Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar regarding a licensed mental health counselor challenging Colorado’s 2019 counseling ban that violates the free speech of licensed counselors who help minors deal with unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. The High Court is expected to decide the case by June 2026.

Many of the Justices focused their questions on whether Colorado’s law is a prior restraint or viewpoint restriction that prohibits counselors from helping a minor with unwanted gender confusion but would allow counselors the opposite viewpoint to affirm a child’s gender identity. Both Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan questioned the law indicating it seemed to employ “viewpoint discrimination.”

A significant portion of the arguments also involved whether talk therapy, as a medical treatment, was entirely speech fully protected by the First Amendment or a combination of speech and professional conduct that can be partially regulated. Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the High Court had previously rejected a separate speech category for professional speech in the 2015 NIFLA case involving crisis pregnancy centers.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was also skeptical that a state can just “pick a side” when there are “competing medical views” as to how to treat gender confusion. 

Liberty Counsel filed two amicus briefs to the High Court, one arguing that the Court should take the case, and one on the legal merits of the case after the Court accepted the case for review. Liberty Counsel argued that Colorado’s law relies heavily on ideology instead of sound science, and that it should not stand because the First Amendment does not allow any state to dictate which counseling viewpoints may be discussed between a counselor and their client. 

“The First Amendment prohibits states from dictating which therapeutic approaches may be spoken,” wrote Liberty Counsel. “Colorado’s law restricts speech solely based on viewpoint. Such laws in the realm of counseling are unprecedented and go directly against the fundamental essence of counseling, namely that the client has the right of self-determination to choose the counseling objective.”

Liberty Counsel continued, “But exploratory therapy—rooted in self-determination—seeks not to impose an identity but to help children understand their distress before making irreversible decisions.”

Liberty Counsel led the nation challenging these counseling bans and filed the first legal challenges in 2012 in California (Pickup v. Newsom) and New Jersey (King v. Christie). While the Ninth and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal upheld these bans for different reasons, in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court nullified both decisions when it struck down California’s law that attempted to regulate the speech of crisis pregnancy centers (NIFLA v. Newsom), in which Liberty Counsel represented crisis pregnancy centers.

Liberty Counsel won the first case in the nation striking down these counseling bans in Florida. In both Otto v. City of Boca Raton and Vazzo v. City of Tampa, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down city ordinances that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion because they were unconstitutional under the First Amendment. These cases set up the conflict with the Colorado case that provided the opportunity for the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

Chiles is a licensed mental health counselor in Colorado who treats clients with issues related to addiction, trauma, gender confusion, and sexual attraction. However, the Colorado law in question authorizes fines of up to $5,000 per violation and suspension or even revocation of the counselor’s license for attempting to help a minor overcome unwanted gender confusion or same-sex attractions. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Laws that restrict counselors and clients to only one viewpoint violate the First Amendment. Talk therapy is speech, and the government has no authority to restrict that speech to just one viewpoint. Counseling bans must be struck down nationwide so that people can get the counseling they need. Counselors and clients should have the freedom to choose the counsel of their choice and be free of government censorship.”