ST. PAUL — On the last Friday in March, a group of state lawmakers and activists gathered at the state Capitol to pledge to defend transgender Minnesotans in the face of federal action targeting the community.
Four days later, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Colorado ban on conversion therapy, which is designed to change people's sexual orientation or gender identity. Minnesota passed a similar ban in 2023, and the 8-1 court decision is likely to put that ban in jeopardy.
Minnesota lawmakers who support LGBTQ+ rights were quick to respond.
“‘Conversion therapy’ is pseudoscience, not healthcare,” the Bicameral Minnesota Queer Legislators Caucus wrote in a statement responding to the decision. “This coercive practice is ineffective and leads to severe harm, including depression, decreased self-esteem, and substance abuse in youth.”
Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, is carrying two bills that would continue to ban conversion therapy for minors in the wake of the court’s decision. Neither would prohibit therapists from expressing viewpoints, but each bill would regulate how they deliver treatment and prohibit health care plan coverage.
Republican lawmakers opposed the bills in a committee hearing on Wednesday, April 8. Sen. Mark Koran, R-North Branch, said the bills aim to ban speech, which is the reason the Supreme Court rejected the Colorado ban.
“It doesn’t address anything,” Koran said. “We have to have our therapists to be able to act freely.”
Minnesota’s conversion therapy ban passed after the 2022 election gave the DFL majorities in the Minnesota House and Senate and returned Tim Walz to the governor’s office. Along with the ban, the DFL “trifecta” passed laws allowing Medical Assistance to cover gender-affirming care and establishing Minnesota as a “trans refuge” state.
The Legislature looks significantly different today. Walz remains in office, but the DFL now holds the Senate by just one seat, while the House has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.
That shift has stalled momentum on LGBTQ+ protections. At the same time, Republican lawmakers have made multiple attempts to restrict transgender girls from competing in girls’ high school sports, though none have passed.
The issue has drawn federal attention. On March 30, the Department of Justice announced a lawsuit against Minnesota over alleged Title IX violations related to transgender athletes.
Republicans in the state House tried unsuccessfully Tuesday, April 7, to force a vote on a bill that would prohibit athletes who weren’t female at birth from playing on girls’ high school teams.
“This lawsuit could have been avoided, and it still can be avoided if Minnesota Democrats agree to comply with federal Title IX,” said Rep. Krista Knudsen, R-Lake Shore, the author of the bill.
“Minnesota Democrats are not only endangering girls but risking federal funds.”
Republicans maintain the public is on their side of the issue. Several cited national polls that show nearly 80% agree that people born male should not play on girls’ teams.
Days before the federal lawsuit was announced, the first openly transgender member of the Minnesota Legislature, Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL–St. Paul, reaffirmed to the crowd at a Transgender Day of Visibility event that Minnesota will remain a safe state despite the efforts of the Trump administration.
“We said that if you come here we will protect you,” Finke said. “That is an ongoing promise, and we have more work to do now than ever because we are facing the threat of a madman and his cronies who will do anything to satisfy him.”
In early February, Children’s Minnesota announced the hospital would pause some of its gender-affirming care to people under 18 after the Trump administration threatened in December to withhold all Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide any such care to minors.
In March, a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Keith Ellison and a coalition of 21 states and the District of Columbia successfully blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to pressure health care providers to end gender-affirming care for patients.
“The trans movement, and the movement for queer liberation, and the movement for justice broadly across all movements can not be defeated,” Finke said.
Report for Minnesota is a project of the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication to support local news across the state.
