Overview
- An 8-1 Supreme Court majority on Tuesday reversed a lower court and said Colorado’s 2019 ban, when applied to talk therapy for minors, likely censors speech based on viewpoint and must face the toughest First Amendment review.
- Writing for the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the law lets counselors affirm a minor’s identity but bars efforts to help a client try to change it, and the justices sent the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
- Kaley Chiles, a Christian licensed counselor, brought the case arguing the ban gagged voluntary, faith-based talk therapy; Colorado’s statute targets licensed providers, exempts religious ministries, and has produced no sanctions to date.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning the decision could make speech-only medical treatments effectively unregulatable, while Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor concurred to note that a viewpoint-neutral rule might be a different question.
- About two dozen states have similar laws that now face likely court challenges, even as major medical groups say conversion therapy is discredited and linked to higher suicide risk, which could push states toward malpractice claims or revised licensing rules to address harms.