Supreme Court strikes down conversion therapy ban on free speech grounds
The US Supreme Court has stopped a conversion therapy ban (stock image via Getty Images)
The Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot ban conversion therapy for minors via limiting the topics therapists and professionals can discuss with their clients, delivering an 8–1 decision today (31 March) that reshapes how such laws are enforced across the US.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said: “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” finding that states cannot use licensing rules to restrict what therapists discuss with clients.
The case, Chiles v. Salazar, was brought by Colorado-based therapist Kaley Chiles, who argued she should be allowed to provide faith-based counselling to minors who wish to reduce feelings of same-sex attraction or feel more comfortable in their bodies.
READ MORE: ‘Conversion therapy did nothing to get rid of my transness,’ survivors say
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenting voice. The ruling is seen as a major win for the Trump administration, which had backed the challenge.
The decision applies specifically to talk therapy, meaning states still retain the power to regulate medical interventions like hormones or surgery.
It follows a 2025 ruling in which the court upheld state bans on certain gender-affirming treatments for minors.
According to The Washington Post, Chiles has claimed she does not want to convert LGBTQ+ youngsters, but help them reduce apparently unwanted attractions.
She wrote in her filing that her clients “believe their faith and their relationships with God supersede romantic attractions and that God determines their identity according to what He has revealed in the Bible rather than their attractions or perceptions determining their identity”.
Conversion therapy in the US
It’s estimated, as per the Williams Institute, that 698,000 LGBT adults in the US went through conversion therapy, with 350,00 having it during their adolescent years.
This is despite the 2019 Stonewall Anniversary Poll finding that 56 per cent of Americans said conversion therapy on LGBTQ kids should be illegal.
The same poll found that 64% of people disagreed that a medical professional should be allowed to withhold elective care from an LGBTQ+ patient if their religious objections called for it.
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