As a gay teen growing up in Benton, Illinois, Curtis Lopez-Galloway would be driven hours across state lines into Kentucky to see a religious counselor who worked out of his home.

The man would give him “masculine” activities to complete and derided a “homosexual lifestyle” that he claimed showed a predisposition to traits shared by murderers and pedophiles. According to Lopez-Galloway, the counselor eventually forced him to separate from friends who affirmed his sexuality, and instigated fights between him and his parents.

Lopez-Galloway said he eventually patched things up with his parents, but he still suffers from anxiety and depression.

“It was the darkest time of my life,” Lopez-Galloway said. “There’s always going to be a permanent scar on my relationship with my parents … it’s always there in the background.”

Now, at 31-years-old and having since founded the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, Lopez-Galloway is still processing last week’s Supreme Court ruling against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids in Colorado. It’s one of 23 states — including Illinois — that ban the discredited practice, in addition to four that restrict it.

“I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier,” Lopez-Galloway said, while reiterating that Illinois’ ban remains untouched “for now.”

An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argued the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide if it meets a legal standard that few laws pass, though it left other bans intact.

It’s the latest in a line of recent cases in which the justices have backed claims of religious discrimination while taking a skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights.

In her solo dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that states should be free to regulate health care, even if that means incidental restrictions on speech. The decision “opens a dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair states’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect,” she wrote.

The decision was immediately decried by health care provider organizations such the National Association of Social Workers, as well as the local Illinois chapter, who condemned the decision and said the practice “causes documented psychological damage.”

“No ethical social worker or mental health clinician should be engaging in this practice, full stop, regardless of what any court decides,” said Kyle Hillman, Director of Legislative Affairs for the group’s Illinois chapter, in a statement.

Even still, the decision has raised questions about what challenges could crop up in the future.

Illinois’ law previously withstood a similar challenge on First Amendment grounds, though since it came specifically from clergy who were concerned their speech would be stunted by the law, the court tossed the federal suit. The bill’s authors specifically stated it didn’t regulate religious counseling, only applying to licensed providers in the state.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy — one of the lead sponsors of the state’s now 11-year-old ban on conversion therapy that was signed into law by Republican Governor Bruce Rauner — said her office was “working closely with advocates to prepare for the possibility that future decisions will” impact Illinois’ law. Other Illinois politicians introduced a bill in the statehouse in January that would prohibit state funds from going to conversion therapy.

“While the timing of the decision being released on Transgender Day of Visibility is a cruel one, this decision is a technical one, essentially instructing the Colorado courts to reexamine the case under a more intense legal analysis,” Cassidy said in a statement.

Kara Ingelhart, clinical assistant professor of law and director of Northwestern’s LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic, agreed, but said the decision will still overall “make it harder for states to protect LGBTQ+ children from harmful practices outside the standards of care.”

She said the challenge could embolden others to do the same in other states, though they would have to challenge them individually, and likely wouldn’t immediately be subject to the same legal test.

“If there’s gonna be a challenge, it needs to be tailored to the state law,” Ingelhart said. “[But] every state is going to have to defend against these. … [And] the states’ attorney general’s offices are already stretched thin.”

Lopez-Galloway said the nature of the fight has changed as those in favor of conversion therapy have set their sights on transgender people, attempting to spread fear about them as a means of gaining more support.

However he’s less concerned about the future of Illinois’ laws and more so with the children who are still being subject to the harmful practice worldwide.

“My story had a happy ending, I’m one in millions to have had that,” Lopez-Galloway said. “I’m still seeing the same kind of stuff. All of it’s still happening … Conversion therapy is abuse and it needs to stop.”

Contributing: AP