The Supreme Court’s conversion therapy ruling came down March 31, 2026, in Chiles v. Salazar, where an 8–1 majority held that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy, as applied to talk therapy with minors, discriminates against speech based on viewpoint and must survive strict scrutiny under the First Amendment.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar The Court reversed the Tenth Circuit and sent the case back for further proceedings. Bans on physical interventions like electroshock remain clearly constitutional; blanket prohibitions on spoken counseling aimed at changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity now face the most demanding constitutional test the Court applies.
What the Court Held
Justice Gorsuch wrote for the majority. Justice Kagan filed a concurrence joined by Justice Sotomayor. Justice Jackson dissented alone.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar
The plaintiff, Kayla Chiles, is a licensed Colorado counselor. She did not challenge the state’s authority to ban physical techniques. Her claim was narrower: she wanted to conduct talk therapy consisting only of spoken conversation, and Colorado’s 2019 statute prohibited her from doing so when her words were aimed at changing a client’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The Court agreed that applying the law to her speech triggers strict scrutiny, and it remanded rather than striking the statute down outright. Colorado now has the opportunity to try to prove a compelling interest and narrow tailoring, though laws subjected to strict scrutiny rarely survive it.
Why the Majority Called It Viewpoint Discrimination
The reasoning turns on a specific observation about how Colorado’s law is written. It does not regulate all therapeutic speech about sexual orientation or gender identity. It regulates speech pointing in one direction. A counselor can help a teenager explore their identity or support a gender transition, but the same counselor cannot have a conversation aimed at changing that teenager’s orientation or identity. The majority called this “an egregious form” of content regulation because it dictates not just the subject matter but the permissible viewpoint on that subject.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar
Colorado argued the law regulates conduct, not speech, because therapy is a professional treatment. The Court rejected that framing bluntly: “Her speech does not become ‘conduct’ just because a government says so or because it may be described as a ‘treatment’ or ‘therapeutic modality.’ The First Amendment is no word game, and ‘the exercise of constitutional rights’ cannot be circumscribed ‘by mere labels.'”1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar That language closes off the conduct-versus-speech distinction that several federal appeals courts had used to uphold earlier bans.
Talk Therapy vs. Physical Interventions
The ruling draws a firm line between spoken counseling and physical practices. Chiles herself did not challenge Colorado’s authority over physical techniques, and the Court noted that “the State’s law banning ‘conversion therapy’ may address conduct—such as aversive physical interventions” in many valid applications.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar Banning electric shocks or similar physical techniques raises no free-speech concern because the government is regulating a physical act.
Talk therapy is different. When the only tool a counselor uses is the spoken word, restricting what she may say is restricting speech. The Court found no recognized First Amendment exception that would let Colorado treat those conversations as unprotected. The law does not target fraud, defamation, or any other historically unprotected category. It targets a counselor’s viewpoint on a contested topic, and that triggers strict scrutiny.
Professional Speech Is Not a Lesser Category
A common argument in defense of these bans has been that professionals speak in a diminished First Amendment tier. If a state licenses you, the theory goes, it can dictate what you say in your professional capacity more freely than it can restrict your speech as a private citizen. The Court rejected that idea in 2018 in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, writing that it has “not recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech” and has been “especially reluctant to ‘exemp[t] a category of speech from the normal prohibition on content-based restrictions.'”2Supreme Court of the United States. National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra
The Chiles majority built directly on that foundation, stating that “NIFLA expressly rejected the notion that professional speech is subject to ‘diminished constitutional protection.'”1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar Holding a state license does not shrink a counselor’s First Amendment rights. States cannot justify restrictions on therapeutic speech simply by pointing to their licensing authority.
What Happens to Bans in Other States
More than two dozen states have conversion therapy laws on the books. Those statutes remain technically in force until a court strikes them down in a specific case, but any licensed counselor now brings a much stronger challenge. The conduct-based framework the laws were built on has been rejected at the highest level.
States wanting to preserve their bans face the strict scrutiny test. That requires proving a compelling government interest and narrow tailoring, meaning no less restrictive alternative could achieve the same goal. Most laws subjected to that test do not survive it. The 8–1 margin also signals how skeptical the current Court is of the interests states have offered so far.
Colorado’s own law, on remand, will get the chance to be defended under the correct standard. Whether it survives is an open question the lower courts will now work through.
The Dissent’s Warning
Justice Jackson warned that the ruling “might make speech-only therapies and other medical treatments involving practitioner speech effectively unregulatable—not to be reached via licensing standards, medical-malpractice liability, or any other means of state control.”1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar The concern reaches beyond conversion therapy. If the government cannot distinguish between speech-as-treatment and speech-as-speech, the reasoning could constrain mental health regulation generally.
What States Can Still Do
The ruling did not touch the general authority of states to license healthcare professionals, set qualification standards, or discipline practitioners who cause demonstrated harm. What it rejected was the idea that licensing authority includes prescribing which viewpoint a professional may express during a conversation with a client.
The majority pointed out that the first state counselor-licensing law was adopted only in 1976, and licensing has historically addressed qualifications rather than prescribing a professional’s point of view.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiles v. Salazar Malpractice claims require proof that a specific patient was injured by a breach of the standard of care, which the Court said provides “breathing room for protected speech.” A blanket statutory ban does not offer that individualized assessment.
Practitioners who violate licensing rules still face administrative penalties such as probation, fines, and license revocation. The unresolved question is whether a state board can treat speech-based conversion therapy as a per se violation, or whether enforcement now requires case-specific proof of harm. Lower courts will work that out in the coming years.
Scope: Minors and Licensed Professionals
Every state conversion therapy ban enacted so far applies only to licensed professionals treating minors. No state has extended these prohibitions to consenting adults. Legislators drafted the laws narrowly on the theory that protecting children provides the strongest possible government interest.
After Chiles, even that narrow scope may not be enough. The Court’s analysis focused on the viewpoint-discriminatory structure of the law rather than on the age of the client. A state would need to argue that shielding minors from a particular therapeutic viewpoint is a compelling interest so weighty it justifies restricting a counselor’s speech. The argument remains available. The 8–1 vote suggests it will be a hard one to win.