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Like Michigan, Colorado banned counselors from helping patients overcome gender dysphoria to become reconciled to their genetic sex.
Please note: I avoid the term "conversion therapy" here, because it's a made-up term, designed to frame the argument to the Left's advantage. Michigan even embedded the new definition in our legal code, attempting to make it stick.
The Left invented the term "conversion therapy" as a take-off from "aversion therapy," rightly hated and abandoned in the last century. I'm old enough to remember electric shock therapy, and that "treatment" has nothing to do with today's counseling for dysphoria.
Thankfully, a Christian Colorado counselor took on the state law's violation of First Amendment rights, and SCOTUS has granted certiorari.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/10/politics/conversion-therapy-supreme-court-colorado/index.html?
Supreme Court to review Colorado law barring conversion therapy for minors
Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor and practicing Christian, challenged that law under the First Amendment, claiming that her patients voluntarily seek out her services.
Chiles, who was represented by the religious group Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the laws enacted in Colorado and more than 19 other states “silence counselors’ ability to express views their clients seek.” But state officials countered that they may regulate the medical treatment of patients.
“A professional’s treatment of her patients and clients is fundamentally different, for First Amendment purposes, from laypersons’ interactions with each other,” Colorado officials said.
The case, similar to one the Supreme Court rejected in late 2023 from a licensed marriage and family counselor in Washington state, echoes another high profile case pending on the docket. In US v. Skrmetti, Tennessee is defending a ban on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender youth on the grounds that the state had broad power to regulate medicine.
In that case, the court’s conservatives signaled during oral arguments in December that they were prepared to defer to state lawmakers on such bans. A decision is expected by July.
Critics say conversion therapy – which attempts to convert people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning – into straight or cisgender people, causes serious emotional harm and can have deadly results.
Chiles sued over the Colorado law in 2022. A federal district court denied her request to temporarily suspend its enforcement and the Denver-based 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. Chiles appealed to the Supreme Court in November.
In a similar appeal rejected by the high court in 2023, three conservative justices – Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas – said they would have considered the case.
Under the state law, Thomas wrote in five-page opinion, “licensed counselors cannot voice anything other than the state-approved opinion on minors with gender dysphoria without facing punishment.”
“Although the court declines to take this particular case, I have no doubt that the issue it presents will come before the court again,” he wrote at the time. “When it does, the court should do what it should have done here: grant certiorari to consider what the First Amendment requires.”
Alito said in a brief dissent in 2023 that the court should have taken up the case to address an issue that lower courts have been divided on.
“In recent years, 20 States and the District of Columbia have adopted laws prohibiting or restricting the practice of conversion therapy,” Alito wrote. “It is beyond dispute that these laws restrict speech, and all restrictions on speech merit careful scrutiny.”
CNN’s Devan Cole contributed to this report.
The First Amendment triumphed at the Supreme Court today. AG Nessel has the sadz:
Supreme Court rules against Colorado ban on ‘conversion therapy’ for LGBTQ+ kids
By Lindsay Whitehurst - March 31, 2026WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids in Colorado, one of about two dozen states that ban the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide if it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
Gorsuch’s opinion drew support from liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
A state could similarly not ban talk therapy designed to affirm a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, Kagan wrote. “Once again, because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward,” she wrote.
In a solo dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that states should be free to regulate health care, even if that means incidental restrictions on speech. The decision, Jackson wrote, “opens a dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair states’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.”
The decision is the latest in a line of recent cases in which the justices have backed claims of religious discrimination while taking a skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights.
Counselor Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, said the law wrongly bars her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.
Chiles contends her approach is different from “conversion therapy” practices from decades ago, like shock therapy. Her attorneys argued that the ban makes it hard for parents to find therapists willing to discuss gender identity with kids unless the counseling affirms transition.
“I look forward to being able to help them when they choose the goal of growing comfortable with their bodies,” Chiles said in a statement. “Counselors walking alongside these young people shouldn’t be limited to promoting state-approved goals like gender transition, which often leads to harmful drugs and surgeries.”
Colorado disagreed, saying its law does allow wide-ranging conversations about gender identity and sexual orientation and exempts religious ministries. The state says the measure simply bars using therapy to try to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations, a practice that has been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.
