Sexual Orientation Change Ef­forts (SOCE) rely on professional therapy and counseling, often in a religious context, to assist those struggling with unwanted homo­sexual inclinations who would like to diminish their same-sex attrac­tions and grow in their ability to abstain from same-sex behaviors. Many proponents of same-sex life­styles argue that Sexual Orientation Change Efforts are not only not effective, but also are harmful and unscientific, going so far as to ad­vocate for legislation that would restrict a practitioner’s ability to offer SOCE. A sweeping bill re­cently tabled in California, for ex­ample, would have labeled any sex­ual orientation therapies offered for a fee as “consumer fraud.” Are such laws sensible or reprehensible? What do scientific studies indicate about attempts to change sexual orientation?

Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Re­search Council in Washington, D.C., has provided a very helpful analysis of six studies published between 2000 and 2018 in a recent review article entitled, “Are Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) Effective? Are They Harmful? What the Evidence Shows.” He concludes that SOCE “can be effective for some clients in bringing about significant change in some components of sexual orientation,” and that “few harms were reported.” Older reports from the literature, including 600 studies and five meta-analyses, support the same conclusions.

One of the six SOCE stud­ies reviewed by Sprigg, “A Lon­gitudinal Study of Attempted Re­ligiously Mediated Sexual Orien­tation Change,” was published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Ther­apy in 2011. In this study, re­searchers Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse evaluated 61 men and women who opted to pursue re­ligiously-mediated change efforts. At the end of the study, after tracking them through therapy for six years, they found that 53% of them self-categorized as some version of success, either as “Suc­cess: Conversion” (23%) or “Suc­cess: Chastity” (30%). That was more than twice the number (25%) who described the out­come as “Failure: Confused,” or “Failure: Gay Identity.” 

Interestingly, the observed success rates in the study trended higher as the study continued. Between the third and sixth year, for example, the “Success: Con­version” results improved from 15 percent to 23 percent of the participants, while the “Success: Chastity” portion improved from 23 percent to 30 percent. In comment-ing on this phenomenon, Sprigg notes that “rather than re­lapsing into homosexuality after ini­tial success in overcoming it, as SOCE critics claim, clients are more likely to achieve success the longer they persevere in the process.”

When participants reported “Success: Conversion” as an out­come, this did not indicate that all same-sex attraction went away, but that “a reduction in homosexual at­traction and an increase in heterosex­ual attraction” had occurred. Simi­larly, “Success: Chastity” was defined as “stable behavioral chastity and a reduction in homosexual attraction,” which, in the words of the report, can “also be regarded as a successful out­come” by “conventionally religious persons.” As with most studies of this type, most participants reported some significant, but not complete, change. 

This same research study by Jones and Yarhouse also assessed any reported “harms” from SOCE during the course of the change efforts. They evaluated psychological distress among the participants using a stan­dardized checklist of symptoms, but the only statistically significant trends indicated “improving psychological symptoms” rather than harms to SOCE clients.

In his review of the literature, Sprigg examines the issue of SOCE “harms” from another angle as well, evaluating the methods and claims of a very influential paper by Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder, two self-identified gay researchers whose work was sponsored by the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (the latter being a political activist group). 

Their paper, published in 2002, is one of the more widely-cited works asserting that clients who undergo SOCE may experience significant damage. Sprigg observes that the authors make no pretense of “being unbiased, nor of recruiting a repre­sentative sample of SOCE consum­ers.” Despite a scholarly veneer, their report offers almost entirely anecdo­tal reports of harm. It fails to offer compiled data, statistical evidence or data analysis and relies on a narrative approach and dubious claims re­garding various harms and negative outcomes from SOCE.

The more robust and rigorous research studies reviewed by Sprigg, meanwhile, do not find notable harms to clients from SOCE, but, on the contrary, find very notable im­provements both in the ability to re­sist homosexual behaviors and in their sense of sexual re-orientation. 

Set within a broader religious and human framework, these statisti­cally significant findings about SOCE from the field of psychotherapy help push back against the dogmatism of same-sex advocates and even of some professional medical societies. Such dogmatism ignores the best interests of clients by seeking to restrict the availability of important and poten­tially helpful therapies when everyone should instead be supporting access to ministries of healing and change for those desiring to restore psycho­logical and spiritual wholeness in their lives.

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