Fighting Colorado’s ban on ‘conversion therapy’ for the free speech I need and my clients deserve in my office (Opinion)

On Oct. 7, I walked into the U.S. Supreme Court, not because I ever imagined myself there, but because I love the kids and families who sit across from me in my counseling office.

I’m a licensed professional counselor in Colorado. My calling is simple: to listen with compassion to my clients and to walk with them through their struggles. Some of the kids I have met are carrying heavy questions about who they are. They’re confused, hurting, and longing for someone to hear them out. Many just want help making peace with the bodies God gave them.

But Colorado has interfered in those discussions. In 2019, the state passed a law that censors me from saying certain things to my clients. If a teenage girl who started identifying as a boy tells me, “I want to learn to be comfortable in my body and try to live as a girl again,” I am legally forbidden from helping with that goal. Yet if that same child says, “I want to reject my body and continue living as a boy,” the law allows me to encourage that path. The government has picked sides. And if I don’t comply, I risk thousands of dollars in fines, suspension, and even the loss of my license.

That reality is devastating to me, because the very reason I became a counselor was to create a safe space where people could be honest, share their deepest questions, and sort through their struggles without fear of judgment. Counseling isn’t about pushing an agenda; it’s about offering the care a client is asking for. It’s about trust. It’s about choice.

When I counsel minors on these issues, it’s always voluntary. No one is forced into my office. The kids who have asked me for help are motivated–often desperate—to find clarity and comfort. Some are working through identity questions, others are wrestling with family relationships, and still others are navigating feelings of isolation or shame. What they all have in common is a desire for someone to listen and to walk alongside them.

Yet, under Colorado’s law, I can’t help certain kids because the state doesn’t agree with their counseling goal to realign with their biological sex. Colorado’s law tells struggling kids that they don’t get that choice. It tells families–struggling young people and the parents who love them—that they cannot pursue the help they together believe is best. And it tells counselors like me that we cannot respond to our clients’ questions unless we parrot a government-approved viewpoint.

That breaks my heart because kids deserve better. They deserve open, honest counseling conversations. They deserve the freedom to set their own goals for counseling and to pursue the futures they want–not the ones the state dictates.