- The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Colorado's conversion therapy ban, citing free speech protections.
- Utah also bans conversion therapy, but supporters say the law is likely to survive the ruling because of how it was written.
- Utah's approach differs, allowing neutral speech and banning harmful conversion practices.
SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a Colorado law banning so-called conversion therapy for minors, saying it ran afoul of First Amendment protections on free speech.
In an 8-1 opinion, the court sided with a Christian counselor from Colorado who said the 2019 law, which prohibits any practice "that attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity," seeks to regulate the content of her speech with patients.
"As applied here, Colorado's law does not just regulate the content of Ms. (Kaley) Chiles' speech," Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion. "It goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express."
Utah is one of more than 20 states which prohibits health care providers from engaging in conversion therapy with minors. Tuesday's decision could affect the legality of many of those laws, but the Republican lawmaker behind Utah's ban said he believes it remains constitutional because of the way it was written.
"We are viewpoint neutral. In other words, we don't tell a therapist what they have to say to a child," Rep. Mike Petersen, R-North Logan, told KSL Tuesday.
Conversion therapy has been widely discredited as a practice that seeks to "convert" LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or change their gender identity. Utah's law banning the practice passed in 2023 with unanimous support in both the state House and Senate, and it is still the only state-level ban to face no opposition. It received the backing of groups as disparate as the conservative Utah Eagle Forum and the LGBTQ+ rights organization Equality Utah.
Marina Lowe, Equality Utah's policy director, shared Petersen's optimism that Utah's law would stand, saying it was "aimed at banning the harmful practice of attempting to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity through therapeutic intervention."
"While most of these state laws rely on similar language to the now-invalidated Colorado statute, Utah took a different approach," she told KSL via text. "Equality Utah worked in collaboration with Republican lawmakers and other stakeholders to develop alternative language designed to balance the free speech rights of licensed therapists with the need to protect minors from harmful and discredited medical practices."
Utah's law allows health care professionals to engage in "neutral" speech surrounding issues of sexuality and gender identity, and allows them to help minors who are "considering a gender transition in any direction." By carving out that distinction with Colorado's law and many similar statutes in other states, Utah "threaded this needle" with a law designed to protect children that will also likely survive the court's ruling, according to Robin Wilson, a law professor from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who consulted with the Legislature on the 2023 law.
"The structure of the Colorado law was don't intend to change anything, and the only safe thing you can do is affirm," she told KSL, referring to support for a patient's sexual orientation or gender identity. "This is different. This is nobody should intend to change anybody's conduct or orientation."
That's already within the best practices of therapists, she added, who are "supposed to help the client work through things," not change their minds.
"I think that the Supreme Court decision is going to say that what we're doing in Utah is really the way it ought to be done across the country," added Petersen.
Wilson said she doesn't "see anything about his law being imperiled" by Tuesday's ruling.
The Utah law also includes explicit prohibitions on aversive treatments such as electric shock, induced nausea and any conversion therapy-related treatment that causes minor patients to harm themselves.
Lawmakers noted that such practices were probably not occurring in Utah as the bill was being discussed, but wanted to codify a ban on what Petersen said are "barbaric things" often associated with conversion therapy.
A spokeswoman for the Utah Senate told KSL the Legislature is "reviewing the court's ruling to determine any potential impact it may have on Utah."
Petersen said he still believes there is broad support for Utah's law, and said it is often held up as a "great example of the Utah way of Utahns working together, coming up with a solution that doesn't put somebody in a corner."
"I think it's remarkable that Utah has found a way through what has just been a slog with the rest of the country," Wilson added. "We don't have to be divided about these things that are so deeply personal to us, like our identity or how we choose to love. People, you know, can find a way to protect everybody in the same law."
