By Ben Johnson<\/p>\n\n\n\n First Amendment advocates appeared in court this week to overturn two laws aimed at trapping minors in the LGBT lifestyle by barring counselors from having consensual discussions with children who do not want to identify as transgender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sued Kansas City, Missouri, and Jackson County \u2014 the county-level government overseeing Kansas City \u2014 after they passed ordinances outlawing so-called \u201cconversion therapy.\u201d The 2019 Kansas City statute<\/a> bars medical experts from helping anyone under the age of 18 who wants \u201cto change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statutes impose fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 for each so-called \u201coffense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s censorship, pure and simple,\u201d Hal Frampton, senior counsel and director of the Center for Conscience Initiatives at ADF, told<\/a> \u201cWashington Watch with Tony Perkins\u201d on Wednesday. He further noted that Democrat-controlled local governments are aiming to regulate the contents of \u201ca private conversation between a counselor and a willing client who is looking to find a way through his gender confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reparative therapy sometimes allows those who do not wish to suffer from gender dysphoria, or be attracted to members of the same sex, to lessen these thoughts over time. But Frampton said its practitioners face a mountain of lies and misrepresentation over what they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of the falsehoods that we have to deal with in these cases is the lie that if you just have a conversation about this, it will somehow harm the child,\u201d potentially even triggering the child\u2019s suicide. \u201cThe research simply doesn\u2019t bear that out. There\u2019s no evidence that having conversations is remotely harmful. In fact, the emerging evidence is that it helps children better understand who they are and who God made them to be,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, studies have found that undergoing transgender procedures does not help, and sometimes affirmatively hurts, patients\u2019 mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the statutes punish those who try to reduce unwanted same-sex or transgender ideation, they praise those who take the opposite position. The Jackson County ordinance<\/a> specifically cites the fact that local hospitals and centers provided transgender counseling or services to 300 children a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least one of them, Children\u2019s Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, injected<\/a> minors with cross-sex hormones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Missouri passed a SAFE law, Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) had to send letters to Children\u2019s Mercy and Planned Parenthood Great Plains in Kansas City threatening them with legal repercussions unless they would comply with the law and cease and desist carrying out transgender procedures on minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hospital insisted<\/a> it would comply with the law. But the KC Care Medical Center\u2019s website still refers<\/a> minors to \u201cGender Pathways Services at Children\u2019s Mercy Hospital.\u201d While Children\u2019s Mercy does not appear to carry out such procedures, its website<\/a> still tells parents, \u201cGender identity is usually firmly established and can be stated by your child\u201d by the age of seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Missouri, home of whistleblower Jamie Reed of The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children\u2019s Hospital, has noted<\/a> that \u201cnearly all children who came to the Center here presented with very serious mental health problems,\u201d including autism, ADHD, serious depression, and psychosomatic blindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are essentially two paths here. There\u2019s path one, where a counselor helps a child through their confusion, has open and honest conversations with him, and the child develops comfort with his natal sex,\u201d said Frampton. \u201cAs we know, the overwhelming majority of children with these concerns will [outgrow them] if they\u2019re given the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe second path, and the one that Kansas City is essentially forcing counselors to send kids down, is the path towards medicalized transition and dangerous drugs and surgeries that we know, in the end, do not actually make people happier and carry inordinate risks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 20 states<\/a> ban free-speech on sexual preference and\/or gender identity, including Governor Tim Walz\u2019s (D) Minnesota<\/a> and Gretchen Whitmer\u2019s (D) Michigan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-19-1024x538.png\")
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