Colorado
New Colorado Conversion Therapy Ban With Clever Mechanism Close To Passing
On Monday, the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB26-1322, a bill that creates a private civil right of action allowing survivors of conversion therapy to sue the practitioners who subjected them to it. The bill, which has no statute of limitations for such claims, would likely make the practice of conversion therapy financially prohibitive in the state. It comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision last month in Chiles v. Salazar, which found that Colorado’s 2019 ban on conversion therapy unconstitutional—effectively legalizing the discredited practice nationwide. The new bill has one final legislative hurdle to clear—the full Colorado Senate—before heading to Governor Jared Polis’s desk, though the governor has so far offered only lukewarm signals about whether he will sign it, saying he is “hopeful there is still time to construct a framework he could support.”
The bill targets what it calls “sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts”—defined as “any practice by a licensed mental health professional that seeks to direct a patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of a particular sex or gender, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity the patient is directed toward.” The inclusion of “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions” is notable—conversion therapists have long used this framework to argue disingenuously that they are not trying to change a person’s sexual orientation, merely helping them manage unwanted feelings. The bill explicitly carves out any counseling or therapy that “provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient” or “facilitates a patient’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development”—meaning therapists who support a patient’s own process of self-discovery, without steering them toward a predetermined outcome, would face no liability.
The bill uses a novel legal mechanism to target conversion therapy—a private right of action. Rather than the government banning conversion therapy outright, which is what the Supreme Court struck down in Chiles, the bill instead allows survivors to sue their practitioners directly, stating that “a person who suffered an injury as a result of sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts may bring a civil action for damages” against their conversion therapist. It also states that a lawsuit to recover damages can be commenced “at any time without limitation,” making its statute of limitations effectively endless. The mechanism may be insulated from the constitutional problem the Supreme Court identified in Chiles because the government is not restricting speech—instead, private citizens are seeking civil remedies for harm they suffered, the same way a patient can sue a doctor for malpractice. As Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, told Erin in the Morning after the Chiles ruling, “While the Supreme Court decision limits the abilities of states to regulate conversion therapy through professional standards, they did not limit the ability for states to protect LGBTQ youth from these abusive practices through tort or malpractice law.”
If the mechanism sounds familiar, it is because Republicans pioneered it to get around Supreme Court rulings they didn’t like—most famously in Texas’s SB 8, the 2021 abortion “bounty hunter” law. That law banned abortion after six weeks not through government enforcement but by allowing any private citizen to sue anyone who performed or aided an abortion for $10,000 in damages. The legal trick was simple: when abortion providers tried to challenge SB 8 in court, they couldn’t get an injunction because there was no government official to enjoin. Courts found that you can’t sue “the state” to block a law that only private citizens enforce. The Supreme Court effectively let SB 8 stand, and the strategy worked—abortion access in Texas collapsed virtually overnight even while Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land. Kansas used the same model in SB 244, which allows anyone to sue a transgender person for using a restroom that doesn’t match their assigned sex at birth. Now, Colorado Democrats are exploiting the same constitutional loophole in the opposite direction—using private civil enforcement to deter a harmful practice that the Supreme Court says the government cannot directly ban.
It is important to note that some have raised concerns the bill could be weaponized against gender-affirming therapists—with anti-trans groups arguing that helping a trans youth transition constitutes its own form of “conversion therapy.” But the bill contains multiple layers of protection against such misuse. Its carveouts explicitly shield counseling that provides “acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient.” The bill also has protections in its causation standard. To establish that conversion therapy caused harm, a court must weigh “the nature, duration, and intensity” of the efforts, “the age and vulnerability of the plaintiff at the time,” “the relationship between the plaintiff and the mental health professional,” and “expert testimony regarding the general psychological effects of sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts.” It is unlikely that judges will consider anti-trans activists to be considered medical “experts” on this topic.
LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and Democratic lawmakers in the state have supported the bill’s passage. “This decision only reinforces the urgent need for state-level protections,” said One Colorado, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “[HB 1322] provides a pathway for accountability, allowing survivors to seek justice against those who administer this harmful practice. We remain committed to ensuring that those responsible for such profound damage are held accountable.” Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democrat from Longmont, was blunt about the bill’s intent: “The purpose of this bill is seriously to send a chilling effect to any licensed professional therapist who may think about bringing that practice back.”
