At least three aspects of the case should lead to free speech prevailing.

I n the board game Taboo, a speaker seeks to lead listeners to a certain answer and must point the way using only words that the game allows. The game sets a predetermined goal and censors the speech that would best help teams to achieve it. Such rules ensure a fun game night, but when states deploy them, it crashes the party and violates the First Amendment.

Just ask Colorado counselors. In 2019, Colorado enacted a law that restricts them from having certain conversations about gender and sexuality with clients under the age of 18. Any counselor who speaks the forbidden messages could face steep penalties — up to $5,000 for each violation, possible suspension from practice, and even revocation of the counselor’s license.

Alliance Defending Freedom, where I serve as chief legal counsel, represents counselor Kaley Chiles in a lawsuit against this prohibitive law. Kaley is a Christian who sees her vocation as an outpouring of her faith, and her clients often seek her out because they share the same values and beliefs. The Supreme Court heard her case on Tuesday, and at least three aspects of the case should lead to free speech prevailing.

First, Colorado bans the expression of viewpoints with which it disagrees. If a girl comes to Kaley, says she thinks she may be a boy, and wants to realign her identity with her sex, Colorado’s law bans that conversation. At the same time, the law allows conversations to push that girl down an unproven path of gender transition, which might include dangerous drugs and procedures. Colorado is coercing counselors and their clients to succumb to its ideological demands or refuse help.

Second, this viewpoint discrimination treads on client autonomy. Kaley works only with clients who want her help. In fact, many clients who seek Kaley’s help come to her because of shared values. But Colorado’s law makes no exception for clients who want a conversation with a counselor to help them realign their identity with their sex. The state assumes it knows best what kinds of views counselors and their clients can discuss — even when children and their families disagree. Government has no business silencing desired conversations on matters of moral and spiritual significance.

Third, Colorado’s paternalism harms the very children it aims to protect. Kaley’s clients always set the goal for her counseling conversations. And nearly all counseling clients seek change. But Colorado’s law declares change a forbidden goal if clients seek conversations to help them recover an identity consistent with their sex. Studies show that roughly 90 percent of children who struggle with these gender issues before puberty will regain comfort with their sex over time. But Colorado’s law encourages these children down a rushed and unproven path of gender transition.

Worse, Colorado’s law deprives children of the many reported benefits that can come from this counseling, including a better self-understanding, improved mental health, and increased hope that they can live consistently with their faith. After all, many clients believe that their religious identity is more fundamental than their self-perceptions of gender and sexuality.

Yet Colorado funnels all counselors and clients into an unproven one-size-fits-all approach. This ransacks free speech, rejects client autonomy, and restricts available help, which leads to crippling harm in the counseling room. How best to discuss struggles with gender and sexuality, which are widely debated matters of moral and spiritual significance, should be left up to Kaley and her willing clients — not the government.

The U.S. Supreme Court has the opportunity to reaffirm that freedom. It should once again protect free speech from Colorado’s attempt to crush it — this time for counselors and their clients. Colorado must play by the rules.