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House passes civil-accountability bill for certain identity-change counseling after heated debate
Summary
After nearly seven hours of debate and many defeated amendments, the House on April 1 passed House Bill 13-22 (as amended), which creates a civil cause of action for harms linked to licensed providers' "predetermined outcome" conversion or identity-change efforts; the bill excludes clergy and supportive patient-led therapy but drew sustained objections about statutes of limitations, damage caps, and First Amendment issues.
The Colorado House passed a bill creating a new civil remedy for people who say they were harmed by licensed providers who directed therapy toward a predetermined sexual-orientation or gender-identity outcome, after lengthy floor debate and dozens of floor amendments on April 1.
Sponsor Representative Rafael Valdez said House Bill 13-22 does not create criminal penalties but instead gives survivors access to existing civil pathways when licensed professionals cause harm through coercive or agenda-driven practices. "We want to ensure accountability when a licensed provider causes harm through coercive or agenda-driven practices," Valdez said.
Co-sponsor Representative Brett McCormick, who described personal family experience with the harms the bill seeks to address, told colleagues the measure focuses on conduct — not protected speech — and aims to preserve exploratory, patient-led and neutral therapy.
Opponents warned the bill placed extraordinary legal risks on licensed professionals. Representative Soper, among others, criticized the draft for removing or greatly extending statutes of limitations and leaving damage exposure open-ended; several argued the new cause of action could chill legitimate counseling and raise constitutional questions after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on conversion-therapy bans.
Lawmakers offered and defeated many amendments attempting to add guardrails. Proposals that would have added tight statute-of-limitation windows, capped non-economic damages at set amounts, or aligned the new cause of action with existing malpractice rules were debated but failed to pass. A notable procedural recorded vote on a damage-cap amendment and other Committee-of-the-Whole report amendments appears in the transcript; multiple Division or machine votes are recorded.
After the amendment process, the House adopted the Committee of the Whole report and passed HB13-22 as amended.
What's next: The bill moves toward final calendar action; sponsors and opponents said they expect litigation over constitutional grounds and urged agencies to prepare for implementation and potential legal defense costs.
(Reporting based only on the House floor transcript for April 1, 2026.)
