Kansas City and Jackson County are now being sued for ordinances forcing “transgender ideology” on licensed counselors, and making it illegal for them to differ from the governments’ views on sexuality.
Nonprofit legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Kansas City’s 2019 ordinance and Jackson County’s 2023 law.
The two governments’ overlapping laws prohibit counselors from disputing even the youngest of clients’ views that they’re actually a different gender than their biology says they are.
“These ordinances interfere with counselors’ conversations with their clients and force them to adopt the government’s view of these topics in violation of their religious beliefs,” ADF says in a press release.
“The ordinances stop families from receiving counseling rooted in biological truth – even when children and families want this counseling.”
Such an ordinance, says a press release from Bailey’s office, “censors licensed counselors and compels them to affirm views on sexual ethics, including radical transgender ideology, even when it conflicts with the counselor’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
“Our children have a right to therapy that allows for honest, unrestricted conversations, free from transgender indoctrination,” Bailey said in the release.
“These ordinances represent a dangerous overreach, forcing children and counselors to conform to a radical transgender agenda. I will not stand by while Jackson County violates Missourians’ constitutional rights to free speech and religious liberty.”
The lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of licensed counselors Wyatt Bury and Pamela Eisenreich. It seeks to have the ordinances declared unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and to halt their enforcement.
“The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors,” ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart said in the organization’s press release, “nor should counselors be used as a tool to push children toward dangerous, life-altering drugs and surgeries.
“Kansas City and Jackson County’s ordinances violate Wyatt and Pamela’s freedom to speak, and the ordinances harm both them and their clients who come to them seeking help. The First Amendment protects every American’s freedom to speak and listen; these are some of the most fundamental elements that go into counseling.
“We are urging the court to respect the speech of these counselors and the goals of their clients. Now more than ever, families and children need counselors free to speak truth about the harms of gender ideology. Children deserve love and truth, not a government that censors their ability to pursue healthy, flourishing lives.”
