Homosexuality is an illness that therapists can and should cure: that’s the rationale for “conversion therapy”, a practice promoted as a way to change an individual’s sexual orientation from gay to straight.

But a host of studies conclude that such counseling doesn’t work – small wonder, since sexual orientation is a core part of an individual’s identity. It’s also potentially harmful, especially for minors. Research shows that youth subjected to conversion practices, often at the insistence of misguided parents, are prone to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide.

Until recently, this medieval practice seemed destined for the dustbin of discredited psychological theories. National mental health associations have recommended that the practice be prohibited, because it’s based on the homophobic “assumption that diverse sexual orientations and gender identities are mental illnesses”, as the American Psychiatric Association puts it. Twenty-three states have banned it for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

Now, however, it is making a comeback.

This term, the US supreme court will decide whether a law prohibiting conversion practices infringes on constitutionally protected free speech. During last month’s oral argument in that case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether the regulation wasn’t “just the functional equivalent” of another recent supreme court case. In June, the court upheld a ban on a different treatment – puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth. “It just seems odd to me that we might have a different result here,” she said. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile,

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