Chiles v. Salazar

Kaley Chiles (plaintiff) was a Colorado licensed mental-health counselor who used talk therapy to help clients achieve their goals. Some of Chiles’s adult and minor clients seeking counseling for sexuality and gender issues were content with their sexual orientation and gender identity but sought counseling for social or family issues. Other clients sought counseling to realign their gender identity with their biological sex or change unwanted sexual attractions. In 2019, Colorado passed a law that prohibited counselors from performing conversion therapy with minors, meaning any practices or treatments that attempted to change a minor’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or attraction to persons of the same sex. The law expressly allowed counselors to support gender exploration and gender transition. Chiles sued Colorado official Patty Salazar (defendant), seeking an injunction preventing enforcement of the law against Chiles. Chiles argued that, as applied to talk therapy, the law violated First Amendment freedom of speech by preventing Chiles from engaging in certain speech with minor clients. The district court classified the law as a professional regulation subject only to rational-basis review, which it satisfied because it was rationally related to a legitimate government interest in protecting minors. The court denied the preliminary injunction. The Tenth Circuit affirmed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.