The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday held that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violated the First Amendment’s free‑speech protections, finding the statute unconstitutional. Colorado’s law, enacted in 2019, barred licensed mental‑health providers from attempting to change a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity if the patient was under 18 and authorized fines of up to $5,000 for violations.
The court’s 8–1 decision, which reversed a lower court ruling upholding the ban, was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch. The opinion concluded the law “does not just ban physical interventions,” but in key respects “censors speech based on viewpoint,” and warned that the First Amendment prevents government efforts to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech. The case was remanded to the lower court for further proceedings under a stricter First Amendment standard.
The challenge was brought by Kaley Chiles, a Christian licensed counselor who said the statute infringed her speech rights. She was represented by James Campbell of the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom; the Trump administration filed a brief supporting Chiles’ challenge. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the nation’s first openly gay man elected governor, signed the ban into law.
The ruling leaves open a path for states to regulate non‑speech aspects of conversion therapy. The court noted that prohibitions on aversive physical interventions and other conduct-based restrictions may remain permissible while striking down speech‑based bans that target counselors’ communications.
More than 20 U.S. states and parts of Europe, including Germany, have enacted bans or restrictions on conversion therapy. Major medical organizations — including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association — oppose conversion therapy, and the United Nations has urged a worldwide prohibition, describing the practices as discriminatory and harmful.
Although recent high‑profile decisions have fallen along ideological lines, two liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined the majority. Justice Kagan wrote that the constitutional question was straightforward because the state had suppressed one side of a debate while aiding the other. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter, warning that the decision could weaken states’ ability to regulate medical practices that pose serious risks to health and wellbeing and arguing that the Constitution does not bar reasonable regulation of harmful treatments simply because they involve speech.
Supporters of the ruling hailed it as a defense of free speech rights for clinicians and counselors, while opponents warned it could limit states’ tools to protect minors from therapies judged by major medical bodies to be harmful. The case now returns to the lower courts for further review in light of the Supreme Court’s First Amendment analysis.
Edited by: Alex Berry