The law doesn’t violate the First Amendment, Colorado argued, because therapy is different from other types of speech since it’s a form of health care that the state has a responsibility to regulate.
Advocates for LGBTQ+ people condemned the ruling, as well as “conversion therapy.”
“This is a dangerous practice that has been condemned by every major medical association in the country. Today’s decision does not change the science, and it does not change the fact that conversion therapists who harm patients will still face legal consequences,” Polly Crozier, director of family policy at GLAD Law, said in a statement.
The 2019 law carries the possibility of fines and license suspension, but no one has been sanctioned under it. The ruling is expected to eventually make similar laws in other states unenforceable.
Chiles was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who successfully challenged Colorado anti-discrimination law because she didn’t want to work with same-sex couples.
Twenty-three states have laws barring health care providers from offering “conversion therapy” for minors, and another four have some restrictions, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an advocacy group that tracks policies that impact LGBTQ+ people.
The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another Atlanta-based appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, had struck down similar bans in Florida.
Meanwhile, the Michigan conversion therapy ban written by our Democratic witches' coven in 2023 is about to go as well, after a little pot stirring:
High court decision clears path for challenge to Michigan’s conversion therapy ban
Justices’ decision in Colorado case revives lawsuit against state’s 2023 law
By Katherine Dailey - March 31, 2026A lawsuit brought against the state of Michigan by Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties will continue to proceed in federal court now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a case out of Colorado that the state’s ban on conversion therapy should be subject to a high legal standard known as “strict scrutiny” for potential First Amendment violations.
That case, Chiles v. Salazar, was decided on Tuesday in an 8-1 ruling in favor of a Colorado-based licensed therapist who argued that the state law attempted to regulate what she could tell her clients in talk therapy. She argued that the law violates her First Amendment right to free speech and interferes with her ability to practice counseling in a way that aligns with her religious convictions.
The Supreme Court sent the final decision in the case on how to enforce the strict scrutiny test, a more stringent standard of review than had been previously applied, back down to a lower court, though Amy Howe of SCOTUSBlog wrote that the opinion “strongly hinted that the ban would fail that test.”
The ruling from the nation’s top court was quickly criticized by both Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a press release.
“Today’s ruling is as disappointing as it is harmful,” Nessel said. “Medical experts have long debunked conversion therapy as a destructive, demoralizing and debunked practice which increases depression and the risk of suicide for LGBTQ+ youth. Free speech is a sacred right in America, but it should not provide a runway in which medical professionals can actively harm their patients.
In Michigan, Catholic Charities v. Whitmer had been stayed pending an order from the Supreme Court in the case from Colorado. The law in question has also been paused from being enforced by a preliminary injunction from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that was issued in December.
Whitmer signed Michigan’s law against conversion therapy in 2023, making it the 22nd state to have such a ban on the books.
Conversion therapy, which Whitmer defined at the time as “any intervention that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” has been repeatedly disregarded by medical professionals and is largely seen as harmful, especially in terms of increasing suicidality among LGBTQ+ youth.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry — in alignment with a number of other medical groups — has said that conversion therapies “lack scientific credibility and clinical utility” and that “there is evidence that such interventions are harmful.” As such, the group states that these kinds of attempted treatments should not be part of any behavioral health treatment for children or teens.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is disappointing, but it does not change who we are,” Whitmer said in the press release responding to the decision. “Michigan will never support any practice that harms or shames LGBTQ+ youth. As long as I’m governor, every young person deserves the right to grow up safe, supported, and free to be themselves.”
State Rep. Jason Hoskins (D-Southfield), who wrote the legislation banning the practice, said the decision should not at all be interpreted to mean conversion therapy is ever acceptable.
“Conversion therapy is a fraud. It is malpractice and it is still deeply damaging to young people in Michigan. Every major medical and mental health organization has condemned conversion therapy as unethical and dangerous. The evidence is clear. These practices are linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. That has not changed,” Hoskins said in a statement.
The lawsuit in Michigan is currently before the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, and the press release from Nessel’s office stated that the parties in the case are “expected to meet, confer, and update the District Court within the next 14 days about what should happen next in their case.”
