Chiles v. Salazar: Speech on Trial, Children at Risk
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for gender ideology—and Georgia’s 2026 elections will prove it.
Today’s Supreme Court arguments in Chiles v. Salazar crystallize the stakes. Colorado’s 2019 law bars licensed counselors from helping minors pursue comfort with their biological sex, while permitting counseling that nudges toward “transition.” The question before the Court is whether the state can ban one viewpoint and privilege another in the therapy room. Colorado insists it is regulating professional conduct, but in practice the law polices speech, threatening penalties for one side while explicitly permitting affirmation-only approaches. More than 20 states have adopted similar bans, meaning a ruling here will ripple nationwide.
A broad coalition of radical feminists, detransitioners, and parents underscores why this case matters. The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) filed an amicus brief warning that affirmation-only regimes can “trans the gay away,” cutting off exploratory talk therapy for gender-nonconforming youth who are disproportionately same-sex attracted and may simply grow up lesbian or gay. Our Duty-USA and detransitioner groups echo the alarm: these laws gag professionals who would otherwise explore what’s driving a child’s discomfort. This isn’t about the electric shocks or aversion tactics of old—it’s about whether ordinary talk therapy is permitted when a child asks for help reconciling with his or her sex.
To hear stories directly from desisters, detransitioners, parents, and experts, check out the Identity Crisis short documentary series from IW Features.
Even the federal record shows why cautious exploration matters. An HHS review released in May 2025 noted that childhood gender-nonconformity is strongly associated with later homosexuality. Activists debate the interpretation, but the datapoint itself is central: when affirmation-only regimes funnel LGB youth into a medical pathway they may later reject, it’s not progress, it’s harm. The question deserves discussion—not criminalization.
This is also a Georgia story. This year Georgia passed the Riley Gaines Act (SB 1) protecting girls’ and women’s sports—progress that came only after Geoff Duncan, now running for governor as a Democrat, left the lieutenant governor’s office. The state also moved to cut taxpayer funding for gender procedures in prisons, but nearly all House Democrats staged a walkout rather than vote on it. Enforcement is on hold while litigation proceeds, but the pattern is clear: clarity delivers results, fence-sitting does not.
Meanwhile, Georgia Democrats showcased their priorities at the 2025 Carter-Lewis Dinner in Atlanta, a sold-out gala that doubled as a midterm message test. The keynote was Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—the governor who codified “shield laws” for gender-affirming care (including for out-of-state minors) and turned Illinois into a refuge for these interventions. He was joined by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who urged Democrats to go on offense, and by Sen. Raphael Warnock, who piped in by video from Washington. Ossoff was also billed as a speaker. The optics were unmistakable. As I wrote: “The Georgia U.S. Senators who voted against protecting girls’ sports and the GA Dems who staged a walkout rather than oppose taxpayer-funded sex-trait surgeries for inmates will be joined by JB Pritzker, the governor who codified child medicalization in Illinois. And together they’ll likely all posture about ‘protecting women and children’ while clinging to an agenda that erases women and sterilizes kids for profit.”
Which brings us back to the theme voiced yesterday by ROAR Women NYC: If you stand for nothing, you will fall for gender ideology. When the House passed a federal Riley-Gaines-style bill on women’s sports, Senate Democrats blocked it; neither Ossoff nor Warnock voted “YEA” on such protections. By contrast, Ossoff’s declared Republican challengers in 2026, Buddy Carter and Mike Collins, voted in favor. Georgia’s executive branch shows the same divide: Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, also running for governor, prioritized SB 1 and created the Senate committee that carried it. Attorney General Chris Carr, likewise a gubernatorial candidate, sued to block Biden’s Title IX rewrite that would erase sex-based boundaries—though his settlement allowing some state-plan coverage for “gender-affirming” procedures complicates his record. Duncan, for his part, still won’t commit, preferring to say “both sides politicize kids”—a line that evades the choices Georgia families face. Silence is a stance. Voters should treat it as one.
Finally, a word to well-meaning readers: gender ideology is not allyship with LGB people. It rejects sex as real, undermines sex-based attraction, and too often channels gender-nonconforming kids—disproportionately future lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults—into sterilizing drug regimens and surgeries. That is the opposite of “born this way.” If you care about LGB people, you cannot look away from the costs of affirmation-only regimes. Chiles v. Salazar is about whether counselors can even talk about those costs with the young people who ask for help. The freedom to speak—and to protect children without erasing women—must be the line we hold.