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3w ago

Supreme Court Takes Up Colorado Conversion Therapy Ban in Major Free-Speech Test

The justices will weigh whether state limits on licensed therapists’ efforts to change minors’ identity regulate medical conduct or censor speech.

Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips talks with a customer following a Supreme Court ruling on June 4, 2018 in Lakewood, Colo. A divided Supreme Court absolved the Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, ruling that the state exhibited "religious hostility" against him. Usp News Supreme Court Cake Shop Decision A Usa Co
In this December 2022 photo, people stand in front of the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrating over the case of a Colorado company that refused to create websites for same-sex weddings despite a state anti-discrimination law. Colorado and LGBTQ rights will again go before the high court on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in oral arguments about the legality of conversion therapy for minors, a controversial treatment first outlawed by California.
Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have conversion therapy bans on the books. An additional four states and Puerto Rico have made efforts to limit the practice.
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Overview

  • Oral arguments on Tuesday in Chiles v. Salazar challenge Colorado’s 2019 law barring licensed mental-health providers from performing conversion therapy on minors.
  • Counselor Kaley Chiles, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, argues the ban violates her First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration will support her position at argument.
  • Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser defends the statute as a patient-protection rule governing professional standards for licensed providers rather than a restriction on ideas or religious ministry.
  • Lower courts upheld the law, and a circuit split over whether conversion therapy is regulable conduct or protected speech sets up a ruling that could affect bans in 23 states and Washington, D.C.
  • Major medical organizations oppose conversion therapy as ineffective and harmful, and research groups and international bodies, including the U.N., have documented widespread harms.