Christian counselor Kaley Chiles hopes the Supreme Court will vindicate her free speech rights on Tuesday, when the justices consider her challenge to a state law that restricts her ability to help minor clients struggling with gender and sexuality.
Under Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban, a counselor can encourage youth to live as the opposite sex. But counselors risk losing their license if they help young clients who want to feel comfortable in their body live according to their true identity as a man or woman.
“I’m not the only counselor whose speech is being restricted,” Chiles told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “My clients are not the only clients who don’t have access to care.”
Colorado’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), which was passed in 2019, defines “conversion therapy” as efforts to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” including romantic attractions or gender expressions.
“A practicing Christian, Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” Chiles’ petition filed with the court states. “Many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires.”
Colorado argues the law only prohibits therapists from “performing a treatment that seeks the predetermined outcome of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity because that treatment is unsafe and ineffective,” claiming the law does not require therapists to “affirm” any identity. It notes exemptions are offered to those who are “engaged in the practice of religious ministry,” Colorado notes in court briefs.
Chiles says it’s not only her speech being restricted. Children and families who want “something other than the state-approved one-size-fits-all counseling goals” can’t access the care they need under Colorado’s law, she told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“So many families are struggling with this issue, and they don’t know where to turn,” Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) senior counsel Jonathan Scruggs told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They don’t want to be forced down the path and taking drugs and surgeries.”
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled against Chiles in September 2024, finding she “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of her free speech and free exercise claims.”
In its brief, Colorado claims that “every major professional healthcare association in the country further agrees that conversion therapy is not just ineffective and unnecessary, but can be harmful, particularly to minors.” It cites medical organizations like the American Psychological Association (APA) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which have previously allowed political concerns about child-sex change bans to influence their decisions.
“There is no reliable evidence supporting Colorado’s counseling ban; and all the best evidence on treating gender dysphoria in minors recommends the very psychosocial treatment Colorado forbids,” Do No Harm Medical Director Dr. Kurt Miceli said in a statement.
Scientific advances were not made by respecting “authority,” Judge Harris Hartz, wrote in his dissent from the 10th Circuit’s decision.
“Only in a very weak moment would a true scientist say, ‘I am science,’” Hartz wrote.
Some parents are only able to find counselors who push their children to medically transition, ADF senior counsel Kate Anderson told the DCNF.
“If their child’s goal is to try to work through their feelings and to feel comfortable in their own body, then they cannot find those counselors at all,” she said. “If they find counselors that share their beliefs on this topic, those counselors aren’t able to help them because of the fines and the threats of loss of license.”
The 2024 Cass report, a four-year review of transgender medical studies in the U.K. that found “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children, also noted clinicians have expressed concern that legislation on “conversion practices” has left staff “fearful of accepting referrals” from young people questioning their gender.
Twenty-three states, along with Washington, D.C., have laws banning “conversion therapy,” according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP). In Ohio, Cuyahoga County became the first county in the state to institute a “conversion therapy” ban, the DCNF reported Sept. 30.
“I hope the Supreme Court vindicates my and my clients’ right to free speech, which will also likely impact other people having their free speech as well, so that we can all have private counseling conversations and make our own goals in counseling without the interference of the government,” Chiles told the DCNF.
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