Are the Jews Responsible for Jesus’ Death?

Health CareCommentary

Supreme Court Breaks Transgenderism’s Cruel Stranglehold Over Therapy in Colorado

SCOOP: Inside the Trump Admin’s Strategy to Defund Planned Parenthood After Pro-Life Setback

Ousted FBI Agents Seek to Expand Lawsuit to BLM, LGBTQ Grievances

Obama Judge Halts Trump Effort to End Parole for Hundreds of Thousands

House Passes Legislation to Combat Mexican Government’s Seizure of American-Owned Port

Judge, Longtime Thorn for Trump, Sides With Administration

Appeals Court Hands Trump Big Win on Detaining Illegal Immigrants

The Space Race Is Back: NASA Prepares for Liftoff of Deep Space Exploration Crew

China’s Military Went Silent Around Taiwan for First Time in Years. Why?

Congressman Asks Trump to Press China to Release Prisoners

Decoupling From China on Critical Minerals Must Be a National Security Priority

Paxton Scores Major Endorsement From GOP Rising Star

A GOP Senator’s Fight for Life Continues on Capitol Hill

With Federal Judge Halting White House Ballroom Construction, Will Congress Act?

LIFTOFF: Successful Artemis II Launch Sends Astronauts Into Deep Space

Trump Mail-In Ballot Order Sets Up Battle With States

4 Key Election Law Battles Hitting Court Rooms During 2026 Midterms

Maryland Loves My Ratty Old Rug More Than It Loves Me

SAVE America Act Thrusts Ohio Lawmakers Into the News

 PoliticsSecurityNews

Trump Claims Gold Star Families Told Him to ‘Finish the Job’ in Iran

Citing ‘Echo Chamber’ on Iran, Trump Counterterrorism Chief Resigns

International Commentary

‘It’s a Very Surreal War’

Netanyahu Refutes Death Rumor With Coffee Run

Conservative and Proud: Is the Right Representing Women? 

Girl Boss vs. Trad Wife: Forced to Choose?

Beyond the Oyster Fork: An Etiquette Expert’s Tips for ‘Relationships, Work, and Life’

Is the Iran Operation ‘America First’?

If Donald Trump Did What Obama Did, Media Would Cheer—So Why the Outrage Now?

Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Could Crush Iran, So Why Doesn’t He?

The Democrats Have Descended Into Utter Nihilism

Victor Davis Hanson: The New Democratic Party

Health CareCommentary

Supreme Court Breaks Transgenderism’s Cruel Stranglehold Over Therapy in Colorado

Protesters opposing medical transition at the Supreme Court on Dec. 4, 2024. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Tyler O'Neil / @Tyler2ONeil

Tyler O'Neil is senior editor at The Daily Signal and the author of two books: "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center," and "The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government."

This week, the Supreme Court rightly held that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” violated the First Amendment by dictating what counselors can say in therapy sessions. However, the therapist who sued Colorado isn’t the only winner—gender-confused kids arguably came out ahead, too.

Colorado’s law didn’t just aim to force therapists to endorse transgender orthodoxy—it also aimed to prevent kids from receiving the best kind of treatment for gender dysphoria (the painful and persistent identification with the gender opposite one’s sex).

Transgender activists push an extremely cruel agenda, dressed up as “gender-affirming care.” When a boy claims he suffers from a persistent and painful sense that he is “really” a girl, they say society should “affirm” his identity as a girl and that he should take experimental interventions to make his male body appear female.

Activists claim this is the only path, and that kids will commit suicide without “affirmation.” Some scientific studies, however, suggest that suicidal thoughts actually increase when minors take drugs to “block” puberty. Even hormones alter body chemistry and make patients dependent on doctors for constant injections, and surgeries often require gruesome forms of maintenance. If the patient later decides to detransition, care becomes even more complicated.

By contrast, studies have found that if kids are allowed to develop on their own without social “affirmation” of a transgender identity, between 65% and 94% of them will resolve their gender dysphoria and end up at peace with their sexed bodies.

Not only will these kids actually have their gender confusion resolved, but they won’t have undergone invasive sex-rejecting procedures that would have left them stunted, scarred, and often infertile.

Rather than “gender-affirming care,” boys and girls need reassurance in their own sex. If a boy suffers from the sense that he is “really” a girl, he needs counseling to realize that he is still a boy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. With time and appropriate counseling, he can resolve the underlying psychological issues that make him suspect he may “really” be a girl.

Colorado sought to outlaw this kind of counseling, and in doing so, it would have cut kids off from what they really needed.

The Supreme Court’s ruling opens the door for what may be termed “sex-reaffirming therapy,” counseling to help gender-confused people find peace with their bodies. In doing so, it offers hope for true resolution of gender dysphoria, not the false resolution of “gender-affirming care.”

So, how did transgender activists convince Colorado to ban it in the first place?

Historically, some therapists used unethical methods to “cure” patients of same-sex attraction. Some engaged in electroshock therapy to train men not to feel sexual attraction to other men. Since many of these therapists aimed to help patients live by traditional Christian sexual morality, opponents of these therapists branded these efforts “conversion therapy.”

Therapists today nearly universally condemn these methods, and mental health counselor Kaley Chiles, who challenged Colorado’s law, supported Colorado’s attempt to ban them. Yet Colorado also sought to ban “talk therapy”—the mainstream practice of asking questions and guiding a person to resolve psychological issues merely through speech.

Perhaps ironically, some feminists have warned that “gender-affirming care” is itself a form of “conversion therapy,” because many of the gender-confused men and women would otherwise identify as gay or lesbian, if they did not identify as transgender.

Yet transgender activists suggest that transgender identity is innate and unchangeable—such that therapies attempting to resolve it are unnatural and doomed to failure. For this reason, many activists lump in sex-reaffirming therapy alongside electroshock therapy as a form of “conversion therapy.”

Colorado’s law would have allowed talk therapy if it affirmed same-sex attraction or a transgender identity, but not if it might lead a patient away from such identities.

Of course, such a legal invasion of the therapy space is unwarranted because the best therapy aims to help patients resolve underlying trauma, not to shape patients into one kind of person or another.

The data suggest the best solution for gender dysphoria isn’t experimental drugs and surgeries but talk therapy to address the root cause of gender confusion—whatever that may be.

It is cruel, and arguably evil, to try to fix a psychological issue with invasive drugs and surgeries. But now, kids in Colorado have hope for a better path. I pray that therapists are brave enough to follow in Chiles’ footsteps and offer the sex reaffirmation these kids so desperately need.

What SCOTUS Ruled About Conversion Therapy in Chiles v. Salazar

‘Moderate’ Democrat Twists Christian Compassion to Defend Transgender ‘Treatments’

FTC Probes American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH Over Gender-Transition Procedures for Minors

Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE

Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.

The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.

In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.

You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.

The Tony Kinnett Cast

The Daily Signal Podcast

© 2025 The Daily Signal Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

We use cookies on our website. By using our website, you consent to cookies.  Learn More .  

© The Daily Signal