Summary
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado's conversion therapy ban, as applied to talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint and required strict First Amendment scrutiny the lower courts had failed to apply. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion reversing the Tenth Circuit. Only Justice Jackson dissented, arguing the law regulates professional conduct within the state's legitimate authority to license healthcare.
Key Takeaways
- 1Colorado conversion therapy ban regulates speech based on viewpoint by permitting affirming talk but prohibiting change-oriented talk; that asymmetry requires strict First Amendment scrutiny.
- 2The 8-1 ruling reversed the Tenth Circuit, which had applied reduced scrutiny treating the law as a regulation of professional conduct rather than speech.
- 3Only Justice Jackson dissented, arguing states have long regulated what licensed healthcare professionals may say to patients and the First Amendment has never blocked that authority.
- 4Justice Kagan concurred but flagged that a viewpoint-neutral content-based conversion therapy ban would raise a harder constitutional question.
- 5About 20 states have similar conversion therapy bans; all face heightened legal challenge after Chiles.
- 6The ruling does not invalidate conversion therapy bans outright; Colorado may redraft or defend on remand under the correct strict scrutiny standard.
- 7The decision extends NIFLA v. Becerra (2018) to hold that viewpoint-based restrictions on professional speech trigger full First Amendment protection.
Background & Context
Kaley Chiles is a licensed Colorado counselor with a faith-based practice. Some of her clients — including minors — come to her experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction and want to align their feelings with their religious beliefs. She uses talk therapy: no aversive conditioning, no physical interventions, just conversation. Colorado's SB 19-130, signed in May 2019 by Governor Jared Polis, the first openly gay man elected governor of any U.S. state, made that a professional misconduct offense subject to license revocation.
Colorado was following a wave. California passed SB 1172 in 2012 — the first state conversion therapy ban — and by 2025, roughly 22 states and more than 100 municipalities had enacted similar laws. Each statute defines conversion therapy as any practice that attempts to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity. Under Colorado's law, a licensed therapist can affirm a minor's LGBTQ+ identity, but the same therapist cannot provide talk therapy aimed at changing it.
Chiles sued, arguing the law punishes speech based on its message, not its methods. The Tenth Circuit upheld the ban under reduced scrutiny, relying on a line of circuit-court decisions that treated what licensed professionals say to clients as closer to regulated conduct than protected expression.
That "professional speech" doctrine had never received Supreme Court endorsement.
In NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a 5-4 majority that professional speech is not a separate, lower-scrutiny category. Content-based speech restrictions — including those targeting what licensed professionals say — generally face heightened First Amendment review. Lower courts split on what NIFLA meant for conversion therapy bans specifically. Several circuits upheld the bans; others read NIFLA as requiring strict scrutiny. Chiles gave the Court its first direct opportunity to answer the question.
The Court's central concern was viewpoint discrimination. Colorado's law permits a therapist to affirm a client's LGBTQ+ identity but bars the same therapist from helping a client who wants the opposite outcome. Both are talk therapy; the only difference is the direction of the message. The majority held that kind of asymmetric restriction can't survive the strict scrutiny NIFLA requires.
The case returned to lower courts to apply that standard to Colorado's specific law.
The Question Before the Court
Does Colorado's law banning licensed therapists from providing conversion therapy to minors violate the First Amendment's protection of free speech as applied to talk therapy?
Petitioner
Kaley Chiles
Party asking the Court to review or reverse
Argued
Respondent
Patty Salazar, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies
Party defending the judgment below
Argued
The Holding
Colorado's law banning conversion therapy, as applied to petitioner's talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.
The Court
How the justices lined up in this decision.
8-1
Vote
Joined decision
8 justicesAC
Amy Barrett
Majority
BK
Brett Kavanaugh
Majority
CT
Clarence Thomas
Majority
EK
Elena Kagan
Majority
JR
John Roberts
Majority
NG
Neil Gorsuch
Majority
SA
Samuel Alito
Majority
SS
Sonia Sotomayor
Majority
Dissented
1 justiceKB
Ketanji Jackson
Dissent
What This Means For You
Colorado's conversion therapy ban must be relitigated under strict scrutiny: SB 19-130 goes back to lower courts to be tested under the demanding standard the majority applied. All 22 states with similar bans — plus more than 100 municipalities — now face that same harder constitutional test for any law that permits gender-affirming therapy while prohibiting change-oriented talk therapy.
Licensed therapists in Colorado can practice conversion therapy on minors without immediate license-revocation risk: The strict-scrutiny ruling creates breathing room while litigation continues. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have each concluded conversion therapy causes depression, anxiety, and elevated suicide risk in minors — but those findings must now be weighed through strict scrutiny rather than treated as dispositive.
State licensing boards face new First Amendment exposure for viewpoint-specific rules: States that regulate what therapists, doctors, or lawyers say to clients through viewpoint-based scope-of-practice rules must reassess those rules. Viewpoint-neutral regulations — informed consent requirements, disclosure mandates, rules that apply equally to all therapeutic messages — remain on more solid footing. Rules that favor one therapeutic message over another don't.
Faith-based counseling practices gain immediate protection: Therapists with religious views about sexuality can now provide talk therapy consistent with those views in states that had conversion therapy bans, without immediate threat of license revocation. The ruling may also strengthen related challenges where licensing boards have disciplined professionals for speech that conflicts with prevailing professional consensus.
The ruling is narrower than it looks: Justice Elena Kagan's concurrence preserved the question of whether a viewpoint-neutral law targeting all discussion of sexual-orientation change — not just asymmetric affirmation-only laws like Colorado's — could survive. Colorado can redraft SB 19-130 on remand. The case isn't over.
Decision
8-1 majority opinion
- Citation
- 607 U.S. ___ (2026)
- Vote
- 8-1
- Decision type
- Majority opinion
- Argued
- October 7, 2025
- Decided
- March 31, 2026
- Term
- 2025
- Opinion author
- Neil Gorsuch
Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Roberts, C.J., and Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ. Kagan, J., filed a concurring opinion, joined by Sotomayor, J. Jackson, J., filed a dissenting opinion.