In a victory for free speech and religious liberty, a Virginia Circuit Court has effectively struck down the state’s ban on talk therapy for gender-confused minors citing it as a violation of the state’s constitution and religious liberty laws. Following a legal challenge by two licensed Christian counselors, state officials agreed to a consent decree where the court ordered the Virginia Department of Health Professions not to enforce the law against Christian therapists helping children deal with unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. 

The Virginia state legislature passed HB 386 in 2020 which banned talk therapy defining it as “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Under the law, helping children align their identities and desires to their biological sex was regarded as unprofessional conduct whereby licensed professionals could be disciplined.

According to the decree, only the portion of the law banning talk therapy—within the standards of care—will no longer be enforced. The law will still ban controversial practices outside of the scope of talk therapy, such as electric shock. 

The plaintiffs, John and Janet Raymond, provide counseling with a Christian worldview for adults and minors. Before the law, they regularly provided counseling to minors on a variety of issues but had to stop seeing minors after the law was enacted. The couple sued the state contending it violated their sincerely-held religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

In the decree, Chief Judge Randall D. Johnson, Jr. cited the Virginia Supreme Court in that the “constitutional guarantees of religious freedom have no deeper roots than in Virginia, where they originated[.]”

Chief Judge Johnson noted that speech “uttered by professionals” is protected and that viewpoint discrimination based on content is an “egregious” form of discrimination.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Chiles v. Salazar, a case challenging Colorado’s 2019 counseling ban barring talk therapy as violating the free speech of licensed counselors. Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in the case that argues Colorado’s law relies heavily on ideology instead of sound science, and that it should not stand because the First Amendment does not allow any state to dictate which counseling viewpoints may be discussed between a counselor and the client.

The case is expected to be argued in the fall of 2025, with a decision to follow in 2026 that could have significant implications for talk therapy bans nationwide.

Liberty Counsel filed the first legal challenges to these counseling bans in 2012, involving the states of California (Pickup v. Newsom) and New Jersey (King v. Christie). While the Ninth and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal upheld these bans for different reasons, in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court nullified both decisions when it struck down California’s law that attempted to regulate the speech of crisis pregnancy centers (NIFLA v. Newsom).

Liberty Counsel has represented licensed counselors who have used talk therapy to help many people. Through Liberty Counsel’s efforts, city ordinances in Florida and Iowa banning this type of counseling have been struck down or repealed preserving the free speech rights of counselors so they can help their clients to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. In both Otto v. City of Boca Raton and Vazzo v. City of Tampa, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down city ordinances that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion because they were unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “With this consent decree, licensed Christian counselors in Virginia are now free to counsel honestly and truthfully, and children can seek help from faith-based professionals. Laws that restrict counselors and clients to only one viewpoint violate the First Amendment. Talk therapy is speech, and the government has no authority to restrict that speech to just one viewpoint. Counselors should have the freedom to help clients treat unwanted behaviors and desires free of government censorship.”