Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Court Upholds Legal Ban in Colorado
Colorado’s 2019 ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors will remain in effect after a federal appeals court declined to block the law on constitutional grounds.
Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs, challenged the law, claiming it violated her First Amendment rights. She sought a preliminary injunction, arguing the ban infringed on her ability to provide “talk therapy” to clients. In 2022, a district judge ruled against her, stating that the law regulated conduct rather than speech and did not target religion.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling.
“The law does not prohibit a mental health professional from discussing what conversion therapy is, what her views on conversion therapy are, or who can legally provide this treatment to her minor clients,” wrote Judge Veronica S. Rossman in the court’s Sept. 12 opinion. “It only bars a mental health professional from engaging in the practice herself,” Rossman concluded that the law is a regulation of professional conduct that incidentally involves speech.
Judge Harris L. Hartz dissented, arguing that Chiles’ therapy involved inherently expressive speech and should not be subject to the conduct restriction.
The Colorado law bans licensed professionals from performing conversion therapy on minors, a practice widely discredited by major medical and psychological organizations for its harmful effects.