Nessel also noted in the press release that her office is “reviewing today’s decision in advance of our next meeting before the court to determine our next steps.”
And from the peanut gallery:
Rep. Hoskins, Author of Michigan’s Conversion Therapy Ban, Responds to U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Colorado Law
Press Statement | Office of State Rep. Jason HoskinsLANSING, Mich., March 31, 2026 — State Rep. Jason Hoskins (D-Southfield), author of Michigan’s law banning conversion therapy for minors, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down Colorado’s law:
“As someone who worked hard to pass legislation banning conversion therapy, I did so because I believe every young person deserves to be safe, supported, and affirmed, not subjected to practices rooted in shame and rejection.
“I want to be clear. The Supreme Court’s decision does not mean conversion therapy is safe, effective, or should ever be acceptable.
“Conversion therapy is a fraud. It is malpractice and it is still deeply damaging to young people in Michigan. Every major medical and mental health organization has condemned conversion therapy as unethical and dangerous. The evidence is clear. These practices are linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. That has not changed.
“What this decision does is make it harder for states to protect young people before harm occurs. It draws a line that is difficult to defend. When treatment involves surgical tools or medication, the state may impose safeguards to prevent harm. But when the same harm is inflicted through a course of treatment delivered in words — talk therapy that can induce shame, reinforce stigma, and are associated with increased rates of depression, trauma, anxiety, and suicidality — the state is left with diminished authority to act. That is wrong.
“And let’s be honest about what this is: families are often paying thousands of dollars for services that do not work and cause real harm. That is not care. That is exploitation.
“This decision does not eliminate accountability. Survivors still have legal options, including consumer fraud claims, medical malpractice suits, and other legal actions to hold bad actors responsible.
“This fight is not over. We will continue to explore every avenue available to protect young people and hold those who harm them accountable, because no child should be made to feel like they need to be ‘fixed’ to be loved.”
A brief but useful legal analysis of SCOTUS' decision in Chiles v. Salazar from Mark Movsesian:
https://reason.com/volokh/2026/04/02/a-short-take-on-chiles-v-salazar/
A Short Take on Chiles v. Salazar
Another religious freedom case in a free speech guise
By Mark Movsesian | April 2, 2026The Supreme Court ruled this week, 8-1, in Chiles v. Salazar, that Colorado may not apply its ban on conversion therapy for minors to prohibit a licensed counselor's talk therapy. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court; Justice Kagan concurred, joined by Justice Sotomayor; Justice Jackson dissented. The Court held that, as applied to therapist Kayla Chiles's conversations with clients, Colorado's law discriminates on the basis of viewpoint and therefore triggers the most searching First Amendment scrutiny.
A couple points. First, this is not, formally speaking, a religion case. It's a Free Speech Clause case. Indeed, as far as I can tell, the word "religion" does not even appear in the Court's opinion. But the case is religion-adjacent. Chiles described herself in the litigation as a practicing Christian whose views about sex and gender are informed by her faith, and she said that some clients seek her out because they want counseling consistent with those convictions. So although religion is not part of the Court's doctrinal analysis, it is very much part of the background.
That feature places Chiles in a familiar line of First Amendment cases. Think of 303 Creative, another Gorsuch opinion. Or Barnette, the WWII-era flag salute case. Both were free speech cases in doctrinal terms, but religious conviction supplied much of the underlying human drama. One sees something similar here. Disputes touching religious freedom often come to the Court not under the Religion Clauses, but in the guise of free speech. Religion influences what people say--or don't say.
The key to the Court's reasoning is viewpoint discrimination. Colorado's law allows counseling that affirms a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity, but forbids counseling that seeks to help a minor change or redirect sexual orientation or gender identity. For the Court, that means the State is not simply regulating treatment as such. It is permitting one side of a contested moral and psychological question while suppressing the other. That, the Court says, is about as serious a First Amendment problem as one can have.
