Supreme Court strikes down state ban on ‘conversion therapy’ on free speech grounds

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state laws banning “conversion therapy” for children violate the free speech rights of licensed counselors.

The court said Colorado’s law violates the 1st Amendment, and the ruling could invalidate similar laws in California and 23 other states.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices said Colorado’s ban on “talk therapy” could prevent Christian counselors from helping young people deal with their feelings about their sexual attraction or sexuality.

State lawmakers passed the new measures in response to health care experts who say efforts to reassign teens are ineffective and dangerous.

But in cases like these, the law “scrutinizes opinion-based speech,” said Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

“Colorado may view its policy as important to public health and safety. Certainly, conservative governments throughout history have believed the same. But the 1st Amendment stands as a shield against any attempt to impose orthodoxy on thought or speech in this country,” wrote Gorsuch. “… No matter how well-intentioned, any law that suppresses opinion-based speech represents a ‘bad’ attack on both of those obligations.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in a 35-page opinion.

“The First Amendment is concerned with government efforts to suppress ‘speech as speech’ (based on its expressive content), not laws, such as [Colorado’s] that prohibits speech by mistake, because of traditional government law, in the moral garden of such speakers,” Jackson wrote.

“States have been regulating the provision of health care through licensing systems and unconstitutional regulations,” he continued. “And there is no central principle of our 1st Amendment law that leads irrefutably to the conclusion that it is unconstitutional for the State to prevent its licensed therapists from using speech to harm the children in their care.”

The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, has criticized the decision.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to treat the dangerous practice of conversion therapy as constitutionally protected speech is a sad step backwards in our country that will put young people’s lives at risk. These efforts, no matter what their supporters call it, no matter what the court says, are still proven to cause permanent mental damage,” said CEO Jaymes Black in a statement.

The conservative First Liberty Institute called the decision “a major victory for religious liberty.”

“Americans should never have their professional speech censored just because the government doesn’t like that speech,” said Kelly Shackelford, the group’s president.

The decision is the third significant defeat for LGBTQ+ rights advocates in the past year.

Most of those who follow state laws ban puberty blockers and other “sex confirmation” care for children. And last month, judges said California parents have a right to know their child’s gender at school.

They say California’s student privacy policy violates parents’ rights, including the free exercise of religion.

Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs, sued and said the state law violated her rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.

He said he does not want to “cure” homosexuals or “change” their gender.

The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed his case to the Supreme Court and described him as a “devout Christian [who] it believes that people prosper when they live according to God’s plan.”

His clients “seek his advice precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God lay the foundation for understanding who they are and their desires,” he said. “But Colorado closes these negotiations based on the opinions they express.”

State law defines “modification therapy” as “any practice or treatment by a licensee that attempts or intends to change an individual’s sexual preferences or gender identity, including efforts … to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward people of the same sex.”

Violators can be fined up to $5,000, but no one had been fined, the state said.

Their opponents were defeated in the lower courts.

A federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected the free speech claim. In a 2-1 vote, the appeals court said the state law was not a restriction on free speech. Rather, it regulated the conduct of licensed medical professionals. States have the right to regulate the manufacture of medicines.

In their appeal to the supreme court, Chilean lawyers said the state is “blocking” voluntary negotiations and prohibiting speech from only one side of the conflict.

The Trump administration backed the 1st amendment challenge because the state wants to “suppress objectionable opinion.”

In response, the state said its law “protects public health” by prohibiting “a disreputable practice” that was deemed dangerous. It emphasized that the law only regulates licensed professionals and does not extend to religious leaders or others who provide private counseling to young people.

In 2012, California became the first state to ban licensed counselors from using “conversion therapy” on children.

Then Gov. Jerry Brown said these “replacement” therapies “have no basis in science or medicine and will now be put in the bin of quack medicine.”

In June 2025, the court in a 6-3 decision upheld laws in Tennessee and 24 other red states banning “gender-affirming” pre-puberty and hormone therapy for children.

The majority said at the time that they were referring to the government and its lawyers who decided to prohibit such treatment of children.

But in the Colorado case, the majority of the court did not overturn the state’s decision that changing the treatment method is harmful and harmful.

The decision is also the third victory for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom in its free speech challenges to the Colorado laws. A custom wedding cake maker and website designer have won suits seeking an exemption from a state law that required them to provide equal service at same-sex weddings.