Overview
- The Court ruled 8–1 that Colorado likely violated the First Amendment by restricting licensed counselors’ talk-only therapy for minors.
- The majority said the law engages in viewpoint discrimination because it permits affirming speech but forbids efforts to change identity or reduce same-sex attraction.
- The justices sent the case back to the 10th Circuit to apply the tougher First Amendment test used for viewpoint-based restrictions.
- The holding is narrow because therapist Kaley Chiles challenged only talk therapy, so the ruling does not strike down conversion-therapy bans across the board.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, and Justice Elena Kagan wrote that a mirror-image ban on affirming talk would face the same constitutional problem.