MORGANTOWN – West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey has informed the city of Morgantown that its law prohibiting medical and mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with a minor is unconstitutional.
Conversion therapy, per the city ordinance adopted Oct. 19, 2021, consists of “practices or treatments that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”
An April 21 letter from McCuskey to Mayor Danielle Trumble explains that the wording of Morgantown’s conversion therapy ban mirrors that of a Colorado law deemed unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar.
The high court’s March 31 opinion states that outlawing conversion therapy that is limited to speaking, or talk therapy, violates the First Amendment. The decision was 8-1 with Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
As the city’s ban currently prohibits conversion therapy in all forms, McCuskey reached out to ask how the city intended to address it.
Morgantown wasn’t alone.
A spokesperson from the attorney general’s office said Wheeling, Huntington and Charleston received nearly identical letters, “as they all have the same ban in place that has been ruled unconstitutional.”
As part of Tuesday evening’s regular meeting agenda, Morgantown City Council is expected to take up the first reading of an ordinance amending Article 153 to explain conversion therapy “by any means other than talk therapy that consists only of speaking with the therapist’s client and no other therapeutic interventions” is prohibited with a minor under the age of 18.
