By a two-to-one majority, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit held that Colorado’s 2019 ban on the provision of “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ children will remain in effect, according to ColoradoPolitics.com.
Colorado Springs counselor Kaley Chiles alleged the law violated her First Amendment rights and sought a preliminary injunction. In 2022, a trial judge ruled against her, determining the law regulated conduct, not speech, and did not target religion.
On Sept. 12, 2024, Judge Veronica S. Rossman wrote in the decision that Colorado’s statute “does not prohibit a mental health professional from discussing what conversion therapy is, what her views on conversion therapy are, or who can legally provide this treatment to her minor clients. It only bars a mental health professional from engaging in the practice herself.” Therefore, the law “is a regulation of professional conduct incidentally involv[ing] speech.” Judge Nancy L. Moritz concurred with Rossman’s opinion while Judge Harris L Hartz dissented.
In a press release that Windy City Times received, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) Senior Staff Attorney Chris Stoll expressed satisfaction with the decision, adding, “These discredited practices, which falsely promise to be able to change a young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, have been rejected as unsafe by every major medical and mental health organization in the country.” NCLR filed a brief in the case on behalf of One Colorado, the state’s largest LGBTQ+-rights organization.
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