Conversion therapy is a discredited practice broadly decried by every major American medical organization. The APA concluded in a 2009 systematic review that the practice is “unlikely to be successful and involves risk of harm, including depression, suicidality, and anxiety,” and called for its total elimination. The United Nations has deemed conversion therapy a form of torture. A 2020 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that LGBTQ+ youth subjected to conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report attempting suicide. For transgender people specifically, conversion therapy often takes the form of so-called “gender exploratory therapy,” a rebranded approach that seeks to convince trans youth they are not actually transgender, keeping transition just out of reach by tricking trans youth that it might be offered if they jump through endless hoops while intending to deny it the entire way.
The bill now heads to the full Colorado Senate for a floor vote, where Democrats hold a 23-12 majority and passage is expected. Coloradans who support the bill can contact their state senator through the Colorado General Assembly’s legislator lookup tool. If the Senate passes the bill, it will go to Governor Polis, whose signature remains the final and most uncertain step. Polis, the first openly gay governor elected in the United States, signed the original 2019 conversion therapy ban and has called the practice “a scam and a waste of people’s hard-earned money”—but his office has stopped short of committing to sign this bill, saying only that he is “hopeful there is still time to construct a framework he could support.” What changes, if any, the governor is seeking remain unclear. The bill includes a safety clause that would make it take effect on July 1, 2026, and would exempt it from voter referendum. If signed, Colorado would become the first state in the country to use a private right of action to combat conversion therapy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Colorado
‘It really tore me up’: Funeral home probation leaves southern Colorado woman questioning care of her father’s remains
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Losing a loved one is never easy, and for one Colorado woman, her loss was compounded by recent news of disturbing discoveries in funeral homes eroding her trust.
Renee Crippen’s father, Charles, was a Colorado Springs native who made a career in construction. Crippen said he always kept busy, be it at work, in his garden, painting cars or just generally finding something to tinker with.
“He was a stubborn guy,” she joked, “but he is well-loved, and we miss him tremendously, for sure.”
When he passed on New Year’s Eve, Crippen said she wanted to ensure he was laid to rest properly. But with recent news of discoveries at places like the Return to Nature funeral home and Davis Mortuary, she said she wanted to be thorough in her vetting process.
“I think, probably, previously, I wouldn’t have thought that much, I would have reached out for sure, but I probably wouldn’t have been as concerned,” she said.
Crippen said she used Evergreen Funeral Home, but after they took possession of her father’s remains, she went a while without hearing from them. So, she said she emailed a series of questions, which she said were answered, but she said something felt off.
“Just some inconsistencies that just kind of left me feeling unsettled,” she explained.
At the time, she said she was told by Evergreen that the funeral home was dealing with an influx of bodies coming in after the holidays.
El Paso County officials said they had a contract between county administrators, the coroner’s office and Evergreen. Typically, these contracts involve county officials working with a funeral home to handle the remains of people without family or whose family has no means to pay for burial or cremation services.
But county officials said Evergreen had requested to terminate its contract.
“The County was not notified of any investigation or inspection findings. When we asked Evergreen directly whether they were under investigation, they advised that they were in compliance with all applicable standards,” a county spokesperson said.
In January, the state’s Department of Regulatory Agencies said they got an anonymous tip, which led to an inspection. In this, DORA said they found violations of state statutes. In a probation order, they said the funeral home stored more bodies than they had capacity for, kept them in temperatures warmer than what is allowed by the state, and had some inconsistencies in paperwork used to track who had custody of the bodies.
This led to Evergreen being placed on a year-long probation.
“The County was not notified and had no knowledge that Evergreen Funeral Home was operating above capacity,” a county spokesperson said.
For Crippen, this news was hard to hear.
“Seeing it is heartbreaking. It really tore me up,” she said.
She said she ultimately did get her father’s remains back, though, and was able to lay him to rest, but the news of the probation left her wondering what happened between his death and when she got those remains.
“My concern became, was he being taken care of properly and respectfully?” she said.
11 News spoke with the manager of Evergreen, who said his lawyers advised him not to speak with media.
Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.
Summit County’s newest real estate brokerage, milehimodern, opened a new office in Breckenridge in March.
A news release from the company states it has a focus on how “climate, craftsmanship, and landscape” shape mountain homes. A quote from co-owner Carmelo Paglialunga stated milehimodern will look to integrate into Summit County’s “close-knit community,” which Paglialunga said has a “strong” architectural identity.
Learn more about milehimodern at MHMHomes.com, and find their office at the corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue in Breckenridge.
The ex-wife of the Boulder firebombing attack suspect and their five children are staying in Colorado for now, following a weekend in which the Department of Homeland Security moved to deport the family.