Second, it's notable how little work the formal strict-scrutiny framework seems to do once the Court reaches that conclusion. The Court says that content-based restrictions ordinarily trigger strict scrutiny, and that viewpoint discrimination is an especially egregious form of content discrimination. But it does not linger over the familiar steps of balancing: compelling interest, narrow tailoring, least restrictive means. Instead, once the Court identifies viewpoint discrimination, the case is largely over. The rest of the opinion is devoted mostly to rejecting Colorado's efforts to characterize the law as regulation of professional conduct rather than speech. Chiles thus resembles 303 Creative in this way as well. In 303 Creative, too, the Court avoided applying the strict-scrutiny balancing test in a serious way.
For those interested, I discuss Chiles in a short Legal Spirits episode, here.
The only fault with this analysis is its failure to emphasize that both religious freedom and free speech are guaranteed by the same U.S. Constitutional Amendment, The First! There is a very good reason the Founding Fathers assembled related rights in the First amendment.
Michigan's witch's coven was just forced to eat their unconstitutional conversion therapy ban:
Court Stops Michigan From ‘Harming Children’ by Forcing Transgender Double Standard, Lawyer Says
By Tyler O’Neil • July 30, 2026Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acknowledged that her law against "conversion therapy" violates the First Amendment.
A district court judge blocked Michigan from enforcing a “conversion therapy” law, in a ruling that protects children, according to the attorney representing Catholic therapists challenging the law.
“Michigan was harming children—pushing kids toward a lifetime of harmful, irreversible medical interventions by muzzling compassionate counselors who could help them,” Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at the religious freedom law firm Becket and the lead attorney for counselors challenging the law, told the Daily Signal after the court ruling Thursday.
“Thankfully, the Constitution was there to stop them,” Goodrich added. “Now kids can get the compassionate, scientifically based counseling they need—which is a win for kids, counselors, and common sense.”
A district court judge blocked Michigan from enforcing part of its law banning “conversion therapy” for minors, ruling the law violates the First Amendment by compelling therapists to support transgender ideology.
“For example, speech that supports and affirms an individual’s desire to undergo a gender transition is permitted,” the lawsuit states. “Speech that supports and affirms an individual’s desire to embrace her biological sex is forbidden.”
The ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban
In July 2023, Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two laws banning “conversion therapy” for minors and defining the term to include “any practice or treatment by a mental health professional that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” The law also states that “conversion therapy does not include counseling that provides assistance to an individual undergoing a gender transition,” among other things.
Emily McJones, a licensed therapist who runs Little Flower Counseling in Jackson, and Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties sued to block enforcement of the laws as applied to them. According to the lawsuit, Catholic Charities and McJones provide patient-driven talk therapy from a Catholic perspective, and their patients have reported struggling to reconcile their faith with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria (the painful and persistent identification with the gender opposite their sex).
The counselors help minors address the underlying causes of their discomfort, alleviate their distress, and embrace their biology without resorting to sex-rejecting procedures.
The First Amendment and ‘Conversion Therapy’
The counselors argued, in the lawsuit’s first count, that the law violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause by imposing a “content-based restriction on speech,” noting that it only bars patient-directed talk therapy in one direction on LGBTQ+ issues.
While a federal court initially refused to block the law’s enforcement against counselors, the law firm Becket appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled in their favor, urging the lower court to impose a preliminary injunction.
In March, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a therapist in a very similar case, Chiles v. Salazar. The court enjoined Colorado’s enforcement of a similar ban on “conversion therapy,” ruling that Colorado could not enforce the law against a Christian therapist who offers patient-directed talk therapy and who holds to traditional Christian teaching on gender and sexuality.
Whitmer, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, and the other defendants agreed to settle Catholic Charities’ case, and a district court judge issued a permanent injunction Thursday, holding that the law, as applied against the therapists, violates the First Amendment. The injunction blocks Michigan officials from penalizing therapists for providing talk therapy.
The order notes that the parties have entered into a settlement to determine attorney fees.
“Plaintiffs have demonstrated success on the merits of count one in their complaint and established irreparable injury and that an injunction is in the public interest,” the judge wrote.
The offices of Whitmer and Nessel did not immediately respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Why Therapy?
Kaley Chiles, the Christian therapist in the Colorado case, told the Daily Signal that she thinks talk therapy is a better way to address gender dysphoria than the sex-rejecting procedures euphemistically described as “gender-affirming care.”
