by Nicholas Prejean
On March 31, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Chiles v. Salazar, that Colorado’s ban on gender conversion therapy was unconstitutional as a violation of freedom of speech. The plaintiff, Kaley Chiles, a mental health counselor in Colorado who filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado, claiming that the law in question infringed on her freedom of speech.
Colorado back in 2019 adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in “conversion therapy” with minors, Colo. Rev. Stat. §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 “effort to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex.”
Countless studies have shown that “gender conversion therapy”, contrary to what its proponents say, harms those who are subjected to it to long-term psychological issues. The American Psychiatric Association has stated, “The potential risks of reparative (gender conversion) therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.”1
The practice has also been found to be mostly ineffective. A 2002 study found that 88% of participants in conversion therapy failed to achieve a sustained change in their sexual behavior with only 3% reporting becoming heterosexual. Of the 8 respondents (out of a sample of 202) who reported a change in sexual orientation, 7 worked as ex-gay counselors or group leaders.2
With this ruling, while not overturning the law, the Supreme Court has indicated a dangerous new precedent that “free speech” can be mixed with medical practice. The lone dissenter in the case, Justice Kitanji Jackson, cited a prior case in his dissent:
And “medical professionals do not, generally speaking, have a right to use the Constitution as a weapon allowing them rigorously to control the content of . . . reasonable conditions” that a State imposes on licensed healthcare providers for the protection of its residents. National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U. S. 755, 785 (2018).3
Further complicating the ruling is the fact that Chiles is backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a right wing group responsible for the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, sought to defend California’s Prop 8 that struck down marriage equality, and also was behind the recent push to ban trans athletes from competitions. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the ADF as a hate group4, and the group boosts of funding from billionaires and other reactionaries like the Green family of Hobby Lobby, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (the parent-in-laws of Betsy Devos), and the Charles Koch Institute. Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett herself was a paid speaker for the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a program run by the ADF.5
PLUS denounces this attack on civil rights using the Constitution as an excuse. At a time when LGBT+ youth and others are facing rising cost-of-living, hatred, and violence, the monopoly-capitalists and their national-chauvinist defenders continue to chip away and erode at the people’s rights won through decades of struggle.
1American Psychiatric Association Position Statement, December 1998.
2 Ariel Shidlo & Michael Schroeder, Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives 135-150 (2002)
3 www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539new_hfci.pdf
4 https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/alliance-defending-freedom/
5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coney-barrett-christian-law-fellowship-blackstone/2020/09/27/7ae41892-fdc5-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html