Hayam el Gamal and her five children, including 5-year-old twins, were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they appeared for a required check-in only hours after arriving back in the state from a Texas detention facility. The family was then loaded onto a plane bound for Michigan. After it took off from Michigan and headed to New Jersey, an emergency order from a judge prompted officials to turn the plane around and return to Colorado, where the family was released from custody for the second time in two days.
“I think our whole community feels a suspicion and a deep sense of anxiety still, seeing what happened on Saturday, and what really has transpired this whole last week, has been the biggest rollercoaster of emotions,” said Emily Schilperoort, a member of a group based in Colorado Springs that is supporting the family.
The family has informed ICE of their whereabouts, and the mother and eldest daughter, Habiba, are wearing GPS monitoring devices. But supporters are not sharing their location with the public for fear of threats to the family.
Supporters and attorneys for the family say Hayam el Gamal has medical issues that include fluid around the heart and a lump on her chest that they claim were not properly treated while in ICE custody in Texas. The family had been held at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, since the days following the firebombing attack in Boulder.
El Gamal has since divorced the children’s father, Mohammed Soliman, whose family has said spent little time at home before the incident and was often withdrawn. An FBI agent testified in a hearing for Mohammed Soliman last year that there’s no indication the family had prior knowledge of the attack on demonstrators in Boulder in support of the hostages taken in the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.
“We also recognize that the trauma that they’ve experienced and all of what they’ve gone through in the last week,” said Schilperoort, noting that they were trying to give the family space and time to recover.
“They’re home, and they’re happy as much as you can from a traumatic event, and the family is resting,” said Eric Lee, an attorney for the family.
DHS on Monday replied to emailed questions with the same statement it sent over the weekend.
“The family received full due process and was issued a final order of removal on December 29, 2025. They appealed the judge’s decision. The board of appeals upheld the final order of removal on April 22, 2026. Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets AGAIN,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.
Lawyers for El Gamal and her children claim the Board of Immigration Appeals made its April 22 decision after political pressure from the White House.
“So the Board of Immigration Appeals, in my understanding, upheld the validity of a deportation order for them, while the District Court was still deciding the legality of their detention,” explained Violeta Raquel Chapin, who teaches both criminal and immigration law as associate dean and clinical professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder.
The family said they were in the process of applying for asylum and that they had work permits and Social Security numbers. But the government maintains the family no longer has permission to stay in the country.
A judge in a Texas federal district court released them after a recommendation from a magistrate earlier in the week.
“I think it was very clear under the law that they should not be detained. And that’s what the district court judge decided and ordered their release. They do have pending asylum claims, for which they have the right to be heard, under our laws and our regulations,” said Chapin.
“They have due process rights to have those asylum claims be heard,” she continued. “And for them to be able to present evidence about why they need asylum, for the government, then, to present their evidence about why they should not be granted asylum, it has to be done in a court of law, because those are the rules that we have, right? Imperfect though they may be, those are the rules. Chaos ensues when everybody stops following the rules.”
Chapin said that there is a statute that allows the government to detain the spouse and the children of somebody who is suspected of terrorist activity.
“But in this case, there’s an exception to that if they find that the family knew nothing about it, and here there’s ample evidence to show that the family had no idea that their dad was planning this,” Chapin said.
That isn’t the only exception, she explained.
“If the family renounces the attack, then that’s also another exception. They wouldn’t be detained. And the family immediately renounced the attack,” said Chapin. “They condemned what their father allegedly did immediately afterward. And so, all of those exemptions and arguments and the law were litigated in a court of law, and again, the judge found that those did not apply to the family and children.”
DHS insists it will continue to pursue deportation.
“Under President Trump, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country—especially terrorists and their associates. We are confident the courts will ultimately vindicate us,” said Bis.
Lawyers for the El Gamal family are filing an appeal regarding the government’s detention attempt and removal in a circuit court. Chapin thinks there’s a chance it could go to the Supreme Court.
Schilperoort and several other women have banded together as “Neighbors of Faith and Conviction,” stating that their support is driven by their beliefs.
“We were responding to what was happening to this family from a place of Christian faith and conviction, that this is not okay,” said Schilperoort.
As part of their efforts to assist the family, Schilperoort visited El Gamal in the Family Detention Center in Dilley, about ten days ago. She said el Gamal wondered, ‘Why is the government doing this to us? Like, what have we done? Like, we want to cooperate. We haven’t done anything wrong.’
“And to see the trauma that has been inflicted on this dear family is something that, again, has forever changed me,” said Schilperoort.
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