In a free country, adults should have the right to choose their own psychological counselling options, and to pursue their own goals in relation to their own sexuality, in the privacy of a therapy session.
In 1967, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously stated that “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” If the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation, why should it have a place in the counselling offices and psychology clinics of the nation?
A national survey conducted by Nanos for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms showed that an overwhelming majority of Canadians agree that consenting adults should be free to get the sexuality counselling of their choice, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite public opinion, since 2021 it has been a crime in Canada to provide counselling to a person who struggles with gender identity to help them feel comfortable with the body they were born with. Counselling or therapy is criminal when based on the belief that heterosexuality is preferable to same-sex attraction, even if the client is an adult and voluntarily seeks that kind of help.
Since 2021, the Criminal Code is such that, practically speaking, the only safe legal option for doctors, psychologists, parents, pastors, priests and others is to support people seeking help in pursuing a transition toward the opposite sex. Those who would support Canadians who now wish to “detransition” and move towards accepting their biological reality face the risk of criminal liability.
In 2021, Bill C-4 criminalized the personal counselling choices of Canadians, with the unanimous support of the House of Commons. Bill C-4 was sold to Canadians as a ban on “conversion therapy,” a term associated with inhumane practices such as forcing people to undergo electric shock during presentation of same-sex erotic images.
This claim to prohibit “conversion therapy” was very effective politically. Intellectually, it was dishonest in the extreme, because Bill C-4 pretended to ban something that was already illegal and had not been practised for decades. Forcing anyone into any kind of therapy was already strictly prohibited both by the Criminal Code and by the professional associations that govern psychologists, therapists, doctors, and counsellors. However, thanks to Bill C-4, Canadian parents can now be jailed for the “crime” of helping their own children to feel comfortable in the body they were born with.
In Chiles v. Salazar, the U.S. Supreme Court in March struck down a Colorado law that, like Canada’s Criminal Code, prohibited counsellors and their clients from choosing their own goals in relation to their sexuality and gender identity. According to the Supreme Court’s summary of the case, Kaley Chiles holds a master’s degree in clinical mental health and works as a counsellor in Colorado. She does not begin counselling with any predetermined goals. Rather, she sits down with clients, discusses their goals, and then formulates methods of counselling that will most benefit them, seeking throughout to respect her clients’ fundamental right of self-determination.
On matters of sexuality and gender, Ms. Chiles’s clients, including young people, often have different goals: Some are content with their sexual orientation and gender identity and want help with social issues or family relationships, while others hope to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviours, or grow in the appreciation of their own bodies. Ms. Chiles seeks to help all of her clients to reach their stated objectives, employing only talk therapy, the court noted.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 2019 Colorado law that banned so-called “conversion therapy.” Like Canada’s Criminal Code prohibition on so-called “conversion therapy,” Colorado’s law was ideologically biased. Colorado made it illegal to help people who want to feel comfortable with the sex they were born with, and who want their gender identity to align with biological reality. Counsellors could provide support only for people seeking to transition to the opposite sex, and not for anyone seeking to detransition. Like Canada, Colorado also outlawed therapy to “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex.”
With a majority of eight-to-one, the court struck down Colorado’s law as violating the inalienable right of every individual to decide for themselves “how best to speak.” Laws regulating speech based on its subject matter or “communicative content” violate the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Laws and governments must abstain from “viewpoint discrimination.” The First Amendment protects counsellors and other licensed professionals as much as it protects every other citizen.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared that history “is littered with examples of governments that have sought to manipulate professional speech to increase state power, to suppress minorities, and to censor unpopular ideas.” The court noted that the First Amendment “stands as a bulwark against any effort to prescribe an orthodoxy of views.”
Why, then, should the state be able to violate the personal choices that people wish to make about their own sexuality, and effectively force children into a medicalized path of transition? Most Canadians believe—as does the U.S. Supreme Court—that the state has no place in the therapy offices and counselling clinics of the nation.
If the actual contents of Canada’s laws were aligned with public opinion, Bill C-4 would not have been approved by Parliament, and Canadians today would enjoy the freedom to choose their own psychological counselling options.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
