KAYLEY CHILES: I’m a counselor. The Supreme Court backed me over Colorado’s gender rules
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On March 31, the U.S. Supreme Court decided my case, Chiles v. Salazar. This has to do with a Colorado law that prohibits licensed counselors like me from talking to gender-confused kids to help them regain comfort with their bodies—even if that’s what the kids want. I filed a lawsuit with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom to challenge this censorship, and the justices have now ruled 8-1 in my favor.
It is reassuring that the court protects freedom of expression. While Colorado officials may honestly think a boy can be a girl, our country was founded on the right to engage in healthy debate even if the government disagrees with us.
This decision also helps protect the mental, physical and emotional health of our children. But Colorado’s law puts their health at risk. Specifically, this law required counselors like me to avoid talking to young clients who wanted to realign their identities according to their gender, while also encouraging children to reject their gender.
SUPREME COURT BLOCKED COLORADO’S BAN ON SO-CALLED ‘CONVERSION THERAPY’ BY FIRST AMENDMENT REQUIREMENT
In effect, the state forces counselors to remain silent or participate in a one-dimensional mandate that pushes children down the path of gender transition, dangerous drugs, and surgeries. This order prohibits some children and families from receiving the counseling they want that actually helps them: counseling that will help them accept their bodies. Colorado thinks it knows better than the parents what counseling they should get.
This victory requires more action. I ask counselors to rethink gender ideology’s claim that it is possible to be born in the wrong body and recommit to protecting young people.
The law also constrains my best instincts as a critical thinker and clinically trained counselor. I should listen to my clients rather than direct them to a government-determined outcome. Instead, state laws would force me to suppress both my beliefs and my professional training; whereas most of the time it is this combination that attracts clients to call me.
The Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in an 8-1 decision that Colorado cannot enforce its so-called “conversion therapy” ban on conversations between therapists and minors, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment because it allows some viewpoints but not others. (Jon Elswick/AP)
Colorado’s censorship deprives these young people of what they want most: someone to talk to, to truly listen, to seek to understand their individual experiences and sensibilities, to walk with them through their pain and confusion, and to help them find a path to thoughtful decisions and a happier future.
Fortunately, our highest court has now recognized the danger that Colorado and other states pose to my profession. Throughout our history, government officials have repeatedly attempted to use censorship to protect people from hearing ideas deemed too dangerous. And once again the court had to explain that censorship could not be a solution to our disputes. With their ruling, the justices offer Colorado a refresher on the basics of the First Amendment and confirm that the government cannot silence opinions in the advisory room.
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But this victory requires more action. I ask counselors to rethink gender ideology’s claim that it is possible to be born in the wrong body and recommit to protecting young people. Research shows that most children who experience gender dysphoria, including approximately 90% of prepubescent children, will move on from the condition—that is, they will begin to identify with their own gender. But these natural rates of abandonment collapse when children begin to transition socially and begin to be treated as the opposite sex. And less resistance means more children are ultimately exposed to harmful drugs and surgeries with no proven benefit.
U.S. Supreme Court justices pose for their official photos at the Supreme Court on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Just because some professional groups present their own authority as “evidence” and some in the media adopt this trend, does not mean that this is the case. Instead, we should study science that clearly goes against fashion, and we should do so with the same objectivity and rigor that we apply to other matters in our profession. Let us recognize as a profession that, in the opinion of many, we have lost the public’s trust and must work to rebuild it.
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Children with identity issues deserve this.
These are the opportunities that the Supreme Court decision will help make possible. I hope we can share the justices’ determination to protect young people and their families from bad science, compromised freedoms, and political interference with the right to seek the truth without being silenced.
Kaley Chiles is a licensed professional counselor in Colorado.
