Colorado Counselor Challenges Conversion Therapy Ban

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from Colorado Springs counselor Kaley Chiles, who is challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. She is arguing that the ban is violating her First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise.

Since 2019, Colorado has banned the use of conversion “therapy” for minors. It is a discredited form of “treatment” that is known to be dangerous and ineffective for LGBTQ+ people. The law defines conversion therapy as, “efforts to change an individual’s sexual orientation, 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 prohibition of this harmful practice is what Chiles believes is taking away her free speech. She argues that the because of the ban she has “been forced to deny voluntary counseling that fully explores sexuality and gender to her clients and potential clients in violation of her and her clients’ sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal advocacy group that claims to “advance every person’s God-given right to live and speak the truth.” The ADF is known to the The Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. They are known for representing a homophobic web designer who refused to make a website for a gay couple even though they offered the same service to straight couples. The ADF has also supported the re-criminalization of LGBTQ+ sex between consenting adults, defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people, and believes that a “homosexual agenda” will ruin society.

This is not the first time Chiles has challenged the ban on conversion therapy. In 2022, her request to block the enforcement of the ban was denied. It was ruled that the law regulates professional conduct and not speech. A district judge at the time, Charlotte Sweeney added that, “conversion therapy is ineffective and harms minors who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or gender nonconforming.” Now that the SCOTUS has three justices appointed by Trump, they have agreed to hear the case. It is not yet public knowledge how each justice has voted about hearing the case. The court’s next term begins in October of this year, and the case will be heard and decided on then.

The Trevor Project’s director of law and policy Casey Pick told Axios in a statement, “To be crystal clear: This challenge has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with pushing dangerous, debunked practices that have only been proven to cause irreparable harm to LGBTQ+ young people all across the country.”

I mean, let’s just say the quiet part out loud: The Trump administration proudly displaying their hate for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized folks has re-emboldened the far-right to challenge any and every hard-fought for protection against their dangerous ideologies. Texas has a bill that proposes identifying as transgender would be a type of fraud, several states are proposing to overturn marriage equality, and incarcerated trans people are being moved to different prisons that would place them in harm’s way to conform to Trump’s transphobic executive orders. This current administration is giving the green light to all of the white supremacists who know it’s not politically correct to say that they hate the groups of people they do outright. They are feigning oppression in order to regain control and are trying to exploit the justice system to rule in their favor.

With all of the progress that has been made for marginalized communities, white supremacy is threatened more than it ever has been before. The far-right, the alt-right, the conservatives, or whatever they want to be known as, are fighting hard to reverse that progress and restrengthen white supremacy’s hold on the country founded on it and its values. It is disturbing to see that someone from Colorado is gunning for such a horrible practice. But instead of it making us feel deflated, let this embolden us to hold ourselves and each other accountable for the way we uphold white supremacy and its values, consciously or subconsciously. Let this remind us that our fight is far from over, and there is plenty of work to be done.