True North Legal filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Christian Counselors Freedom Alliance (CCFA) challenging a Minnesota law that punishes counselors for counseling-room speech that helps minor clients struggling with gender confusion embrace his or her sex.
The Minnesota law, enacted in 2023, expressly allows a licensed counselor to affirm and encourage a young person’s same-sex attraction or rejection of their sex but forbids the very same counselor from helping that same child pursue the opposite goals—reducing unwanted same-sex attraction or living in alignment with their sex. To avoid the law’s steep penalties, which can include loss of their professional licensure, CCFA members have no choice but to censor themselves in the counseling room.
“Minnesota’s law banning so-called conversion therapy is a farce that forces Christian counselors to check their deeply held religious beliefs at the counseling room door and withhold much-needed help from children struggling with gender confusion on penalty of losing their livelihoods. The draconian law violates Christian counselors’ most constitutional rights—freedom of speech and religion—in service of radical gender ideology,” said Doug Wardlow, Director of Litigation for True North Legal. “The First Amendment bars the government from putting its thumb on the scales of public debate by penalizing speech that contradicts the state’s preferred viewpoint. The U.S. Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar recently affirmed that very principle when it ruled that Colorado’s nearly identical law violates the Constitution. Christian Counselors Freedom Alliance brings this lawsuit not only to vindicate the rights of counselors, but also to re-open the counseling-room door to struggling children and teens seeking counseling that aligns with their own faith and values.”
“Minnesota’s law is blatant viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. While targeting licensed counselors, children and teens pay the steep price, leaving them with a vacuum of care and counseling they need and desire. All children and teens struggling with accepting their sex should be able to talk openly with a licensed counselor—someone who will listen to their goals and struggles without predetermined outcomes or fear of legal punishment. But Minnesota’s law prohibits children from having simple conversations and instead pushes them toward a one-way path of sex-rejection via highly experimental, dangerous, and often irreversible procedures with life-altering consequences,” said Renee Carlson, General Counsel for True North Legal. “Based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar, Minnesota cannot demonize and penalize counselors for that kind of compassionate, client-centered conversation by treating it as illegal conduct under the guise of banning so-called ‘conversion therapy.’ The real conversion therapy is sending kids down the path of rejecting their sex, not counselors trying to help young people live in accordance with biological reality.”
Attorneys for True North Legal filed the lawsuit on behalf of Plaintiff Christian Counselors Freedom Alliance in Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota. The complaint names Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the members and executive directors of boards that license and regulate mental health professionals as defendants. The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring enforcement of the law.
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