California’s conversion therapy ban prohibits licensed mental health providers from performing sexual orientation change efforts on anyone under 18. The rule was enacted through Senate Bill 1172 in 2012 and lives in Business and Professions Code sections 865 through 865.2, which classify the practice as unprofessional conduct subject to discipline by the provider’s licensing board. It remains in force in 2026, though a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has opened the door to constitutional challenges that did not exist a year ago.
What the Law Prohibits
The statute defines “sexual orientation change efforts” as any practices by a mental health provider that seek to change a person’s sexual orientation, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic feelings toward people of the same sex.1California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 865 The prohibition applies only when a licensed mental health provider performs those practices on a patient under 18.2California Legislative Information. California Senate Bill 1172 – Sexual Orientation Change Efforts
Adult clients are outside the ban. So is anything said to a young person by parents, friends, or community members outside a clinical setting. The trigger is a licensed professional using their therapeutic role to try to alter a minor’s orientation.
What Therapists Can Still Do
The statute carves out a broad exception for therapies that provide acceptance, support, and understanding. A clinician can help a minor client with coping skills, social support, and identity exploration, including exploration of sexual orientation and gender identity, so long as the therapy does not aim to change the client’s orientation.1California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 865 A counselor working with an LGBTQ+ teen on depression, family conflict, or self-esteem is practicing well within the law.
The line the statute draws is about the therapist’s goal. Helping a client understand themselves is permitted. Trying to make a client straight is not. The Ninth Circuit read the statute the same way in Pickup v. Brown, noting the law “regulates conduct only within the confines of the counselor-client relationship” and does not prevent therapists from expressing personal views outside the treatment context.3United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Pickup v. Brown
Who Is Covered
The ban reaches a broad list of licensed professionals: psychiatrists, psychologists, psychological assistants and trainees, licensed marriage and family therapists, registered associates, licensed educational psychologists, credentialed school psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, licensed professional clinical counselors, and anyone else designated as a mental health professional under California law.1California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 865
Religious leaders, life coaches, and other unlicensed individuals are not covered. A pastor offering spiritual guidance that discourages same-sex relationships is not violating SB 1172. Critics point to this as a real gap, since minors can still be subjected to these practices by counselors operating outside any licensing board’s jurisdiction. Unlicensed practitioners could face other legal exposure, such as civil suits for emotional harm, but the conversion therapy statute itself does not reach them.
Penalties for Practitioners
A violation is unprofessional conduct, and enforcement runs through the provider’s licensing board rather than through criminal court.2California Legislative Information. California Senate Bill 1172 – Sexual Orientation Change Efforts The board investigates complaints and decides on discipline.
For therapists, social workers, and professional clinical counselors under the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the disciplinary toolkit includes license revocation, suspension, probation lasting up to several years, and mandated coursework in law and ethics as a probation condition.4California Board of Behavioral Sciences. LPCC Disciplinary Guidelines The board can also issue citations with fines through a separate administrative process. Psychologists and psychiatrists face equivalent discipline from their own boards.
A revocation ends a career. Even a stayed revocation with probation means years of oversight, mandatory continuing education, and a public disciplinary record that follows the provider through every future referral and credentialing check.
Is the Ban Still Enforceable After Chiles v. Salazar?
Yes, for now. SB 1172 remains on the books, and licensing boards can still discipline providers who violate it. But the constitutional framework that has protected the law since 2013 no longer applies.
The Ninth Circuit upheld SB 1172 in Pickup v. Brown (2013) by treating it as a regulation of professional conduct rather than speech. Under that framework, rational basis review applied, and the court found California acted reasonably in protecting minors from practices the legislature deemed harmful. Speech used to carry out a therapy, the court said, did not convert a conduct regulation into a speech restriction.3United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Pickup v. Brown A later Ninth Circuit panel followed the same approach in Welch v. Brown (2016), holding the statute was “fully consistent with the secular purpose of preventing harm to minors.”5Justia. Welch v. Brown
On March 31, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban. By an 8-1 vote, the Court held that laws banning conversion therapy regulate “speech as speech,” not speech incidental to conduct. Because the restriction turns on viewpoint, the Court ruled such bans must survive strict scrutiny, the most demanding constitutional test. The government has to show the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest. The Court sent Chiles back to the lower courts to apply that standard and did not decide whether Colorado’s ban could survive it.
That reasoning directly contradicts the framework the Ninth Circuit used to uphold California’s law. SB 1172 has not been struck down, but any practitioner disciplined under it now has a much stronger constitutional argument. To defend the ban, California would need to show that a blanket prohibition on licensed therapy is the least restrictive means of protecting minors from harm, rather than, say, an informed-consent requirement or a targeted ban on specific coercive techniques.
What This Means for Providers and Families
Until a court applies strict scrutiny to SB 1172 and rules against the state, the law is enforceable exactly as written. Licensing boards can still open investigations, and providers can still lose their licenses. Providers who believe they have been improperly disciplined now have a viable constitutional claim to raise on appeal that they did not have before March 2026. Families weighing whether to file a complaint should understand the substantive rule has not changed, but the litigation environment has.
The Evidence Behind the Law
The California legislature grounded SB 1172 in the position of every major medical and mental health organization in the United States. The American Psychological Association describes conversion therapy as built on the premise that being LGBTQ+ is an illness requiring a cure, and warns that attempts to change orientation or gender identity can lead to depression, low self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, and suicidal thoughts. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reached the same conclusion in 2015, finding these efforts coercive and harmful and calling for their exclusion from behavioral health treatment.
That professional consensus was the state’s rationale in 2012 and will be the backbone of its defense if SB 1172 is tested under strict scrutiny. The harm these practices cause, California argues, is documented rather than speculative, and the ban is aimed squarely at minors who cannot meaningfully consent to a treatment their own professional community rejects.