Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0 | Wikimedia Commons
Supreme Court Strikes Colorado Licensed Conversion‑Therapy Ban for Minors; Kagan Rebukes Jackson’s Solo Dissent on Medical‑Speech Limits
In an 8–1 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Christian counselor Kaley Chiles (represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom), finding that Colorado’s ban on so‑called “conversion therapy” for minors—at least as applied to licensed counselors’ talk therapy—impermissibly targets speech based on viewpoint and must be reviewed under more exacting First Amendment scrutiny. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the bench, warning that equating professional medical regulation with ordinary speech risks undermining states’ ability to protect patients and highlighting the documented harms of conversion therapy, while Justice Elena Kagan (joined by Sonia Sotomayor) used a concurrence footnote to sharply rebuke Jackson’s expansive framing of regulable professional conduct.
📌 Key Facts
- The Supreme Court ruled 8–1 in Chiles v. Salazar, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone dissenter.
- The Court held that Colorado’s 2019 law banning licensed conversion therapy for minors violates the First Amendment as applied to therapist Kaley Chiles, concluding the law impermissibly restricts licensed counselors’ speech based on viewpoint and content.
- The majority rejected a separate, lower‑protection category of “professional speech,” framing the law as viewpoint discrimination (for example, allowing therapists to affirm a client’s gender identity or sexual orientation but not to help change it).
- The case was sent back to lower courts to apply demanding First Amendment scrutiny; several outlets said the decision will have broad effects and could effectively undermine similar conversion‑therapy bans in more than 20 states, while some characterized the ruling as a merits rejection of Colorado’s law.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s roughly 35‑page solo dissent (read from the bench) argued the decision imperils states’ authority to regulate medical and professional conduct, stressed that conversion therapy is widely discredited and linked to lasting psychological harm, and urged that precedents on regulating professionals should control.
- Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, used a concurring‑opinion footnote to criticize Jackson’s dissent for collapsing distinctions between viewpoint‑based and other content‑based restrictions and for understating the category of regulable professional speech.
- Chiles was represented by the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom (with supportive filings from the prior administration); Colorado’s law exempts religious ministers, targets licensed professionals, and to date has not resulted in sanctions against counselors.
- Major medical and mental‑health organizations have repudiated conversion therapy as ineffective and associated with depression and suicidal thoughts in minors, and health‑law scholars and advocacy groups warn the ruling could upend regulation of psychotherapy and other professional‑speech rules.
📊 Relevant Data
In a US survey from 2019-2021, lifetime exposure to conversion practices was 8.6% among minoritized ethnoracial transgender and nonbinary adults, compared to 6.3% among White transgender and nonbinary adults, 4.5% among minoritized ethnoracial cisgender LGBTQ+ adults, and 5.0% among White cisgender LGBTQ+ adults.
Inequities in Conversion Practice Exposure at the Intersection of Ethnoracial and Gender Identities — American Journal of Public Health
Among specific groups, the highest lifetime prevalence of conversion practice exposure was 19.0% for American Indian or Alaska Native transgender and nonbinary adults in a 2019-2021 US survey.
Inequities in Conversion Practice Exposure at the Intersection of Ethnoracial and Gender Identities — American Journal of Public Health
Minoritized ethnoracial transgender and nonbinary participants had a younger mean age of first exposure to conversion practices (16.8 years) compared to the overall mean of 18.4 years in a 2019-2021 US survey.
Inequities in Conversion Practice Exposure at the Intersection of Ethnoracial and Gender Identities — American Journal of Public Health
📊 Analysis & Commentary (1)
Colorado tried to silence me for helping gender-confused kids. The Supreme Court just ruled 8-1 in my favor
"A Fox News opinion piece argues the Supreme Court’s 8–1 ruling striking Colorado’s conversion‑therapy ban vindicates therapists’ First Amendment rights, criticizes the law as viewpoint‑based censorship that harms children by shutting down non‑affirming counseling options, and urges counselors to resist 'gender ideology' while reclaiming the counseling relationship."
