Chiles v. Salazar, et al.

Brief filed: 5/23
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Year of Decision: 2024

Read full-text amicus brief (PDF, 242KB)opens in new window

Whether Colorado’s regulation of specific therapeutic practices through its enactment of the Minor Therapy Conversion Law (prohibiting mental health professionals from engaging in “conversion therapies” for minors), unlawfully abridges a therapist’s right to free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Gender Identity; Sexual Orientation/Sexual Orientation Change Efforts

The Plaintiff, Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the State of Colorado, filed for a temporary injunction to bar enforcement of Colorado’s Minor Therapy Conversion Law of 2019. C.R.S. §§ 12-245-101 and 12-245-202. Chiles alleged that the law hindered her ability to assist her minor clients in changing their sexual orientation or gender identity. The district court denied her motion for preliminary injunction late last year, and Ms. Chiles appealed that order.

APA’s brief incorporates research from the prior amicus briefs filed on the lack of demonstrated effectiveness and the psychological risks to minors of sexual-orientation and gender identity conversion therapy, as well as the APA’s 2021 Resolutions on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts and Gender Identity Change Efforts.

Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court finding that a Colorado state ban on conversion therapy with minors lawfully regulates the professional conduct of mental health professionals. The plaintiff, a licensed professional counselor, had argued that the law violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, denigrating mental health therapy as not “professional conduct,” but merely “free speech.”

The APA amicus brief (PDF, 242KB)opens in new window and the 2009 APA Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation Task Force report (PDF, 1MB)opens in new window (upon which the Colorado statute had been initially based) were heavily cited throughout the Court’s opinion.  The opinion repeatedly cited to the APA brief for the proposition that conversion therapy is a harmful and discredited practice, noted that the APA Task Force report’s “systematic review of the peer-reviewed journal literature on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE),” including verbal, non-aversive SOCE demonstrates that conversion therapy for minors “is a practice that is not supported by credible evidence[] and has been disavowed by behavioral health experts and associations.” That is because “efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm, contrary to the claims of SOCE practitioners and advocates.” The court concluded, “[i]n our view, the APA Task Force’s conclusion supports the district court’s finding that conversion therapy is harmful to minors.”