This article was originally published by the Colorado Times Recorder
The Supreme Court will hear a case from Colorado to decide whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ children. The plaintiff in the suit is Kaley Chiles, a Colorado Springs therapist, who is challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors.
“Several years ago, Colorado passed a law that censors what counselors and their clients can talk about in private conversations,” said Matt Sharp, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom during an appearance this week on the Jeff and Bill show. “We’re representing Kaley Chiles. She’s a licensed counselor in Colorado. For years she’s helped people in the state with trauma, with disorders, with mental health issues, and that includes helping people that are dealing with sexual attractions or gender confusion and that are wanting and seeking out help consistent with their Christian faith. So these are individuals coming to Kaley because she is a Christian and they’re saying I want to live consistent with my biological sex. I want to embrace my biological reality and Kaley wants to help them. But Colorado says no Kaley, you cannot do that.”
The ADF has a history of pursuing litigation that challenges LGBTQ anti-discrimination statutes. In Colorado, ADF has represented plaintiffs in the Masterpiece Cakeshop and 303 Creative cases, which challenged Colorado’s anti-discrimination statutes. The ADF also represented Darren Patterson Christian Academy (DPCA), a private Christian school in Buena Vista, in their lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program over the state’s nondiscrimination requirements.
Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, passed in 2019, prohibits a licensed physician specializing in psychiatry or a licensed, certified, or registered mental health care provider from engaging in conversion therapy with a patient under 18 years of age. More than 20 states have similar laws banning conversion therapy. Colorado’s law does not prohibit unlicensed counselors or faith-based organizations from engaging in efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“In Colorado, we are committed to protecting professional standards of care so that no one suffers unscientific and harmful so-called gay conversion therapy. Colorado’s judgment on this is the humane, smart, and appropriate policy and we’re committed to defending it,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in a January news release.
The American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and other professional health care associations recommend against the use of conversion therapy due to the overwhelming evidence that it harms young people. The American Counseling Association (ACA), a professional organization for counselors and therapists, has identified conversion therapy as a significant and serious violation of the ACA Code of Ethics, noting that “reparative therapy/conversion therapy/SOCE [Sexual Orientation Change Efforts] has been shown to be ineffectual … to cause harm … [and] has been found to violate consumer fraud-protection law.”
Despite nearly universal censure from professional organizations, the practice of conversion therapy remains popular with conservative Christians who deny the validity of transgender identity and same-sex marriage.
“Is it really that you feel you’re born in the wrong body or is there something underlying that that could maybe be the root cause of all of this?” asked Sharp. “That’s what Kaley wants to offer to these families, seeking her out, seeking help.”
Earlier this year Milo Yiannopoulos, the flamboyant right-wing provocateur who helped usher in the first Trump administration with college campus speaking events targeting transgender people, launched ex.gay, a website offering “ex-gay” merchandise with the slogan “All you need is a credit card and a sincere desire to change.” Yiannopoulos fell from grace in 2017 after making comments that appeared to condone pedophilia.
Last year Yiannopoulos returned to the public sphere after claiming to have successfully completed conversion therapy, running the talent management company Tarantula and working with Kanye West. Among Yiannopoulos’ clients is Miles Yardley, an internet personality, model, musician, and actor who gained a following as part of New York’s Dimes Square art scene that featured influencers and podcasters like Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova of the Red Scare Podcast.
“I think there’s zero evidence [homosexuality] is inborn … I would really argue that the cause of homosexual transsexuality is the same cause as homosexuality,” said Yardley, who earlier this year announced his detransition, during a Feb. 11 episode of the podcast I Don’t Know Anything With Paige Harriman. “Which again comes back to the triadic narcissistic family dynamic of a neurotic narcissistic mother and an absent non-salient father.”
Yardley is repeating claims from famed conversion therapist Joseph Nicolosi, who is popular among Catholic conservative activists. In 2019, Alana Chen, a 24 year-old Boulder resident, died from suicide after years of counseling from Catholic faith leaders, starting when she was 14 years-old. Just four months earlier Chen detailed her experiences for the Denver Post. Chen’s story is the subject of the podcast “Dear Alana.”
Survivors of conversion therapy argue that the practice doesn’t work, the theories behind it are unscientific, and it causes lasting psychological harm. “I self-enrolled in conversion therapy through my church for 15 years,” said Casey, a 47 year-old Colorado resident and therapist who asked that the Colorado Times Recorder not use their real name due to privacy concern. “It was with a pastoral counselor. The harm in it is they engage shame and self-loathing as the motivating factor for change. They engage the consequences that we’ll face of going to hell, or losing our families. Or in my case, I was counseled a lot on like, ‘This will ruin your kids. If you come out, it will absolutely ruin your kids.’”
Proponents of conversion therapy note that subjects, like Yardley, often specifically seek out such treatment. “They’re seeking out Kaley specifically for those goals, and Kaley is providing them with counseling,” said Sharp. “Not any conduct, not anything that would be harmful or dangerous conduct towards these individuals, but just talking with them and helping them achieve the client’s own goals and objectives.”
While undergoing faith-based conversion therapy, Casey also met with licensed therapists. “I was also seeing therapists, and this is how therapy kind of comes into play, because none of those therapists were warning me about the harms that could be of what I was doing,” they said. “They were supporting my work in that church-based conversion program … the therapist that I went to provided me with coping skills on how to deal with the weight [of] the depression, the anxiety — this persistent thing that was really my authenticity. It was the weight of my authenticity being stifled, teaching me how to cope with that. There was not one time that any of those therapists said, ‘Hey, this, this could be unsafe for you.’ I see the thought of ‘Hey, if we have clients coming to us and saying, this is what they want.’ I get it, we’re here to work with people on their goals, but we are remiss and even unethical if we are not saying ‘Hey, this type of, of therapy, this type of way that you’re engaging with this actually has the potential to be profoundly harmful to you in the immediacy, and in the long run, primarily because it impacts the relationship that we have with ourselves, which is a telltale of trauma.’”
In March 2013, the LGBTQ-Affirmative Psychotherapist Guild of Utah sponsored a workshop on respecting religious and sexual/gender identity differences. That workshop grew into the Reconciliation and Growth Project, which provides a guide for mental health professionals and has compiled a list of ethical principles for working with clients seeking conversion therapy.
Chiles v. Salazar will likely be argued sometime in the fall, with a decision to follow by summer 2026.
