Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Colorado Case on Conversion Therapy

The Supreme Court agreed today to take up a case out of Colorado brought by a Christian therapist named Kasey Chiles who objects to a law on “conversion therapy.” The Court had previously declined to take up a very similar case.

Less than a year and a half ago, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Washington state law that prohibits licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy on children. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the decision not to weigh in then, indicating that they would have granted review. On Monday, the justices agreed to take up a challenge to a similar ban, this time from Colorado.

The case was filed by Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor and a practicing Christian. She sometimes works with clients who want to discuss issues such that, she says, “implicate Christian values about human sexuality and the treatment of their own body.” And although Chiles “never promises that she can solve” issues relating to gender identity, gender roles, and sexual attraction, “she believes clients can accept the bodies that God has given them and find peace.” She contends that the law violates her First Amendment rights to free speech and to freely exercise her religion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit rebuffed Chiles’s challenge. It reasoned that Colorado enacted the law, based on evidence of the harms of conversion therapy, as part of its effort to regulate the health care profession and that the law primarily regulates therapists’ conduct, rather than their speech.

There was a dissent in the 10th Circuit case, which was decided 2-1.

In dissent, Judge Harris Hartz wrote that “courts must be particularly wary that in a contentious and evolving field, the government and its supporters would like to bypass the marketplace of ideas and declare victory for their preferred ideas by fiat.”

Chiles appealed the loss at the 10th Circuit and the Supreme Court has now agreed to consider it. About 20 states have similar laws so whatever gets decided here will have implications that go beyond Colorado.

With more than 20 states with similar bans, the court’s eventual ruling is likely to have nationwide implications…

Chiles often has clients who are Christians, some of whom have questions about their sexual orientation and gender identity amid concerns that they are unable to live their lives in accordance with their faith, according to court papers. As such, they seek counseling to suppress unwanted sexual attractions or to resolve conflicts about their gender identity.

“The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors, nor should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government’s biased views on her clients,” Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group representing Chiles, said in a statement.

Chiles’ lawyers cite in part the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling that struck down on free speech grounds a California law that required anti-abortion pregnancy clinics to notify clients about abortion access.

When the Court refused to take the similar case in 2023, three of the conservatives—Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh—dissented.

In dissent on Monday, Justice Thomas wrote that the question posed by Mr. Tingley’s appeal was substantial and deserved the Supreme Court’s attention.

“This petition asks us to consider whether Washington can censor counselors who help minors accept their biological sex,” Justice Thomas wrote. “Because this question has divided the courts of appeals and strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, I would grant review.”

In a separate dissent, Justice Alito agreed that the case warranted review.

“This case presents a question of national importance,” he wrote. “In recent years, 20 states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws prohibiting or restricting the practice of conversion therapy. It is beyond dispute that these laws restrict speech, and all restrictions on speech merit careful scrutiny.”

As Justice Thomas points out, the current definition of conversion therapy not only includes teens who are gay, it also includes children of any age who decide they are transgender. Under these laws a licensed therapist would be forbidden from discussing that with, say, a 10-year-old girl who announces she is a boy.

Just last year the Cass Review in the UK concluded that while conversion therapy was not a good practice, this should not be conflated with pediatric therapy given to children with gender dysphoria.

Whilst the Review’s terms of reference do not include consideration of the proposed legislation to ban conversion practices, it believes that no LGBTQ+ group should be subjected to conversion practice. It also maintains the position that children and young people with gender dysphoria may have a range of complex psychosocial challenges and/or mental health problems impacting on their gender-related distress. Exploration of these issues is essential to provide diagnosis, clinical support and appropriate intervention.

The intent of psychological intervention is not to change the person’s perception of who they are but to work with them to explore their concerns and experiences and help alleviate their distress, regardless of whether they pursue a medical pathway or not. It is harmful to equate this approach to conversion therapy as it may prevent young people from getting the emotional support they deserve and make clinicians fearful of providing this group of children and young people the same care as is afforded to other children and young people.

No formal science-based training in psychotherapy, psychology or psychiatry teaches or advocates conversion therapy. If an individual were to carry out such practices they would be acting outside of professional guidance, and this would be a matter for the relevant regulator.

A book written by a BBC reporter about the UK’s Tavistock Clinic (which has since been shuttered) claimed that the overwhelming majority of children claiming dysphoria had other significant psychological issues.

The Tavistock clinic ignored evidence that 97.5 per cent of children seeking sex changes had autism, depression or other problems that might have explained their unhappiness, a new book claims.

Staff at the NHS facility were so determined to push a pro-transgender policy that children who might not have been trans were treated as “collateral damage” by clinicians who labelled doubters “transphobic”, a whistleblower says.

Seven in ten children had more than five “associated features” such as abuse, anxiety, eating disorders or bullying, and a social worker estimated that as few as 1 in 50 children treated at the clinic would have stayed transgender for life if they had not been given controversial drug therapy…

Children as young as 10 were referred to specialists with a view to them being prescribed puberty-blocking drugs, and others were referred after as little as 20 minutes’ consultation, the book says.

Any law that ignores these issues in favor of solely providing gender-affirming care, i.e. medicalizing children who got their gender identity information from peers or strangers on Tumblr, should probably be overturned. The court will hear oral arguments sometime in the fall and a decision likely won’t be issued until next year.