Sexual orientation change efforts

Sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) are methods that aim to change sexual orientation, used to try to convert homosexual and bisexual people to heterosexuality. They may include behavioral techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques, psychoanalytic techniques, medical approaches, religious and spiritual approaches, and, in some parts of the world, acts of sexual violence ("corrective rape"). There are no studies of adequate scientific rigor to conclude whether or not SOCE work to change sexual orientation. The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences, and the health and mental health professions, since the 1970s, is that homosexuality and bisexuality are per se normal and positive variations of human sexual orientation. The research consistently failed to provide any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality or bisexuality as a disorder or abnormality.