Unaddressed Sources of Bias Lead to Biased Conclusions About Sexual Orientation Change Efforts and Suicidality in Sexual Minority Individuals
Rivera AS, Beach LB.
We are writing this Commentary in response to Sullins’ (2022) paper “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts Do Not Increase Suicide: Correcting a False Research Narrative” which analyzed data from the Williams Institute’s Generations Study to answer the question: Do sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) have an effect on suicidality of those who experience it? Sullins concludes after conducting some statistical analyses that “Experiencing SOCE does not result in higher suicidality…and may sharply reduce subsequent suicide attempts.” We strongly disagree with these conclusions. Sullins’ work has glaring methodological flaws inconsistent with expected practices in doing causal inference using observational data (Hernán et al., 2016). Given these flaws, we call for the retraction of this work...