The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments early next month in a case examining whether a Colorado law that claims to ban “conversion therapy” simply polices the conduct of counselors or violates the First Amendment, as lawyers for the petitioner claim.

The case, scheduled for arguments before the justices on Oct. 7, was brought by Colorado licensed counselor Kaley Chiles, who believes the law in question unlawfully restricts her as a therapist in how she can talk with children experiencing gender dysphoria. The law claims to ban “conversion therapy,” but the state’s definition of the term includes banning therapists from trying to dissuade children from changing their gender identity or sexual orientation. Chiles argues the law unconstitutionally limits what she can discuss with clients who voluntarily come to her seeking guidance.

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Chiles has been represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm, since she brought the case to federal district court. Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel and vice president of litigation strategy at ADF, told the Washington Examiner that the heart of the case is whether the government is allowed to dictate what information a counselor can provide in private conversations with clients.

“Colorado is cutting off one option when families and kids are struggling [with] how to handle gender dysphoria and these issues related to human sexuality,” Scruggs said. “Can the government come in and say you can’t talk about certain things, or should clients and their families and their counselors be able to discuss issues openly?”

“It really goes to the heart of the First Amendment, and we also think it goes to the heart of helping kids in need of help,” he added.

The case was brought to federal court in 2022, but at both the federal district court and appeals courts, Chiles’s argument that the law violates the First Amendment was unsuccessful. The Supreme Court agreed in March to hear Chiles’s case, setting arguments for the first week of its upcoming term.

Should the Supreme Court uphold the lower courts’ rulings and side with Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies Executive Director Patty Salazar, Scruggs believes that ruling would affect not only Chiles, but it would also leave families with limited options for counseling children experiencing gender dysphoria.

“The only option it leaves the families is to turn to a counselor who is okay pushing kids down that path of taking drugs, doing surgeries to change their bodies — or try to change their bodies,” Scruggs told the Washington Examiner. “So in a day and age when massive amounts of families and kids are struggling with this issue, related to how you understand who you are and how you should live, kids need options.”

“We shouldn’t be forcing kids into a one-size-fits-all counseling option,” he added. “In this matter, choice is better, and we should just let families and kids choose the best counseling option for them.”

Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Salazar that the state is lawfully regulating healthcare and argued Chiles’s position “would gut states’ power to ensure mental healthcare professionals comply with the standard of care.”

“Moreover, because so much healthcare — regardless of the field — is delivered exclusively through words, Petitioner’s efforts to distinguish substandard treatment involving words from substandard treatment that does not involve words would destabilize longstanding and sensible healthcare regulation,” the brief added.

Weiser also defined “conversion therapy” in the brief, giving a broad description that he said includes conversations.

“Conversion therapy may include physical conduct, will almost always include some words, and may be conducted with words only. Regardless of how it is performed, conversion therapy is ineffective and is associated with harms that include depression, anxiety, loss of faith, and suicidality,” the brief to the Supreme Court said.

Colorado’s recent track record at the Supreme Court, defending state laws contested as violating personal freedoms, has been poor. The state has lost cases involving Jack Phillips’s refusal to bake a cake for a gay wedding, something the state attempted to force him to do, and Lorie Smith’s refusal to create same-sex wedding websites, which Colorado also attempted to force her to do. Colorado lost both legal battles on First Amendment grounds.

Pointing to those previous lawsuits, which ADF was a part of, along with other current lawsuits, Scruggs noted Colorado’s past losses in First Amendment cases.

“We’re very confident that our arguments are solid, in the sense that when the government tells people you can’t engage in conversations that you want to engage in because we don’t like the particular viewpoint, you’ve got to meet a high burden under the First Amendment to have that type of law survive,” Scruggs told the Washington Examiner.

The arguments in Chiles v. Salazar will be the third case the high court hears for its 2025-2026 term. Later in the term, the Supreme Court term will continue to weigh in on the matter of gender ideology when it considers a pair of lawsuits over laws restricting women’s sports to biological women. The case will also be the first challenge on First Amendment grounds heard by the justices this term.

Scruggs said Colorado’s legal theory in the conversion therapy case can be summed up as the state believing it “can regulate the speech of professionals with wide discretion,” including lawyers, doctors, and “any type of professional [in] Colorado.” He hopes the justices will “resoundingly reject” that theory.

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“We’re hopeful the Supreme Court doesn’t go that route, both for the sake of the kids and our client, Kaley. We think this is such a clear violation of the First Amendment. It’s really just blatant censorship,” Scruggs said.

“At the end of the day, it’s the government saying you can’t engage in conversations. You can’t talk to someone who’s a licensed professional counselor,” he added. “We think that the clients and the families should make that choice not to go.”