Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, in which a counselor is challenging a Colorado law that censors voluntary conversations between herself and her clients.

Kaley Chiles sees her profession as an outpouring of her Christian faith. And although she accepts all clients, she is often sought out by clients who share her values. The law the Supreme Court will review forbids Kaley from having certain conversations on issues of gender and sexuality. For example, it bans conversations to help a client recover an identity consistent with his or her sex, but it allows conversations that push clients down the path of gender transition.

If a counselor has a forbidden conversation — even if the client voluntarily wants to have the conversation — the counselor can be fined thousands of dollars and lose her license.

If Colorado is successful in dictating what professional counselors can and cannot say in their private conversations with clients, the implications will be profound.

Imagine the following scenario, based on all-too-real stories that have happened around the country: A young Jane Doe has grown up in a single-parent household, abandoned by her father at a young age. Although her mother tries her best, it’s all she can do to hold down multiple jobs to support her family and keep track of her daughter’s mental stability. On top of that, a new boyfriend of the mother sexually abuses Jane, sending her into a spiral of guilt and shame about her body. As puberty hits, all Jane can think is that life would be safer and easier as a boy.

The one solid foundation in Jane’s chaotic life is that her mother takes her to church, and Jane knows that God made her female with a purpose. She opens up to her mother, and after a referral from her pastor, Jane finds herself in Kaley’s office, requesting help to change to become more comfortable with her God-given sex.

Kaley would normally encourage the girl by exploring the underlying causes of the dysphoria, setting goals, and providing mental tools to deal with the guilt and shame while undergoing puberty — which is when the vast majority of young people accept their biological sex. But thanks to Colorado’s law, Kaley is forced instead to explain that she cannot pursue Jane’s goals without losing her license. To avoid the risk of violating Colorado’s law, Kaley cannot provide the requested advice.

Distraught, Jane and her mother never return to Kaley and seek out a doctor’s referral instead. The doctor, hearing that Jane is confused about her sex, immediately begins a medical course toward “transitioning” Jane to be a boy, prescribing first puberty blockers and then testosterone, all the while neglecting to inquire about Jane’s trauma or hold her sexual abuser accountable. When Jane’s mother objects, the doctor warns, “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?”

Caught in this confusing whirlwind, Jane begins to inject the hormones. Her voice grows deeper, and she sprouts facial hair. She gains an uncomfortable amount of weight, develops heart issues, and is in danger of contracting diabetes. All the while, medical experts continually affirm that she is living the life she was meant to live while being trapped in the wrong body.

At 17, doctors rush Jane into a double mastectomy. Left in the post-op room, Jane’s surgical wounds begin to fill with infectious liquid, but the medical facility carelessly ignores the problem and sends her home. The pain is too much to bear, and Jane is rushed to the emergency room to drain her chest of the fluid that the plastic surgeons ignored.

All the while, Jane awaits the day for her distress to subside. But it never does.

I wish I could say this is all speculative or an exaggerated story that could never happen. But given the growing body of evidence and brave individuals known as “detransitioners” speaking up about their experiences, the chances are far too high that young people in Colorado — along with 22 other states and 100 local jurisdictions with similar laws — could face this haunting reality as more and more young people face struggles with gender dysphoria and no licensed counselors to help them.

There is a much better path forward — one that helps and protects minors instead of forcing them onto a one-way road to lifelong medical interventions and hardship. Alliance Defending Freedom, where I serve as vice president of appellate advocacy, is representing Kaley in her lawsuit, urging the Supreme Court to allow Kaley and other licensed counselors to have life-saving conversations with young people across the nation without government officials forcing their dangerous views into the counseling room.

John Bursch is senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy with Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal). He has argued 13 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as Michigan’s solicitor general from 2011 to 2013.