Conversion Therapy Survivors Urge the Supreme Court to Protect LGBTQ+ Youth 

On August 27, GLAD Law filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy survivors in the US Supreme Court case, Chiles v. Salazar. 

The lawsuit was filed by Kaley Chiles, a licensed Colorado therapist who believes the state’s law protecting youth from conversion therapy violates her free speech rights. The survivors in GLAD Law’s brief are urging the court to uphold Colorado’s ban on the dangerous, discredited practice. 

Conversion therapy refers to practices that try to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Studies show that conversion therapy practices are unproven, unscientific, and increase the risk of suicide attempts, depression, and anxiety.  

The brief shares the stories of eight conversion therapy survivors, showing how the practice fractures families and isolates young people from their religious communities. The survivors’ stories “shed light on how conversion therapy undermines young people’s connections to family and faith, causing lasting trauma not just to individuals but to families and entire communities. Their experiences mirror those of many other young people who have been traumatized by conversion therapy practices: Abundant social science research shows that conversion therapy is associated with severed family ties and disconnection from religious community and practice, among other serious harms.”

Learn more about the survivors and their powerful stories: 

Lillian Lennon 

Lillian grew up in Alaska and was raised Christian. At age 14, with the help of a therapist, Lillian came out to her family as transgender. Her parents did not understand. They were struggling with finances, and Lillian’s younger sister had recently been diagnosed with cancer. They believed Lillian was acting out and sent her to a residential treatment facility called Island View in Utah—where she stayed for nearly two years. 

At Island View, Lillian was subjected to conversion therapy led by a licensed therapist to change her gender identity. This therapist dictated Lillian’s treatment in the facility. She was forced to live in a boys’ dorm with the most aggressive boys, who frequently physically, verbally, and sexually harassed Lillian at the encouragement of the staff. She was not allowed to keep any personal belongings, including feminine clothing and personal items. When other young people referred to her as a girl or by her chosen name at the facility, they were punished. 

When therapy did not change her gender identity, Lillian was punished. She was not allowed to visit her family. Toward the end of her time there, she was put in isolation for a month. She sat in a room alone at a desk all day and was only allowed to have a Bible and her textbooks. 

Lillian returned home to Alaska when she was 16. She had been disconnected from her home, family, and community for two years. Lilian felt neglected and abandoned, and her relationship with her family is severely fractured. Lillian’s mom says that she regrets sending Lillian to Utah, but the pain remains.    

Jessica Ritter 

Jessica was raised in a close-knit evangelical Christian family in Dallas, Texas. Jessica attended a private Christian school where she took Bible study courses. She went to church with her family every Sunday and was an active member of her youth group. Jessica noticed that she was attracted to women from a very young age but tried to suppress her feelings. She was determined to live by her faith. 

When Jessica was 17 years old her parents sent her to conversion therapy at the urging of her church. Jessica’s conversion therapy consisted of individual and group sessions. In individual sessions with a licensed therapist, she was taught her same-sex attraction was caused by sexual abuse she endured in early childhood. She was instructed to go on dates with men and wear more feminine clothing. While going through this treatment, she lost more than 40 pounds and became dangerously underweight. Her therapist celebrated this change as a mark of progress.  

The group therapy sessions focused on recovering from addiction through faith. Jessica was treated alongside adult women aged 25 to 50 who were dealing with drugs, alcoholism, and sex addiction. These sessions sent her a message that she was lost and broken. Eventually, she started to believe it. 

Emotionally and spiritually depleted, Jessica eventually left for college, carrying with her an immense, unspoken burden. Her conversion therapy continued intermittently for two more years. At the time, she was considered a “success story.” She dated men and joined a sorority. But she knew that this therapy had not changed who she was. 

As a result of this experience, Jessica’s faith was deeply fractured, and she could no longer connect with her family or religious community. For over a decade, she struggled with personal relationships and alcohol abuse and even experimented with atheism in search of relief.  

Today, after years of therapy to help address and heal from what she endured as a teenager, Jessica lives with her wife in Texas. Jessica found her way back to Christianity, but the pain and trauma of conversion therapy still linger. 

Garrard Conley 

Garrard Conley grew up in a loving Baptist family in rural Arkansas, where faith was central to their close-knit community. When he was a teenager, his parents discovered he was gay and sent him to conversion therapy on the advice of church leaders. He followed a strict program that required him to conform to rigid masculine stereotypes while they falsely implanted memories of childhood trauma, insisting that abuse was the root cause of his sexual orientation. The harmful treatment left him increasingly isolated, depressed, and contemplating suicide.

Garrard eventually walked away from the program when counselors tried to force him to express hatred toward his father—but he did not hate his father; he loved his father. However, the damage was already done: the experience shattered his family bonds, damaged his relationship with his parents for years, and caused him to lose his faith for many years. Eventually, he found healing by writing about his experience in his memoir Boy Erased, which became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a film in 2018. Today, Garrard has returned to Christianity and advocates against conversion therapy. His story shows how religious families and communities are helped, not harmed, by laws prohibiting this destructive practice.

Read the brief.

Learn more about the case.