“I think there’s a conflation of feelings and reality” on gender dysphoria, she said. “We treat eating disorders, addictions, even trauma—trauma treatment is essentially the process of invalidating your feelings.”
“Over the course of therapy, what you want is actually a full invalidation in thought, in feeling, in sensation, in experience, that the trauma response is true,” she explained.
She cited a peer-reviewed study finding little evidence for positive impacts from sex-rejecting procedures, and others suggesting they cause harm.
Goodrich, the attorney for Catholic Charities, noted that “Michigan is now admitting its law is unconstitutional.”
“Its surrender confirms that the Constitution and the best available science are on the side of counselors who help children find peace with their bodies,” he said. “States still trying to censor that care should take note.”
More details on the Michigan government reaction in a Detroit News article:
Michigan won't enforce conversion therapy ban after litigation
By Beth LeBlanc - August 3, 2026Lansing — The state of Michigan has agreed not to enforce a law passed by the Democratic-majority Legislature in 2023 that bans conversion therapy.
The state and Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties, which filed the lawsuit challenging the statute, were part of a Friday stipulated order, in which U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering declared Michigan's conversion therapy ban to violate the right to free speech.
In the order, Beckering prohibited the state from enforcing the conversion therapy ban "against licensed professionals who engage in therapy that consists exclusively of talking."
The Friday order recognizes the relief the plaintiffs are entitled to under a U.S. Supreme Court order that found a similar conversion therapy ban, in Chiles v. Salazar, was unconstitutional, said Kim Bush, a spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office.
"We remain deeply disappointed in this decision and have grave concerns for the implications this could bring for the safety and welfare of Michigan’s children," Bush said.
Because Catholic Charities prevailed on free speech grounds, which entitles them to attorneys' fees and costs, the state has agreed to pay the plaintiffs' attorneys $750,000.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Catholic Charities and its counselors, called the order a "major victory for children, counselors and common sense."
“Kids who are hurting deserve compassion, not a one-way ticket to harmful drugs, hormones, and surgery," said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at Becket. "Now counselors can offer compassionate counseling without fearing that state bureaucrats will come knocking.”
The stipulated agreement comes after a March U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found unconstitutional a similar Colorado law that banned conversion therapy, a form of counseling or therapy seeking to get gay, lesbian or transgender individuals to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The SCOTUS opinion found Colorado's law not only banned physical interventions, but "censors speech based on viewpoint."
"Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the March majority opinion. "Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country."
Michigan's law, essentially overturned under the Colorado decision, was passed by Michigan's Democratic-controlled state government in 2023.
Prior to the March Supreme Court decision, Michigan's law had also been enjoined by the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a December ruling.
Michigan's law, which took effect in February 2024, specifically permitted counseling that provided "assistance to an individual undergoing a gender transition," but banned counseling that "seeks to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity," even if the client seeks that treatment. A therapist found to be violating the law would be subject to a loss of license or fines up to $250,000.
Catholic Charities filed its suit in July 2024 and was initially unsuccessful at the district court level. Beckering, an appointee of U.S. President Joe Biden, had denied a preliminary injunction in January 2025, finding that talk therapy was a conduct or treatment, not speech protected by the First Amendment.
But in December, the Sixth Circuit ruled in a decision written by Judge Raymond Kethledge, appointed by President George W. Bush, that the Michigan law discriminated against speech based on viewpoint: Allowing talk therapy that provides assistance to a person undergoing a gender transition, but banning therapy that seeks to change a child's sexual orientation or gender identity to align with biological sex or religious beliefs.
The state's argument that talk therapy falls under "conduct" regulated by the state's licensing rules rather than speech allowed for under the First Amendment does not hold up, the 6th Circuit majority opinion indicated.
"That argument faces strong headwinds as applied to counseling that consists solely of spoken words — spoken words, moreover, that for these plaintiffs reflect the moral beliefs of therapists and client alike," wrote Kethledge, who is from Michigan. "Indeed, that the plaintiffs' speech is guided by those beliefs is shown by the plaintiffs' referral to other therapists of clients whose goals conflict with those beliefs."
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