Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 against a 2019 Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors. For many, that judgment seemed like a great regression in the fight against gender ideology. But rulings like these are far more grounded in the technical terms of the law than in broader social implications. In this instance, it’s an important example of how the very specific definitions provided could have wide-ranging implications for the future of gender treatment and conversion therapy.

The Colorado law voted on by the Supreme Court defined conversion therapy as any attempt “to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity”. This includes efforts “to change behaviors or gender expressions” and “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex”.

There has been a precedent set in other state laws. In 2012, California became the first state to ban conversion therapy for minors. “Under no circumstances shall a mental health provider engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under 18 years of age,” Senate Bill 1172 stated. The bill defined “sexual orientation change efforts” as “efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex”.

This suggests that, at the time, California legislators understood the relationship between sexual orientation and gender expression. That is, if a male child expressed himself more like a typical girl, or a female child expressed herself more like a typical boy, that child would likely grow up to be gay. Therefore, the state of California declared it was illegal for mental health providers to try to alter the behaviors of these kids who might someday be gay.

What legislators likely didn’t know at the time was how complicated this issue was about to become. At one point, medical organizations and activist groups showed up in court to argue against clinicians’ efforts to change the minds of gay kids. But then they would send others to argue in support of clinicians’ efforts to permanently change those kids’ bodies. Soon, no one would be talking about “protecting gay kids” from harm.

Instead, protecting children with gender dysphoria became the primary agenda. The so-called harm from which they’d want to protect these so-called “trans kids” was the opportunity to reach adulthood without invasive medical procedures. What’s worse is that numerous gay activists warned against pursuing trans medical procedures. But they were slandered as bigots before they even had the chance to get their point across.

This is where the differences between the California and Colorado bills are important. The term “gender identity” in the Colorado bill, which is undefined, complicates — or, more accurately, nullifies — the California definition of “sexual orientation”. Now, a child’s atypical “behaviors or gender expressions” aren’t seen as evidence of that child’s emerging homosexual orientation but instead as evidence that the child may have been “born in the wrong body”. This means that including “gender identity” has rendered previous conversion therapy bans completely incoherent. Equally, its inclusion in laws about sex-based rights nullifies “sex” and therefore renders those laws incoherent.

This is why the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday was not only sensible but necessary. If we have any hope of protecting gay kids, then a therapist must have the right to interrogate a child’s claim that he or she was born in the wrong body. To affirm this impossibility would mean to set that child who is questioning their sexuality on an irreversible path toward conversion therapy.

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Ben Appel studied creative writing at Columbia University. His memoir, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, is forthcoming. Read more of his work at benappelwrites.com.

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