Newsom signs bill on conversion therapy definition

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Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential! Happy Monday. 

We’re in the final stretch of bill-signing month and there are a number of lightning rod bills still waiting for the governor’s signature. It will be a busy week, no doubt. As a reminder, Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of the day Wednesday to either sign or veto 

Over the last three days, Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed dozens of bills, so let’s dive into those today. 

The governor signed Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill intended to insulate the state’s ban on conversion therapy from federal legal challenges. 

When SB934 was first introduced earlier this year, it proposed expanding the ability of conversion therapy survivors to file malpractice lawsuits against practitioners. 

But the bill’s backers went back to the drafting table ahead of its critical appropriations vote, slimming it down to instead redefine conversion therapy, which is already illegal in California, so it includes mental health services that not only direct patients toward a “predetermined” sexual orientation, but also toward a specific gender identity. 

As National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter and Wiener spokesperson Erik Mebust told the Chronicle’s Raheem Hosseini last month, the change was intentional. 

Minter said they felt they needed to focus on updating existing law first, before expanding survivors’ abilities to bring lawsuits. The latter still remains a priority, Minter said, and is something the group intends to do in the “near future,” but requires “more education.”

The change came after a June Assembly Judiciary Committee debate in which some of those opposed to the bill raised concerns about how it would impact liability risks for therapists. Several discussions devolved into heated debates over definitions of gender identity and gender-affirming care.

Every major medical and psychiatric association has determined that trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity doesn’t work and can instead inflict psychological trauma, especially on children. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on conversion therapy for minors in 2012. 

Wiener’s bill was crafted in response to a March Supreme Court ruling that a Colorado ban against licensed counselors trying to change children’s sexual orientations or gender identities violated a Christian therapist’s religious speech. Wiener and LGBTQ groups proposed SB934 as a way to push back against possible new legal challenges arising from the ruling. 

“It’s quackery, it’s torture and it should be banned,” Wiener told the Chronicle in April. “And if we can’t ban it, we should at least give people the tools to seek compensation from the people who inflicted this harm on them.”

The updated definition of conversion therapy in SB934 is similar to the one Colorado approved after the Supreme Court decision, and is meant to withstand the court’s guidance and show the roughly 20 other states that followed in California’s footsteps “how to update their existing protections,” Minter said.

Among the five other LGBTQ-focused bills Newsom signed is AB1775, by Assembly Member Chris Ward, D-San Diego. The bill fast-tracks the ability for transgender troops forced out of the military by President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order to receive certain veteran benefits and assistance programs. (A challenge to the ban is still working its way through the courts.)

The bill funds housing support services for affected veterans and other services aimed at helping troops transition back to civilian life, including legal help to upgrade their military discharge status to qualify for more assistance. 

Also signed: AB1930, by Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, which requires healthcare providers to notify the attorney general if they receive a subpoena seeking sensitive health information about patients receiving gender-affirming care. 

Newsom’s weekend bill signing marathon included nine bills on reproductive health care access, several of which tackled abortion.

The approvals come after his controversial veto of AB2164 by Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, which sought to codify and expand the state’s landmark protections for medical professionals providing abortion healthcare to out-of-state patients. The so-called shield laws were created via a 2022 executive order that declared California would not extradite individuals who provide or aid in providing abortion care to patients in other states. 

Newsom said he disagreed with the bill’s method of cementing his 2022 executive order – not with the abortion shield law itself – and followed that up by signing into law several other bills that seek to buttress the state’s abortion rights protections and existing shield law.

Newsom greenlit AB1854 by Assembly Member Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, which expands California’s protections against out-of-state extraditions and subpoenas by barring state and local law enforcement from knowingly arresting or participating in the arrest of someone the Governor has declined to hand over to another state through extradition requests, 

Other bills in the package include: 

Newsom on Friday signed a collection of bills related to Native American acknowledgement and history, including the establishment of Native American Day as an official state holiday.

The 10-bill package also extended Newsom’s 2019 formal apology for the state’s role in atrocities committed against California’s Native American communities and people, to also include an apology from the state’s courts and Legislature. 

AB2507, by Assembly Member Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, makes the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs, established by Newsom in 2022, a permanent agency.

AB1841 by Assembly Member James C. Ramos, D-San Bernardino, creates Native American Day as an official state holiday on the fourth Friday of each September. Newsom’s signature on the bill on Friday created the inaugural Native American Day, becoming an eligible holiday for state workers.

But another, more controversial bill by Ramos is not among the Friday package, throwing into question whether it will receive the governor’s stamp of approval. 

AB1881, called the California Indian Freedom Act of 2026, seeks to ensure that tribes can visit their historically sacred sites and freely worship, as the Chronicle’s Kurtis Alexander reported last month. To that end, it would require government agencies to get tribes’ consent before pursuing activities that might disrupt Indigenous practices on land that is now owned by the state. It also would allow tribes to sue for violations of the law.

A surge of opposition emerged as the bill headed to its final floor votes in August, warning the bill may be a step too far, and could undercut critical state projects.

A coalition of businesses, water agencies and local governments, led by the California Chamber of Commerce, said the measure would essentially give Native American communities unprecedented veto power over projects on state land. These could range from new buildings and parks, road improvements, and fire prevention work, they argued.

Despite the pushback, the bill passed both chambers in the final days of session, and supporters rallied for its passage on the Capitol steps, decrying opposition as hypothetical.

In a news release earlier this month, Ramos described the bill as part of a larger effort to reclaim rights that California’s Native American communities have been stripped of. 

“In a just world, there would be no need for this bill,” Ramos said. “Yet the State of California and the federal government have historically attempted to force assimilation on Native Americans. It’s a long litany of grievous wrongs that aimed at exterminating the state’s First People and erasing their language, their culture and their spiritual traditions and traditions.”

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