{"id":40908,"date":"2026-04-04T12:22:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40908"},"modified":"2026-04-04T12:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:22:25","slug":"counselors-are-engaged-in-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40908","title":{"rendered":"Counselors Are Engaged in Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Counselors speaking to clients are engaged in an act of free speech, Jim Campbell, Chief Legal Counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom \u2014 who argued and won the Supreme Court case about so-called conversation therapy on transgender children \u2014 said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court this week ruled<\/a> 8-1 against a Colorado \u201cconversion therapy\u201d law that banned therapists from helping minors align their \u201cgender identity\u201d with their biological sex. The justices overwhelmingly determined that the law likely violates the First Amendment by allowing some viewpoints (affirming delusions) but not others (helping children align with their actual gender).<\/p>\n

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Campbell briefly broke down the case, explaining that his client is a licensed counselor in the state of Colorado who found out about her state\u2019s law enacted in 2019 essentially preventing her from being able to help confused children align their gender with their body. However, it allowed counselors to affirm confused children\u2019s gender delusions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the law is viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple. It says that if you\u2019re counseling a young person and that young person, anyone under the age of 18, and they\u2019re struggling with gender dysphoria, you can encourage them to gender transition, but you cannot help them get comfortable with their body and realign their identity with their sex,\u201d Campbell explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so she filed a lawsuit challenging it, raising her First Amendment rights and saying that this impinges upon her speech. It impinges upon her client\u2019s speech, and it prevents them from having the conversation that her clients want to have and pursuing the goals that the client set for themselves,\u201d he said, noting that this case truly was focused solely on speech \u2014 not medical procedures.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere are limitations, undoubtedly, in freedom of speech, and one of the things that we recognized in front of the court was that it\u2019s different when you\u2019re doing a medical procedure or you\u2019re prescribing drugs, when you\u2019re doing\u2026 things that are medical conduct,\u201d he said, noting that the First Amendment\u2019s free speech clause does not protect conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe quickly drew a distinction in front of the court between situations where someone\u2019s performing a surgery, someone\u2019s prescribing drugs, someone\u2019s performing some kind of like physical therapy, all that conduct and it wouldn\u2019t be protected by what we were arguing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were arguing for is a counselor who does nothing but engage in voluntary talk therapy with their client,\u201d he made clear, explaining how lower courts got it wrong by saying this was \u201cpart and parcel of regulating the profession and the conduct in the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with that analysis, and this is what the 8-1 majority in the Supreme Court decision recognized, is that there is no conduct going on,\u201d he said. Rather, his client was simply \u201cengaging in speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a psychiatrist, who \u2014 psychiatrists also often will prescribe drugs. All she is is a counselor that has these conversations. And so the Supreme Court recognized in its decision, unlike the lower courts, that counselors speaking to their clients are engaged in an act of protected speech, and the First Amendment shields what\u2019s going on in those in those counseling rooms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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He explained that determination makes sense in other contexts, as well. For instance, states should not be able to tell a counselor that they cannot help their married client reconcile with their spouse, but may only push for divorce.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimilarly, the government shouldn\u2019t be able to tell a counselor that they can encourage a child to pursue gender transition but not get comfortable with their body and align their identity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

LISTEN:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n