Sexual Orientation Change Efforts

Sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) are methods that aim to change a same-sex sexual orientation. They may include behavioral techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques (such as "reparative therapy"), psychoanalytic techniques, medical approaches, and religious and spiritual approaches. In some parts of the world, efforts to change a person's sexual orientation may include acts of sexual violence ("corrective rape") in which the purported motivation is to force the victim to change their orientation.

The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality and bisexuality are per se normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation. The research consistently failed to provide any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as a disorder or abnormality. There is a population that undergoes sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and tends to have strongly conservative religious views that lead them to seek to change their sexual orientation. There are no studies of adequate scientific rigor to conclude whether or not SOCE work to change sexual orientation. Although sound data on the safety of SOCE are extremely limited, some individuals reported being harmed by SOCE. Distress and depression were exacerbated. Belief in the hope of sexual orientation change followed by the failure of the treatment was identified as a significant cause of distress and negative self-image.

There is a large body of research evidence that indicates that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is compatible with normal mental health and social adjustment. Because of this, the major mental health professional organizations do not encourage individuals to try to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Indeed, such interventions are ethically suspect because they can be harmful to the psychological well-being of those who attempt them; clinical observations and self-reports indicate that many individuals who unsuccessfully attempt to change their sexual orientation experience considerable psychological distress. For these reasons, no major mental health professional organization has sanctioned efforts to change sexual orientation and virtually all of them have adopted policy statements cautioning the profession and the public about treatments that purport to change sexual orientation. The Royal College of Psychiatrists shares the concern of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association that positions espoused by bodies like the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) in the United States are not supported by science and that so-called treatments of homosexuality as recommended by NARTH create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.

SOCE has been controversial due to tensions between the values held by some right-wing faith-based organizations, on the one hand, and those held by LGBT rights organizations, human rights and civil rights organizations, and other faith-based organizations, as well as professional and scientific organizations, on the other. Some individuals and groups have, contrary to global scientific research and consensus, promoted the idea of homosexuality as symptomatic of developmental defects or spiritual and moral failings and have argued that SOCE, including psychotherapy and religious efforts, could alter homosexual feelings and behaviors. Such efforts have serious potential to harm people because they present the view that the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth is a mental illness or disorder, and they often frame the inability to change one’s sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure. Many of these individuals and groups appeared to be embedded within the larger context of conservative religious political movements that have supported the stigmatization of homosexuality on political or religious grounds. Co-founder and other former Exodus International leaders issued a public and formal apology for their work as ex-gay leaders and the harm they caused to those they tried to help.