Tenth Circuit upholds Colorado ban on conversion therapy for minors

In federal court, Colorado can keep barring licensed counselors from offering conversion therapy to minors, and the Tenth Circuit backed that rule by leaning on Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The judges said the abortion case helps show why a state can regulate what happens inside a licensed medical or counseling system without automatically running afoul of the First Amendment.

Casey involved a Pennsylvania law that required physicians to give patients state-mandated information before an abortion. The Supreme Court saw “no constitutional infirmity” in that requirement, and the Tenth Circuit used that same logic to explain why Colorado’s law can be treated as regulation of professional treatment rather than speech in the abstract.

Why Casey mattered

That analogy does the heavy lifting in the opinion. The court’s point was not that counselors lose speech rights once they are licensed, but that the state may still decide what counts as acceptable treatment when it is delivered through a regulated profession. On that view, the constitutional question changes. The law is no longer just telling people what they may say; it is telling licensed professionals what they may do in the course of care.

In Chiles v. Salazar, that distinction lets Colorado defend its ban as a rule about professional conduct inside a licensing system. The court drew a line between pure expression and treatment, and said the state can stand on the treatment side of that line.

The rule that survives

For Colorado families and minors seeking mental-health care, the practical result does not change. Licensed counselors still may not provide conversion therapy to minors in the state.

The decision also sends a clear signal about the legal terrain ahead. First Amendment challenges to therapy rules will keep running into the same question the court answered here: is the state regulating speech itself, or is it regulating licensed care?