How SCOTUS covers for the abuse of LGBTQ kids

[marmar]

How SCOTUS covers for the abuse of LGBTQ kids
In conversion therapy case, conservative justices signal queer kids are born hating themselves

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published October 8, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday about a Colorado law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from offering conversion therapy to LGBTQ clients, there is one area in which the left and right can agree: A lot of LGBTQ youth struggle with feelings of shame, fear and even an urge to self-harm. But it was clear there was fierce disagreement about the source of these feelings.

The left shares the view of the American Psychological Association, which argued in an amicus brief that this form of psychological distress in queer people, especially minors, is a result of “minority stress and stigma” and “systemic barriers to mental, physical, relational, and sexual flourishing.” This is a jargon-y way of saying that being raised to think your very identity is wrong can make a person feel bad about themselves. The treatment, then, is to counteract hateful messages with “affirming” therapy that holds that “variances in human sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression are normal.”

....(snip)....

Throughout the morning, both the conservative lawyers and justices pointedly ignored the influence of church and parental pressure on struggling queer youth. Instead, they treated the desire to straight-ify themselves as something that kids are coming up with all on their own.

....(snip)....

This erasure of parental influence continued throughout the oral arguments. At one point, Justice Samuel Alito posed a question to Shannon Stevenson, Colorado’s state solicitor general. “Suppose an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants to end or lessen them and asks for the therapist’s help in doing so?” Alito’s question presumes that teenage boys routinely visit church-linked therapists of their own accord. The justice was not happy when Stevenson said a therapist is permitted to help a client “cope with their feelings,” but that telling the kid he could un-gay his thoughts was banned. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/08/scotus-erases-the-role-of-parents-in-conversion-therapy-case/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. So it's a courtroom war between secular psychologists and preachers.

The kids and parents in the crossfire and sometimes on opposite sides.

Finding a stress-free path for all seems unlikely to me.