Supreme Court takes up challenge to Colorado's ban on `conversion therapy' for LGBTQ+ minors

The Supreme Court on Monday took up a counselor’s challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ minors, agreeing to decide if the ban violates her First Amendment rights.

The court has declined to hear similar challenges in the past, including as recently as 2023 when three of the conservative justices disagreed with that decision.

The increased interest in the bans – which have been enacted in more than 20 Democratic-led states – comes as the court is expected to give a green light to GOP-led states’ efforts to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the Christian counselor who challenged the law, argues it violates First Amendment rights by “censoring” her conversations with clients.

"This is a pressing national issue," said Jim Campbell, the group's chief counsel, "and we need the Supreme Court to weigh in and to make it clear that counselors should be free to help these kids that are struggling with these issues and that they shouldn't be put in a straight jacket and forced to only direct them in one in one way."

The Supreme Court will review a lower court’s ruling that Colorado’s law is a restriction on treatment, not speech.

Colorado officials said the restriction − passed in 2019 − is needed because of “overwhelming evidence” that conversion therapy harms young people, including by increasing the risk of depression and suicide. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association for Social Workers and other leading medical groups have all repudiated the practice.

“In Colorado, we are committed to protecting professional standards of care so that no one suffers unscientific and harmful so-called gay conversion therapy,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.

The state defines conversion therapy as attempts to “change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Attorneys for Colorado said it’s not clear the law applies to Kaley Chiles, the counselor who challenged it. The practices she’s described wanting to engage in aren’t prohibited by that definition, they told the Supreme Court, because she said she’s not trying to “cure” same-sex attractions or “change” sexual orientation.

Chiles’ attorneys said Colorado is engaging in semantics and Chiles justifiably fears prosecution if she tries to help clients who “want to achieve freedom from what they see as harmful self-perceptions and sexual behaviors.” 

“This law silences diverse perspectives and interferes with my ability to serve my clients with integrity," Chiles said Monday.

Campbell said Chiles, who sees her work as an expression of her Christian faith, has had to decline taking on clients but did not specify how often that has happened.

A U.S. District court in Colorado dismissed Chiles’ challenge in 2022. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld that decision last year.

“The (law) does not regulate expression,” Judge Veronica Rossman wrote for the appeals court, which split 2-1. “It is the practice of conversion therapy – not the discussion of the subject by the mental health provider – that is a `prohibited activity’ under the (law).”

In his dissent, Judge Harris Hartz called the majority’s conclusion “wordplay” that “poses a serious threat to free speech.”

In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected a similar challenge to Washington state’s law brought by a Christian marriage and family counselor represented by Alliance Defending Freedom.

Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, said they would have granted that appeal. It takes four justices to agreed to hear a case.

Chiles' challenge to Colorado's law − Chiles v. Salazar − is expected to be argued in the fall.