Kaley Chiles holds a master’s degree in clinical mental health and a state counseling license in Colorado. Ms. Chiles does not begin counseling with any predetermined goals; instead, she sits down with clients, discusses their goals, and then formulates methods of counseling that will most benefit them, seeking throughout to respect her clients’ fundamental right of self-determination. On matters of sexuality and gender, Ms. Chiles’s clients, including young people, often have different goals: Some are content with their sexual orientation and gender identity and want help with social issues or family relationships, while others hope to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies. With all those clients, Ms. Chiles seeks to help them reach their stated objectives. And she employs only talk therapy.
In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in “conversion therapy” with minors, Colo. Rev. Stat.b§12–245–224(1)(t)(V), defining the term to include “any practice or treatment . . . that attempts . . . to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” as well as any “effor[t] to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex,” §12–245–202(3.5)(a). Yet the law explicitly allows counselors to provide “[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for . . . identity exploration and development,” §12–245–202(3.5)(b)(I), and to assist persons “undergoing gender transition,” §12–245–202(3.5)(b)(II).
Ms. Chiles filed suit in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction, raising a First Amendment challenge to the law as it applies to her talk therapy. Both the district court and the Tenth Circuit determined that Ms. Chiles had Article III standing to pursue her as-applied pre-enforcement challenge. On the merits, however, both courts denied Ms. Chiles’s request for a preliminary injunction, reasoning that Colorado’s law is best understood as regulating professional conduct and that it regulates speech only incidentally, thus triggering no more than rational-basis review under the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit conflict over how the First Amendment interacts with laws like Colorado’s when those laws are applied to talk therapy.
The United States Supreme Court held in its March 31, 2026 Opinion that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny. A law regulating the content of speech cannot avoid searching First Amendment review just because it mostly regulates non-expressive conduct. What matters is whether, in fact, the law regulates speech in the case at hand. As applied to Ms. Chiles, Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express, discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. The law permits her to express acceptance and support for clients exploring their identity or undergoing gender transition, §12–245–202(3.5)(b), but forbids her from saying anything that attempts to change a client’s “sexual orientation or gender identity,” including efforts to change “behaviors,” “gender expressions,” or “romantic attraction[s],” §12–245–202(3.5)(a). Her speech does not become “conduct” just because a government says so or because it may be described as a “treatment” or “therapeutic modality.” The First Amendment is no word game, and “the exercise of constitutional rights” cannot be circumscribed “by mere labels.” Colorado’s suggestion that the statute represents a traditional law licensing of medicine fails because the State has not presented persuasive evidence of a historic tradition—the first state “counselor-licensure bill” was adopted only in 1976—and because licensing laws have traditionally addressed qualifications, not dictated a professional’s point of view. The First Amendment stands as a bulwark against any effort to prescribe an orthodoxy of views, reflecting a belief that each American enjoys an inalienable right to speak his mind and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for finding truth. Laws like Colorado’s, which suppress speech based on viewpoint, represent an egregious assault on both commitments.
Source Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24–539.
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