TACOMA, Wash. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a licensed marriage and family therapist in Washington state filed a motion in federal district court Wednesday asking it to reopen his case so that he can freely counsel minor clients struggling with gender confusion.
Brian Tingley has more than 20 years of experience counseling adults and minors through voluntary conversations informed by his Christian worldview. Washington state’s counseling censorship law, however, prohibits Tingley from talking with young people distressed about their gender to help them grow comfortable with their bodies. Meanwhile, the Washington law allows counselors to push kids to embrace gender ideology and pursue sex-rejecting drugs and procedures.
Tingley challenged the Washington law in 2021, but the district court dismissed his case, Tingley v. Brown, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed the ruling. Then, in March 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in another ADF case, Chiles v. Salazar, that counseling conversations are protected speech and that laws like Washington’s discriminate based on viewpoint when they censor speech-only counseling to help kids accept their bodies. In light of that significant ruling in a similar case, ADF attorneys are asking the Washington district court to reopen Tingley’s case, allow it to proceed, and free Tingley to help minors struggling with gender confusion.
“Washington’s law bans voluntary conversations based on the state’s ideological crusade to impose gender ideology and to reject common sense. This is censorship pure and simple, and it violates the First Amendment—as affirmed recently in an 8-1 Supreme Court decision,” said ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, director of the Center for Conscience Initiatives. “We are urging the district court to finally allow justice to prevail for Brian, protect his ‘inalienable right to think and speak freely,’ and free him to provide excellent counseling to families and young people who seek his counseling.”
“In Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court rejected the Ninth Circuit’s decision in this case by an 8-1 vote,” the motion for relief from judgment states. “The Chiles Court named Tingley v. Ferguson in its opinion, resolved the circuit split against the Ninth Circuit’s Tingley decision, evaluated a Colorado law just like the one in Tingley, and adopted the very arguments Plaintiff Brian Tingley made in this case. Despite this legal vindication, the judgment here continues to bind Tingley, forcing him to self-censor and chill his speech. The judgment, therefore, violates his constitutional rights and causes him ongoing, irreparable harm.”
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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