The New Jersey ban on conversion therapy was upheld by district judge
Freda L. Wolfson; the case was brought upon by parents who alleged that it violated their rights under the First Amendment,
Fourteenth Amendment, and to
freedom of religion. Wolfson upheld the ban, ruling that the law regulated conduct and not speech. In August 2013, California's ban was upheld by the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Pickup v. Brown and Welch v. Brown. The
Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal against the ruling. In 2020, the
Eleventh Circuit ruled that a ban on conversion therapy enforced by
Palm Beach County and
Boca Raton, Florida violated the
First Amendment rights of therapists, as upholding the statute could also allow ordinances that prohibit
gender-affirming mental health assistance, and "people have intense moral, religious, and spiritual views about these matters—on all sides. And that is exactly why the First Amendment does not allow communities to determine how their neighbors may be counseled about matters of sexual orientation or gender. In March 2023, the state of Indiana passed a bill prohibiting local governments from regulating services that are licensed or specifically exempt from licensure from the state, including behavioral therapy (and, in turn, conversion therapy). This bill was originally intended to effectively target conversion therapy (being tabled in retaliation for an attempt to institute a conversion therapy ban for unlicensed practitioners in
West Lafayette, Indiana), but was extended in the legislative process to also include other categories of state-licensed services beyond behavioral health. In March 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in
Chiles v. Salazar that portions of Colorado's conversion therapy ban in regards to
talk therapy must be reviewed with
strict scrutiny by lower courts, overturning a ruling against a Colorado therapist who was requesting an
as-applied challenge over the ban. The majority opinion found that this portion of the ban constituted the
regulation of speech based on viewpoints, and that "the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce
orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country". Colorado subsequently passed an amendment to its conversion therapy ban as to not regulate a viewpoint, redefining conversion therapy as the direction of a patient to a "predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome", or to "eliminate or reduce attractions toward individuals of a particular sex or gender". == Former bans ==