Supreme Court Rules Against Colorado’s Conversion Therapy Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a Colorado law banning so-called “conversion therapy” for minors violates free speech rights of professional therapists.

Breaking news: The Supreme Court found that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for gay and transgender minors likely violates free speech.

The decision casts doubt on similar statutes in nearly 30 states. https://t.co/DlYB32aUKr

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 31, 2026

From the Washington Post:

In an 8-1 ruling, an ideologically diverse majority ruled for an evangelical therapist who argued the state prohibition infringed on her First Amendment rights.

Kaley Chiles said she wanted to counsel religious teens dealing with sexual orientation issues and gender dysphoria in ways consistent with biblical teachings.

The decision casts doubt on similar statutes in nearly 30 states that prohibit attempts to change the expressed sexual orientation or gender identity of youths. Many states passed the laws over the last decade as evidence grew that the treatment was harmful.

Colorado argued it was not regulating free speech but outlawing substandard medical care — something courts have long allowed.

Ketanji Brown Jackson breaks with liberal justices in backing ‘conversion therapy’ banhttps://t.co/vykK9JR1vX

— The Hill (@thehill) March 31, 2026

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter on the ruling.

Reading parts of her 35-page opinion from the bench, Jackson argued that states have long regulated medical care, and to think of talk therapy differently “flouts centuries of state-standardized regulation of medical care and is, ultimately, nonsensical.”

“The Constitution does not pose a barrier to reasonable regulation of harmful medical treatments just because substandard care comes via speech instead of scalpel,” she wrote in her opinion.

This decision reverses an appeals court ruling which upheld Colorado’s law. The case  now heads back to the lower courts to apply a stricter standard that government restrictions on speech usually don’t survive.

The Supreme Court has ruled against a law banning conversion therapy for minors.

LGBT youth subjected to conversion therapy have higher rates of suicide, depression, and anxiety. pic.twitter.com/eRgpmmXGyk

— FactPost (@factpostnews) March 31, 2026

As I’ve written here before many times – the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other major medical groups oppose conversion therapy.

Numerous studies have linked the harmful practice to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and higher rates of suicide among gay and transgender people.

Today’s ruling sends a terrible message to LGBTQ youth that who they are is something to be “fixed.”

Chiles was, of course, represented by the virulently anti-LGBTQ law group Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal firm that succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, and over the past few years, has lined up several challenges to LGBTQ rights.

Read more here.

Breaking: The Supreme Court has just issued a ruling siding with Trump to bring back “gay conversion therapy.”

This practice involves physically abusing teenagers to try to turn them heterosexual, including with electric shocks and chemically-induced nausea. pic.twitter.com/w87rlIKQud

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 31, 2026