📰 Source Timeline (11)
Follow how coverage of this story developed over time
March 31, 2026
10:35 PM
Supreme Court sides with therapist challenging Colorado ban on conversion therapy
New information:
- PBS segment confirms the central frame that the Court sided with a Christian counselor challenging Colorado’s conversion-therapy ban on First Amendment grounds in an 8–1 decision.
- It emphasizes that the ruling presents a potentially far-reaching roadblock to Colorado’s law and similar bans elsewhere, underlining the breadth of the First Amendment concerns.
- The piece provides additional expert interpretation from SCOTUS analyst Amy Howe on what parts of the law and its enforcement the Court viewed as problematic, though that detail is mainly in the video discussion rather than the brief text.
7:42 PM
Kagan turns on liberal ally Jackson with footnote jab over free speech
New information:
- Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, used a concurring-opinion footnote to criticize Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent for "reimagining" and collapsing the distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based restrictions.
- Kagan specifically argued that Jackson understated the size of the category of regulable professional speech, pointing out that Jackson’s own list of potentially affected laws contains "quite a few examples."
- The piece underscores that Jackson’s dissent—about 35 pages and read from the bench—was longer than both the majority opinion and Kagan’s concurrence combined and has drawn visible irritation from some legal commentators who see Kagan as "exasperated" with Jackson’s pattern of lengthy solo dissents.
4:56 PM
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steps out alone, again – this time on ‘conversion therapy’
New information:
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the bench in Chiles v. Salazar, emphasizing the gravity of her disagreement with the majority.
- Jackson’s dissent stresses that conversion therapy has been 'widely discredited within the medical and scientific community' and found to cause 'lasting psychological harm.'
- She argues the majority’s decision 'plays with fire' by treating restrictions on licensed professionals’ counseling as a First Amendment violation, warning it could 'impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.'
- Jackson frames the decision as the Court 'turn[ing] its back' on the tradition that states can regulate medical professionals, and says 'no one knows what will happen now,' calling the ruling a 'dangerous can of worms.'
- The article notes the Court continues to withhold live audio of opinion announcements while broadcasting oral arguments, underscoring transparency gaps around major rulings like Chiles v. Salazar.
3:59 PM
Supreme Court strikes Colorado ban on conversion therapy
New information:
- NPR piece highlights specific language from the majority that Colorado’s law, as applied to Kaley Chiles, regulates speech based on viewpoint and that lower courts failed to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.
- Details Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent more clearly, stressing that Chiles is acting as a licensed health‑care professional and that existing precedents on state regulation of professionals should control.
- Reiterates that every major U.S. medical group has repudiated conversion therapy as ineffective and associated with depression and suicidal thoughts in minors, contrasting medical consensus with the Court’s speech analysis.
- Clarifies that Chiles’ challenged practice is limited to non‑coercive talk therapy with minors who voluntarily seek counseling about sexual orientation or gender identity.
2:33 PM
Supreme Court rules against Colorado's ban on 'conversion therapy' for LGBTQ kids
New information:
- Confirms the vote was 8–1 and that the case was brought by Christian counselor Kaley Chiles, who argued the law barred her voluntary, faith‑based talk therapy for minors.
- Clarifies Colorado’s position that its 2019 law exempts religious ministries, allows broad discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation, and targets only efforts to "convert" LGBTQ minors to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.
- Notes that the Court agreed the law raises First Amendment concerns and sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether it meets a demanding constitutional standard that few laws survive, rather than issuing a simple up‑or‑down merits ruling itself.
- Reports that no counselor has yet been sanctioned under the 2019 Colorado law, which carries potential fines and license suspensions.
- States that the ruling is expected to render similar conversion‑therapy bans in other states effectively unenforceable over time.
- Identifies Alliance Defending Freedom as Chiles’s counsel, highlighting the group’s repeated appearance at the Court and linking it to the prior Colorado website‑designer case.
