Supreme Court Casts Doubt on Colorado's Conversion-Therapy Ban

In Chiles v. Salazar, licensed counselor Kaley Chiles argued that Colorado's Minor Conversion Therapy Law barred her from offering talk therapy that some clients sought to align their lives with their religious beliefs about gender and sexuality. Colorado defended the statute as a regulation of a discredited medical practice that professional bodies have long condemned as harmful to LGBTQ+ youth.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch concluded that the counseling at issue consists of speech and that a law restricting it based on the viewpoint expressed cannot be sustained without searching constitutional review. The Court did not strike the statute outright; instead it reversed the Tenth Circuit and returned the case for the lower courts to apply heightened scrutiny. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The decision unsettles the roughly two dozen states that prohibit licensed practitioners from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, most of which had relied on court rulings characterizing such bans as permissible regulation of professional conduct rather than of speech. Whether those laws survive will now depend on how the Tenth Circuit and other courts apply the stricter test on remand.

LGBTQ+ organizations warned that the ruling could reopen the door to a practice that every major medical and mental-health association rejects, while supporters of the counselor framed the case as a victory for free speech and religious liberty.