On March 31, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major decision in Chiles v. Salazar. By an 8-1 margin, the justices ruled that Colorado’s counseling restriction—a ban on what the State calls “conversion therapy,” as applied to a counselor who uses only talk therapy—is unconstitutional because it censors speech based on viewpoint. The Court found that Colorado’s law engages in viewpoint discrimination, the most dangerous form of government censorship and an “egregious” assault on the First Amendment. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court. Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Sotomayor, concurred.

The ruling is a significant win for free speech, for the rights of licensed professionals, and for the families and young people who deserve access to voluntary counseling conversations that aren’t limited to state-approved goals like “gender transition” and the affirmation of newly asserted gender identities.

Colorado’s Unconstitutional Censorship

Colorado’s so-called “Minor Conversion Therapy Law” banned licensed counselors from engaging in “any practice or treatment” that “attempts... to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity”—including any effort to change “behaviors or gender expressions”—when working with minors. At the same time, the law explicitly permitted counselors to offer “acceptance, support, and understanding” for “identity exploration and development” and to assist clients “undergoing gender transition.” The law threatened severe penalties: thousands of dollars in fines, suspension from practice, and even revocation of a counselor’s license.

This was one-sided censorship, plain and simple. A counselor could push a young person toward a gender identity different from his or her biological sex, but could not have a voluntary conversation helping that same young person grow comfortable with his or her own body—even when the child asked for that help. Colorado’s law took a side on a contested question and told therapists which side they were required to take, and threatened to destroy their careers if they refused.

The Court’s Ruling: Unconstitutional Viewpoint Discrimination

The Court’s reasoning was direct and devastating for Colorado. Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch identified the core constitutional violation: Colorado’s law didn’t just regulate the content of a counselor’s speech—it prescribed which viewpoints she could express. A counselor could affirm a client’s gender transition, but she could not, through voluntary talk therapy, help that client grow comfortable with his or her own body. That, the Court held, is textbook viewpoint discrimination—“an egregious form of content discrimination” that represents the most serious category of First Amendment violation.

Colorado tried to reframe talk therapy as “professional conduct” rather than speech. The Court rejected that move flatly, echoing its reasoning in Cohen v. California and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: the government cannot convert speech into conduct simply by relabeling it. “The First Amendment is no word game,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, “And the rights it protects cannot be renamed away or their protections nullified by 'mere labels.'”

The State also argued that its law fell within a long tradition of medical licensing and malpractice regulation. The Court found this unpersuasive on every front. Licensing laws have traditionally addressed qualifications, not dictated a professional’s point of view. Informed-consent requirements regulate speech incident to physical procedures and require only factual disclosures—not the silencing of a viewpoint. And malpractice law requires proof of actual injury, providing “breathing room for protected speech” that Colorado’s blanket prohibition does not.

TMS and EPPC brief brought supporting arguments to SCOTUS

Thomas More Society and the Ethics and Public Policy Center together filed an amicus curiae brief that put before the Court important arguments against Colorado’s law. (Read the full brief, here.)

The brief drove home five critical points that supported the case:

First, the TMS brief showed that Colorado’s unconstitutional counseling restriction cannot be separated from the gender-affirmative framework it enforces. The law doesn’t just ban certain therapeutic techniques—it mandates a single therapeutic viewpoint, one that treats a minor’s self-declared identity as beyond question and steers every clinical encounter toward affirmation and transition. That is viewpoint discrimination by design.

Second, the TMS brief laid out the collapsing international consensus behind gender-affirming interventions for minors. Drawing on the landmark 2024 Cass Review—the most comprehensive evidence review of pediatric gender medicine ever conducted—the brief demonstrated that the evidence for gender-affirming treatment is “remarkably weak” and rests on “shaky foundations.” Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, France, and Chile have all pulled back from gender-affirming medical interventions for minors. Twenty-six U.S. states have followed suit.

Third, the TMS brief confronted the central fiction underlying so-called “conversion therapy” bans: that gender identity is immutable. Research consistently shows that roughly 90% of children who experience gender dysphoria before puberty will naturally resolve those feelings and regain comfort with their biological sex—if not pushed toward harmful drugs and procedures. A 2024 Dutch study characterized gender-related discontent as common in adolescence but naturally declining over time. Even among gender-minority youth, nearly one in five reported a different gender identity over time. The growing population of detransitioners, who pursued gender transition only to reverse course, are living proof that identity can change, and that foreclosing that possibility causes real harm.

Fourth, the TMS brief documented how counseling restrictions create an ethical straitjacket for therapists. Clinicians who might otherwise explore the roots of a minor’s distress—trauma, comorbid psychiatric conditions, social influences — are chilled into silence for fear that probing questions will be characterized as so-called “conversion therapy.” The Cass Review itself warned that it is “harmful to equate” open-ended psychotherapy with so-called “conversion therapy.” Colorado’s law does exactly that.

Fifth, the TMS brief made the affirmative case for client-responsive psychotherapy — the kind of voluntary counseling conversation that begins with a client’s own goals and works from there. This is precisely what Kaley Chiles practices: helping young people who want to grow comfortable with their bodies and affirm biological reality. It is also precisely what Colorado’s unconstitutional law censored.

A Victory for Free Speech, Kids, and Families

Chiles v. Salazar is a monumental victory for free speech, common sense, and families looking to help their children. The Court has now established that counseling conversations, such as those at issue in Chiles, are speech—and that states cannot censor viewpoints in the counseling room. The ruling declares unconstitutional the kind of one-sided censorship that Colorado and more than 20 other states have imposed on licensed professionals, and it puts every one of those jurisdictions on notice: if your law silences voluntary conversations that help young people grow comfortable with their bodies and with biological reality, it will not survive constitutional scrutiny.

The decision reaffirms that “professional speech” is not a constitutional carve-out and that licensed professionals retain the same right to speak their minds that every other American enjoys. States cannot weaponize licensing regimes to enforce ideological orthodoxy in the therapist’s office. As the Court made clear, viewpoint discrimination by the government is unconstitutional—no matter how well-intentioned the State claims to be.

As Justice Gorsuch concluded: “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”

Thomas More Society is proud to have supported this historic ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court. Kids struggling with gender incongruity and confusion deserve real help, not state-mandated censorship. Every child struggling with questions of identity deserves a counselor who can speak honestly and affirm that their bodies are not a mistake. In Chiles, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Constitution protects that freedom.