Chiles v Salazar—Conversion Effort Bans and Free Speech

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2025

ISSN

2168-6203

Publisher

JAMA Network

Language

en-US

Abstract

On a dull autumn day in 1964, Carolyn Mercer was strapped to a wooden chair in a dark room, and electrodes were placed on her arm.1 Physicians projected pictures of women’s clothing on the screen in front of her and sent painful electric shocks into her arm with each picture.1 The treatment went on for months.1 The physicians hoped that if Carolyn associated femininity with pain, she would be “cured” of being transgender.1 They were wrong. She developed posttraumatic stress disorder, and the treatment threw her into a deep depression. She later told the BBC, “I don’t have a light anymore, or emotion like that, because I suppressed it for so long.”1

The constitutionality of state efforts to prevent such harms has reached the US Supreme Court, which recently announced it will review the issue in Chiles v Salazar.2 This case concerns a state-licensed counselor’s opposition to Colorado’s ban on conversion efforts for minors. The counselor asserts that the ban violates her First Amendment right to free speech. She notes that as “…a practicing Christian, [she] believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design,”2 and so she seeks to “…reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, [and promote growth] in the experience of harmony with one’s physical body.”2 Despite the religious motivation, the Supreme Court will focus not on religious freedom, but rather on whether Colorado’s law appropriately regulates substandard clinical practice or is a viewpoint-based restriction that violates the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

This document is currently not available here.

Link to Publisher Site

Share

COinS