Supreme Court lifts state bans on ‘conversion therapy’ on free speech grounds
WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state laws banning “conversion therapy” for minors violate licensed counselors’ free speech.
The court said the Colorado law violated the 1st Amendment. The free speech ruling will likely invalidate similar laws in California and 23 other states.
Inside An 8-1 decision.Colorado’s “talk therapy” ban could prevent Christian counselors from helping teens with their feelings about sexual attractions or gender identities, judges said.
State lawmakers passed the new measures in response to health experts who say efforts to change a teenager’s sexual orientation are both ineffective and harmful.
But in such cases, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.”
“Colorado may think its policy is necessary for public health and safety. Of course, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same thing. But the 1st Amendment serves as a bulwark against any effort to impose orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. … Any law, no matter how well-intentioned, that suppresses viewpoint-based speech amounts to a ‘terrifying’ attack on both of those commitments,” he wrote.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone in a 35-page opinion.
“The 1st Amendment gives importance to government efforts to suppress ‘speech as speech’ (based on the content of the utterance), not laws that incidentally restrict speech like {Colorado’s}, because of the government’s traditional, wide-ranging regulations on the professional conduct of such speakers,” Jackson wrote.
“States have traditionally regulated the provision of medical care through licensing programs and malpractice regimes without constitutional incident,” he continued. “And no fundamental tenet of our 1st Amendment jurisprudence inevitably leads to the conclusion that it violates a State’s Constitution to prevent licensed speech therapists from using speech to harm minors in their care.”
The decision was the third major defeat for LGBTQ rights advocates in the past year.
Conservative majorities have approved state laws banning puberty blockers and other “gender-affirming” care for minors. And last month, justices said parents in California have the right to know their child’s gender identity at school.
They said California’s student privacy policy violated parents’ rights, including the free exercise of religion.
Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs. sued and defended state law violated the rights to freedom of expression and free exercise of religion.
He said he was not trying to “cure” his clients of same-sex attractions or “change” their sexual orientation.
The Alliance Defending Freedom took his case to the Supreme Court and described him as “a Christian.” [who] He believes that people thrive when they live in ways consistent with God’s design.”
Her clients “consult with her because they believe their faith and relationship with God are foundational to understanding their identity and desires,” they said. “But Colorado prohibits these consensual conversations based on the perspectives they express.”
State law defines “conversion therapy” as “any practice or treatment by a licensee that attempts or purports to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
The state says violators of the law can be fined up to $5,000, but no one has been fined.
A federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected the free speech claim. The appeals court said in a 2-1 vote that state law does not prohibit free speech. Rather, it regulated the conduct of licensed medical professionals. States have the authority to regulate the practice of medicine.
In their appeal to the high court, Chile’s lawyers said the state was “censoring” voluntary speech and banning speech on only one side of the debate.
The Trump administration supported the 1st Amendment challenge because the state is trying to “suppress a disfavored point of view.”
In response, the state said its law “protects the public health” by banning a “discredited practice” that has been shown to be harmful. He emphasized that the law only regulates licensed professionals and does not cover religious ministers or others who provide private counseling to young people.
In 2012, California became the first state to ban licensed counselors from using “conversion therapy” on minors.
Governor at that time. Edmund G. Brown Jr. said these “transformation” treatments “have no basis in science or medicine and will now be consigned to the dustbin of quackery.”
In June 2025, in a 6-3 decision, the court upheld laws in Tennessee and 24 other red states banning “gender-affirming” puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors.
The majority said it was left up to the state and lawmakers, who decided to ban such medical treatments for minors.
But in the Colorado case, the court majority did not follow the state’s ruling that “conversion therapy” was harmful and potentially dangerous.
The decision also marks the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom’s third victory in its free speech fight against the Colorado law. A maker of custom wedding cakes and a website designer won lawsuits seeking exemption from a state law requiring them to provide equal service for same-sex weddings.
