Michigan, Washington, and Oregon all reversed course on laws and penalties targeting counselors and medical professionals who object to gender-related treatments, a string of legal losses driven by a single Supreme Court decision this spring.
In the span of one week, a federal judge in Michigan signed a stipulated judgment declaring the state's ban on so-called conversion therapy for minors unconstitutional, a federal judge in Washington reopened a Christian counselor's free-speech lawsuit against a similar state law, and Oregon dropped a $90,000 fine against a counselor who refused to affirm a client's same-sex relationship. Separately, the University of Michigan Health-West paid physician assistant Valerie Kloosterman $410,000 and adopted a new Religious Accommodation Policy after firing her for declining to assist with gender-transition treatments on religious and medical grounds.
Every one of these developments traces back to the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in Chiles, which struck down Colorado's conversion therapy law as applied to talk therapy. The Michigan stipulated judgment called the Colorado statute "materially identical" to Michigan's own law. Washington and Oregon acted under the same pressure. The pattern is clear: states that built enforcement regimes around these laws now face a constitutional wall they cannot climb.
U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering, a Biden nominee, signed the stipulated judgment Thursday. The order found that Michigan Catholic Charities branches and counselor Emily McJones had "demonstrated success on the merits" of their content- and viewpoint-discrimination claims against the state's law. The state agreed the ban is unconstitutional. Catholic Charities were confirmed as the "prevailing parties," making them eligible for attorney's fees, costs, and expenses, amounts already resolved in a separate, undisclosed settlement.
The outcome was no surprise. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already blocked the Michigan law, calling it a "content- and viewpoint-discriminatory restriction upon speech." Once the Supreme Court delivered Chiles, Michigan had no legal ground left to defend.
Becket senior counsel Luke Goodrich, who represented the Catholic Charities plaintiffs, did not mince words. As Just the News reported:
"Michigan's surrender confirms that the Constitution and the best available science are on the side of counselors who help children find peace with their bodies. States still trying to censor that care should take note."
That last sentence was aimed at the handful of states still enforcing similar statutes, and it landed the same week two of them buckled.
Valerie Kloosterman's case followed a different legal path but arrived at the same destination. The physician assistant said the University of Michigan Health-West fired her for refusing to help patients obtain puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical removal of healthy body parts. She also refused to use patients' preferred pronouns. She sued UMHW nearly four years ago on religious and medical grounds, represented by the First Liberty Institute and co-counsel Clement & Murphy.
The settlement, shown to Just the News on Wednesday by First Liberty on condition it remain unpublished, breaks down as follows: Kloosterman personally keeps $125,000 for emotional distress damages and $125,000 for lost wages, more than half the total payout. First Liberty receives $147,433, and Clement & Murphy receives $12,567.
But the money may matter less than the policy change UMHW agreed to adopt. Under the new Religious Accommodation Policy, employees "will not be required to personally affirm statements about gender identity that violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs" during mandatory trainings. Employees cannot be required to "perform or assist" in gender-transition treatments, including procedures, medications, and referrals, or to use pronouns that violate their religious beliefs or conscience. The policy pledges no adverse action against employees who seek accommodations, as long as they state their objections to the health system and supervisors. UMHW must publish the written policy alongside its other policies, distribute it to employees, and incorporate it into annual mandatory training for the next three years.
Kloosterman framed the outcome in personal terms:
"All I wanted to do was provide the best care possible to my patients without being forced to violate my Christian beliefs."
She praised the new policy for letting employees "provide excellent care consistent with their medical judgment" and recognize patients as "created in the image of God."
The Kloosterman case had its own procedural history worth noting. Judge Beckering initially threw out her lawsuit. The 6th Circuit reversed, saying Beckering should have denied UMHW's proposed arbitration "after a year of litigation and after the defendants got a preview of how the merits might progress in court." The case returned to Beckering's courtroom about a year ago, and the settlement followed.
Brian Tingley, a Christian counselor in Washington, had been fighting his state's counseling restriction law for years. He lost at the district level, lost at the 9th Circuit, which upheld the law, and failed to get the Supreme Court to take his case in 2023. The Chiles decision changed the calculus. The Supreme Court's 8-1 ruling rejected the very reasoning the 9th Circuit had relied on.
Tingley, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a motion to reopen his case. About two months later, U.S. District Judge Tiffany Cartwright, also a Biden nominee, granted it. Her ruling, documented in a July 30 minute entry following a hearing, reopened only the first count: denial of Tingley's free-speech rights. Tingley had already filed a motion for preliminary injunction roughly a week before the reopening order.
Washington Attorney General Nicholas Brown fought the reopening. In his opposition filing, Brown argued that Chiles "is not an extraordinary circumstance that justifies re-opening the judgment." He pointed out that "nearly five years have passed from this Court's dismissal order and the Chiles decision." He contended conversion therapy "doesn't work" and has been "thoroughly discredited by leading medical and mental health organizations, providers, and academic researchers." He cited a 2020 Trevor Project study published in the American Journal of Public Health and argued that "research overwhelmingly concludes that it increases depression and suicidal ideation."
Brown also tried to limit the scope of the Supreme Court's ruling, noting that Chiles "did not address third-party standing, free exercise, or vagueness at all." He argued the Washington law "passes constitutional muster under a strict scrutiny analysis" because it "addresses a compelling interest, is narrowly tailored, and is the least-restrictive alternative."
Judge Cartwright disagreed, at least enough to reopen the free-speech claim. The intervenor in the case, Equal Rights Washington, filed a one-paragraph brief that simply incorporated Brown's arguments by reference.
Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse responded directly to the state's posture:
"We're pleased the court reined in Washington state's ideological crusade."
Widmalm-Delphonse added that the state is depriving young people suffering through the "epidemic of mental health issues" a counselor "who shares their faith."
Oregon's retreat was the quietest of the three. The state had levied a $90,000 fine against counselor Frank Canepa for refusing to affirm his client's lesbian relationship. In the wake of Chiles, Oregon backed off the penalty. The specific terms of the withdrawal were not disclosed.
Brown's opposition filing in the Washington case inadvertently highlighted how isolated these states have become. He argued that before Chiles, "every other court to consider a state law restricting conversion therapy as part of professional licensing schemes had upheld the law." That consensus is now shattered. The Supreme Court did not just disagree with the lower courts, it did so 8-1, leaving virtually no room for states to argue the question remains open.
Science journalist Jesse Singal has separately described the Trevor Project, whose research Brown cited in his filing, as relying on unproven assumptions and "irrelevant citations." Brown's dependence on that research to justify Washington's law underscores the thinning evidentiary ground beneath these statutes.
What happened this week across Michigan, Washington, and Oregon follows a straightforward pattern. States passed laws restricting what counselors and medical professionals could say or do regarding gender and sexuality. Courts upheld those laws for years. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the underlying legal theory was wrong. Now the states are folding, some by formal concession, some by quiet retreat, and at least one under direct judicial order.
The people on the other end of these laws, Kloosterman, Tingley, McJones, Canepa, the Catholic Charities counselors, spent years in litigation, lost jobs, faced fines, and watched courts dismiss their claims. They kept going. The Supreme Court eventually agreed with them, and this week the dominoes fell.
When governments punish professionals for following their conscience and their medical judgment, the question was never really about therapy. It was about who gets to compel speech, and this week, the Constitution answered.
