Supreme Court to review Colorado 'conversion therapy' ban for minors

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- The Supreme Court said March 10 that it will hear a First Amendment challenge to a Colorado law banning professional counseling services that practice "conversion therapy" for minors, efforts intended to change one's gender identity or sexual orientation.

Opponents of the law argue it restricts their ability to provide counseling to minors experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, the feeling of distress that one's biological sex and gender identity are not aligned. But supporters of the law argue such treatments are discredited and the ban shields children from treatments they might be forced to undergo by their parents.

However, Kaley Chiles, a Christian counselor in Colorado, alongside Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group, challenged the law on First Amendment grounds. ADF argued the Colorado ban violates Chiles' freedom of speech by prohibiting her from counseling clients struggling with gender dysphoria in line with her faith.

"The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors, nor should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government's biased views on her clients," Kristen Waggoner, ADF's CEO, president and general counsel, said in a statement.

"There is a growing consensus around the world that adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria need love and an opportunity to talk through their struggles and feelings. Colorado's law prohibits what's best for these children and sends a clear message: the only option for children struggling with these issues is to give them dangerous and experimental drugs and surgery that will make them lifelong patients," Waggoner continued. "We are eager to defend Kaley's First Amendment rights and ensure that government officials may not impose their ideology on private conversations between counselors and clients."

Colorado's law is one of 23 states, as well as the District of Columbia, that ban conversion therapy, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ policy group.

Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign argued the Supreme Court's decision to take up the case isn't only about "'conversion therapy' -- it's about whether extremists can use our courts to push their dangerous agenda, in an effort to erase LGBTQ+ people and gut protections that keep our kids safe."

"There's no debate: so-called 'conversion therapy' is a dangerous practice, not therapy, and it has no place in our communities. These bans exist to protect LGBTQ+ children from harm -- period," Robinson said in a statement.

A similar lawsuit was filed in 2024 by Catholic therapists in Michigan over comparable legislation in that state.

Guidance on health care policy and practices issued in 2023 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine did not mention conversion therapy.

The conference's guidance opposed interventions that "involve the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient's body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof."

"Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person," the document states.