2:32 PM
Supreme Court Rejects Colorado Law Banning ‘Conversion Therapy’ for L.G.B.T.Q. Minors
New information:
- The Supreme Court has now issued a merits ruling rejecting Colorado’s law banning so‑called conversion therapy for L.G.B.T.Q. minors, rather than merely remanding for stricter review.
- The decision holds that Colorado’s regulation of licensed counselors’ talk therapy with minors violates the First Amendment by impermissibly restricting professional speech based on viewpoint or content.
- The ruling is expected to affect the validity of similar conversion‑therapy bans for minors in other states and clarifies the Court’s approach to state regulation of professional speech in the mental‑health context.
2:29 PM
Supreme Court Revives Challenge to Colorado’s Conversion-Therapy Ban
New information:
- Confirms the Supreme Court’s ruling was 8–1 and that the Court 'sided with a Christian counselor' who challenged Colorado’s ban on therapy aimed at changing minors’ sexual orientation or gender identity.
- Clarifies that the Court held Colorado’s law restricts the counselor’s freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
- Specifies the procedural posture: the justices sent the case back to the lower courts with instructions to apply more rigorous scrutiny to the law, rather than immediately voiding it in full.
2:27 PM
Supreme Court rejects Colorado's conversion therapy ban
New information:
- Confirms the ruling is an 8–1 decision with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the lone dissenter and quotes at length from her warning that elevating ‘medical speech’ to ordinary First Amendment speech could unravel professional standards.
- Details the majority’s reasoning that there is no separate, lower‑protection category of ‘professional speech’ and that Colorado’s law is unconstitutional even though it applies only to licensed professionals.
- Identifies the therapist as Kaley Chiles, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, and notes her claim that she uses only talk therapy with voluntary clients and does not purport to ‘cure’ same‑sex attraction.
- Summarizes Colorado’s defense that therapist counseling is professional conduct, not just like a ‘chat with one’s college roommate,’ and highlights amicus concerns from health‑law scholars and the Human Rights Campaign that the ruling could ‘upend’ wide swaths of psychotherapy regulation.
- Reiterates that more than 20 states have similar statutory bans on conversion therapy for minors, underscoring the likely nationwide reach of the precedent.
2:21 PM
Supreme Court overturns ban on so-called 'conversion therapy' on First Amendment grounds
New information:
- Confirms the Supreme Court’s ruling came in an 8–1 decision holding that Colorado cannot enforce its conversion‑therapy ban against conversations between therapists and clients.
- Clarifies the Court’s core reasoning that the Colorado law likely violates the First Amendment by allowing therapists to affirm a client’s gender identity or sexual orientation but not to help change it if the client seeks that outcome.
- Reinforces that the ruling is framed explicitly as viewpoint discrimination in regulating therapist‑client speech rather than a blanket endorsement of conversion therapy.
2:13 PM
Supreme Court sides with Christian counselor over Colorado on ‘conversion therapy’ for minors
New information:
- Confirms the final vote breakdown as 8–1 with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone dissenter.
- Quotes Gorsuch that the First Amendment "stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech" in explaining why Colorado’s law is unconstitutional as applied.
- Quotes Jackson’s dissent that "the Constitution does not pose a barrier to reasonable regulation of harmful medical treatments just because substandard care comes via speech instead of scalpel," sharpening the fault line over what counts as regulable medical conduct versus protected speech.
- Adds Colorado’s argument that its law sits at "the bull’s-eye center" of traditional state power to regulate health‑care safety, because the treatment "does not work and carries great risk of harm."
- Reiterates and fleshes out Alliance Defending Freedom’s argument, backed by the Trump administration, that Colorado cannot prove harm and that some clients report "life‑changing benefits" from the counseling Chiles wants to provide.
- Notes that religious ministers are exempt from the Colorado law, underscoring the law’s focus on licensed professionals.