voting. Over in the Senate, a former GOP lawmaker joined Democrats in supporting that version as well. 

While Miyares did not express support or dissent in 2020, his office has signed the consent decree effectively lifting the ban on conversion therapy. 

As attorney general, Miyares has pressed for banning transgender youth from participating in sports teams of their identity as a suite of anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the state during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.  

Localities have pushed back on former Gov. Ralph Northam’s order that transgender students be able to use the bathrooms of their identities. And an in-progress constitutional amendment to remove a defunct same-sex marriage ban from the state’s constitution has advanced with slim bipartisan support. 

Advocates for that law say it’s important, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed interest in revisiting a decade-old ruling that protects gay marriage federally. He expressed the opinion after the court struck down federal abortion protections. Should marriage protections fall, Virginia is among states that would immediately ban the unions. 

Roem reiterated the risks of conversion therapy, saying medical care for transgender people like hormone therapies or surgeries are constantly subject to medical review to assess quality of care, while talk-based conversion therapy isn’t. 

Roem, the state’s first transgender senator, said she has been on the receiving end of efforts to dissuade her from her sexual identity but it never stopped her from embracing being transgender. 

“I spent 13 years in Catholic school — I heard everything,” she said. “I am just as trans today at age 40 as I was when I got into Catholic school in 4th grade.”

Ultimately, what the conversion therapy ban came down to for Democrats, she and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax said, is public health. Given how various medical associations have denounced conversion therapy, they felt it had no place in state-licensed counselor’s services. 

“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell said. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”

While several studies have shown negative mental and physical health impacts of conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people, the Raymonds said a 2024 report in the United Kingdom  called for more research on gender identity services for minors. However, the report’s author noted their belief that “no LGBTQ+ group should be subjected to conversion practice.”

With an appeal deadline having passed, lawmakers could further tweak their 2020 law when they convene next year.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the order was issued in June and announced in July. Sen. Surovell also said “imam” rather than “mom.”

This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.