Light is continuing to shine on the lies of gender ideology as the landmark court case, Chiles v. Salazar, was heard at SCOTUS on October 7, 2025. The Alliance for Defending Freedom defended Colorado counselor Kaley Chiles, who believes it is important to be able to explore with her gender-distressed patients why they feel misaligned with their bodies and claims a law against "conversion therapy" is viewpoint discrimination.
However, Colorado says it’s protecting its citizens from what they believe is harmful “conversion therapy” with their law. The great irony is that Colorado is promoting the REAL conversion therapy, the transitioning of gender-non-conforming children, many of whom grow up to be same-sex attracted.
This case is of specific interest to me, as a licensed therapist who has lost my ability to work in mainstream settings because of my common-sense stance on treatment for transgender children. I have a unique story: due to personal health issues, I took a leave of absence between 2017 and 2022. During that time, there was a radical rise in trans-identified teens in the San Francisco Bay Area of California.
At the teen mental health program I was at in 2021, half the girls identified as transgender, and all of my colleagues encouraged it with zero questions. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. When I was fired for not complying with the California state health care worker COVID vaccine mandate, I felt I was called to speak up publicly about how the mental health profession had gone off the rails on the trans issue.
When I faced personal backlash, I learned quickly that there had been a silencing campaign of opposition for several years to create a false consensus on what was considered to be appropriate treatment for gender-confused youth. As therapists attempted to speak up about their genuine concerns about the affirmation-only model, they were ostracized and labeled as bigots and transphobes.
They were even accused of causing suicides without any proper data to back that claim.
One main accusation is that therapists who do not agree with transgender dogma are labeled as “conversion therapists,” which is what the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) accuses Chiles of being. The negative connotations towards past forced conversion therapies on homosexuals are being weaponized to usher in harmful hormones and surgery procedures on children.
According to Patty Salazar, the executive director of DORA, if a therapist, like Chiles, helps her patients desist from the notion that they were born in the wrong body, she is going against “standards of care.” Yet, a meta-analysis of ten different studies shows that approximately 80% of children go back to feeling comfortable in the body they were born in if left alone.
In addition, the “LGB” are often lumped together with the “TQ”, like in the Colorado minor conversion therapy law, to ramp up the outrage.
However, trans is not the new gay. In fact, they have nothing to do with one another. Being gay never requires irreversible damaging surgeries and hormones, it does not compromise girls’ and women’s safety, it doesn’t cause unfairness in sports competitions, and it never asks all of society to ignore reality. Erin Lee, a Colorado mother who also has appealed to SCOTUS because her daughter was secretly transitioned in a school art group, stated in an X space, “LBG is a Trojan horse for the T, and no one can argue with me otherwise.”
Chiles v. Salazar is an important case and has huge implications because there are countless individuals and families who have been harmed by therapists who have been trained in the gender-affirmation model, despite a lack of consensus among professionals about how to treat people with gender distress.
Detransitioner Antonette De La Cruz from Colorado said on an X space that she believes she would have been saved from tremendous harm if there had been exploratory therapy available. She stated, “Why don’t they ask us? I will never get my breasts back. My voice will always sound like this. I’m the example that shows that this does not work.”
Chiles v. Salazar is not the only case that has come across SCOTUS that challenges the notion that gender affirmation is the proper course of medical and mental health treatment. On June 18, 2025, Skirmetti v. United States agreed with the state of Tennessee’s decision to uphold state bans on gender transition procedures for minors. Also, Florida mother, January Littlejohn’s 13-year-old daughter was secretly transitioned at her public school, and her case is subject to be heard by SCOTUS.
The trans activists have gained ground with censorship over the years, but not much longer, because the truth is kryptonite for gender ideology.
Chiles v. Salazar must be decided in favor of Chiles for two important reasons. First, the existence of even one desister or detransitioner means that exploratory therapy is an important safeguard to children’s health. The trans activists and the state of Colorado cannot be allowed to use such laws to prohibit the debate and evolution of the therapeutic process.
Pamela Garfield-Jaeger is a licensed therapist and the author of “A Practical Response to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for Families” and “Froggy Girl”, a children’s book about accepting the truth.
