Supreme Court Casts Doubt on LGBTQ ‘Conversion Therapy’ Bans (1)

US Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism about state laws that bar licensed counselors in about half the country from using talk therapy to try to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Hearing arguments in Washington Tuesday, the court questioned the constitutionality of Colorado’s ban on what critics call “conversion therapy.” A Christian counselor is challenging the 2019 law as violating her free speech rights.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said the measure “looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” which the Supreme Court has said in the past is almost always unconstitutional. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan then said she had similar concerns.

Twenty-seven states either fully or partially ban the disputed practice, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ advocacy group that tracks laws around the country.

The case is part of a line of recent Supreme Court clashes affecting LGBTQ people. In June, the court’s conservative majority upheld state laws barring certain medical treatments for transgender children, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. And the justices in the coming months will consider whether states can bar transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams at public schools.

Colorado’s law bars any treatment that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

The state says it has yet to enforce the law, which applies only to licensed counselors. The law is being challenged by Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor who says she views her work as an outgrowth of her religious faith.

Alito was the most openly skeptical of the nine justices, expressing doubt about Colorado’s defense of the measure as a legitimate way to enforce professional standards of care. “Have there been times when the medical consensus has been politicized, has been taken over by ideology?” Alito asked, mentioning a since-discredited 1927 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the forced sterilization of intellectually disabled people.

Most of the court’s other conservatives also pressed Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson on her arguments, though Justice Brett Kavanaugh was silent throughout the roughly 90-minute session.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested they would back the law. Sotomayor said that “there are studies that say that this advice does harm the people, emotionally and physically.”

Censorship Alleged

Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that has been behind some of the court’s highest profile cases in recent years, including the successful effort to overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

“The First Amendment doesn’t permit Colorado’s censorship,” argued Chiles’ lead attorney, James Campbell of ADF. The Trump administration is backing Chiles.

Pressed by Kagan, Campbell said his arguments would apply the same way should a state try to bar therapists from helping a child accept a gay or transgender identity.

In upholding the Colorado law, the Denver-based 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals said it legitimately regulates professional conduct and only incidentally affects speech.

Colorado officials liken the measure to malpractice laws and informed-consent requirements. Stevenson told the justices that the Constitution lets states protect patients from substandard treatment, even if a regulation incidentally affects speech.

“The law falls squarely into the reasonable regulation of professional conduct that does not trigger First Amendment scrutiny,” Stevenson told the court.

Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back, saying that under past Supreme Court rulings, “just because they’re engaged in conduct doesn’t mean that their words aren’t protected.”

The case is Chiles v. Salazar, 24-539.

(Updates with excerpts from argument starting in sixth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

© 2025 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.