SCIENCE AND SOCE

SOCE lack sufficient bases in scientific principles. A variety of methodological and statistical issues have rendered many SOCE reports invalid (APA, 2009; Panozzo, 2013; Retraction notice, 2019; Spitzer, 2012). In addition to problems with their specific study designs, SOCE proponents’ claims distort others’ valid research. SOCE proponents’ claims about the possibility of environmental influences on sexual orientation are inconsistent and lack connectivity with the ways scientific theories meaningfully integrate multiple biological and cultural factors contributing to sexual orientation (Bailey, Vasey, Diamond, Breedlove, Vilain, & Epprecht, 2016; Diamond & Rosky, 2016; Shidlo & Gonsiorek, 2017; see Tolman & Diamond, 2014, for scientific theories on sexual orientation). Failing to correct refuted claims, some SOCE proponents have referenced discredited factors in sexual orientation etiology, such as “defective” gender identity, and made inaccurate claims using psychoanalytic concepts, such as referring to sexual minorities as inherently developmentally arrested due to parent-child relationships (Isay, 1989; Shidlo & Gonsiorek, 2017). Literature on SOCE has also inaccurately applied evidence of sexual fluidity across the lifespan by distorting sexual fluidity as a justification for SOCE (Diamond & Rosky, 2016). Rather than willful shifts in sexual orientation, fluidity describes changes in awareness, attractions, behaviors, and identities that unfold over time (Diamond, 2008). However, that sexual orientation can evolve and change for some does not mean that it can be altered through intervention or that it is advisable to try.