Perspective: When therapy becomes ‘speech,’ the legal landscape shifts profoundly

Public debates about “conversion therapy” often focus on horror stories. We picture coercive programs aimed at “fixing” LGBTQ youth or parents pushing a doctrinal agenda on a vulnerable child.

But the reality inside many therapy rooms is far more complicated than this binary suggests. A quiet tension has emerged among diverse religious therapists who work with religiously observant clients. They worry that the laws banning conversion therapy, though designed to stop harmful practices, have sometimes been interpreted so broadly that even voluntary discussions about faith and identity feel legally risky.

These therapists are not trying to cure anyone. Instead, they want to help clients who come to them in pain, unsure how to reconcile sexuality or gender identity with religious commitmen