The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a so-called conversion therapy case in Colorado. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist, filed a petition with the Supreme Court after the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Colorado law. Currently, the state’s law censors what Chiles can and cannot say to minor individuals seeking counseling—and even mandates that she promote harmful, biased ideology, including steering clients to gender transitions.

Many of Chiles’ clients, also Christians, struggle with gender identity and unwanted same-sex attraction. Under Colorado law, Chiles is forbidden from encouraging these young men and women to embrace their biological sex or subdue unwanted sexual desire. According the law, she cannot have any conversation that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Noncompliance with these restrictions can result in suspension or revocation of a counseling license. In Chiles’ suit, she says that the law infringes on her Constitutional right to free speech.

“The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors, nor should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government’s biased views on her clients,” said ADF CEO, President and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner. “Colorado’s law prohibits what’s best for these children and sends a clear message: the only option for children struggling with these issues is to give them dangerous and experimental drugs and surgery that will make them lifelong patients. We are eager to defend Kaley’s First Amendment rights and ensure that government officials may not impose their ideology on private conversations between counselors and clients.”

In the past few years, the Supreme Court has refused to hear challenges to similar laws restricting what counselors can and cannot say to clients. In December 2023, it left a so-called conversion therapy ban in place in Washington state. Chiles v. Salazar will be heard during the Court’s next term, which begins in October and ends in June 2026.

Photo: Kaley Chiles