Colorado conversion therapy ban goes back to court

Colorado's ban on speech-only conversion therapy, the effort to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling, is back in the district court after a May 27, 2026, filing from the Tenth Circuit. The case centers on Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor, and state officials led by Patty Salazar, the executive director of the Department of Regulatory Agencies.

The Supreme Court had already said the law regulates speech in a viewpoint-discriminatory way and must survive strict scrutiny, the hardest constitutional test for speech restrictions. That leaves the state with a much steeper burden than a routine regulatory defense.

What Colorado now has to prove

The remand does not settle whether Colorado can keep enforcing the ban against counselors like Chiles. It sends the dispute back so a lower court can work through the Supreme Court's instruction and decide whether the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.

For counselors, patients, and families, the practical question is whether the state can bar certain kinds of counseling conversations in professional practice. That is the issue now hanging over the case, not the filing itself.

Why this case matters beyond one counselor

Conversion therapy fights often turn on where a state draws the line between professional regulation and protected speech. Here, the court's framework matters because it could determine whether Colorado's rule reaches only conduct in treatment or also what a licensed counselor is allowed to say.

If the state cannot meet strict scrutiny, the ban could narrow or fall as applied to speech-based counseling. If it can, Colorado keeps a tool aimed at a practice many medical and mental-health groups have long treated as harmful.