Correcting a False Research Narrative: A Commentary on Sullins (2022)

January 2023

This article responds to critiques made by D. Paul Sullins of our 2020 study showing lifetime sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) are associated with lifetime suicidality among sexual minority people. It appeared in Archives of Sexual Behavior in January 2023.

AUTHORS

John Blosnich
Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
Robert W.S. Coulter
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Emmett R. Henderson
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Southern California
Jeremy Thomas Goldbach
Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
Ilan H. Meyer
Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy

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Highlights

Sullins mistook the time of last exposure to SOCE to be the time of exposure to SOCE as a whole.

Sullins appears to subtract age of suicide attempt from age of last SOCE exposure, completely ignoring the frequency and duration of SOCE.

Sullins made temporal categorizations by presuming information that does not exist in the Generations dataset.

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Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Suicide Ideation and Attempt Among Sexual Minority Adults

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