Colorado has criminalized compassion. The state now dictates what counselors say to struggling teens.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Chiles v. Salazar, a case that will determine whether families can choose counseling that aligns with biological reality, or whether the government controls every conversation in the counseling room. According to Alliance Defending Freedom’s Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court:

“Colorado’s law allows counselors to push kids down the path of gender transition, often leading to harmful drugs and surgeries. But it doesn’t allow compassionate counselors like Kaley to talk with kids to help them accept their bodies—even when that is their express goal and they have voluntarily sought Kaley out for advice,” Campbell said. “This is censorship, pure and simple. Colorado is picking sides, promoting gender ideology, and banning conversations it dislikes. We are hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold counselors’ freedom of speech and young people’s ability to set their own goals of living at peace with their bodies.”

Here is how it works. A teenage girl (for example), uncomfortable in her body, walks into a counselor’s office in Colorado searching for understanding and hope. If she wants to transition? Counselors must affirm that path. Gender confused children must be guided toward life-changing actions, like social transitioning, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. Colorado calls this “care.”

If the counselor diagnoses gender dysphoria and wants to help her embrace her God-given body? If she and her parents want talk therapy that offers hope, that helps her find peace with her biological sex? Well…

Colorado made that illegal. In doing so, the state replaced hope with gender ideology and a prescription pad.

Meet Kaley Chiles

That’s where Kaley Chiles comes in. As a licensed Christian therapist, she believes young people thrive when they embrace their biological reality. But Colorado claims her words of life and hope are “conduct,” not speech, granting the state power to silence her.

“When my young clients come to me for counsel, they often want to discuss issues of gender and sexuality. Yet my home state only allows my clients to pursue state-approved goals like gender transition,” Chiles said. “Colorado’s law harms kids and censors speech. I’m hopeful the Supreme Court will do the right thing—for me, other counselors, and most importantly, kids everywhere.”

One way. One destination. Government approved.

Alliance Defending Freedom’s Jim Campbell argued before the Court that “[Colorado’s law] undermines the well-being of kids that are struggling with gender dysphoria.” When government dictates which conversations counselors can have and which goals clients can pursue, kids become victims of ideological censorship. The message they receive is not one of hope, but of gender indoctrination. Their only option: a course of treatment that often leads to irreparable harm and a lifetime of medical interventions.

The Defense?

Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson defended the ban on Tuesday. Then she undermined her own argument. As Charles Cooke pointed out in a post on National Review Online, she stated the following:

“And the reason why is because the harms from conversion therapy come from when you tell a young person you can change this innate thing about yourself, and they try and they try and they fail, and then they have shame and they’re miserable, and then it ruins their relationships with their family or —”

And:

“And, again, the — the harm from it comes not from the — from the aversive practice; it comes from telling someone there’s something innate about yourself you can change, and then you spend all kinds of time and effort trying to do that, and you fail.”

Read that again.

Telling kids, they can change something innate causes harm. Aligning them with God’s plan for human sexuality leads to shame and ruined family relationships.

She just described gender transitioning. The very thing Colorado’s one-way street drives kids toward.

So yes, Solicitor General Stevenson, we agree. And we hope that the Supreme Court does too.

What’s At Stake

Approximately two dozen states have similar laws. Here in Arizona, Governor Hobbs has issued an executive order and Pima County has enacted an ordinance that similarly restrict the free-speech rights of counselors. If Colorado wins, counselors nationwide face censorship. Parents lose the right to seek help aligned with their faith and values. Kids get locked onto a government-approved fast lane toward permanent medical interventions.

Truth should not be criminal. Christian counselors should not be banned from discussing the biblical account of the created order and the very teachings of Christ about men and women. Government has no business dictating private counseling sessions where families seek help according to their own beliefs.

The Supreme Court must now decide: Can families choose their own path, or does the state control every destination?

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