G. Tyler Lefevor

Although sexual orientation change efforts are generally understood to be ineffective and health-undermining, this understanding is based almost entirely on retrospective, cross-sectional data. We present prospective, longitudinal data from a sample of 315 sexual minority current/former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to examine the efficacy and impact of self-initiated sexual orientation change efforts (SISOCE). We found that 74.6% of participants engaged in SISOCE at some point in their lives. Of the 13.7% of participants who were engaged with SISOCE at the start of the study, 62.8% terminated their SISOCE in the 2-year window of the study. We failed to find significant differences in sexual attraction, aversion, or behavior two years later between those who were actively engaged in SISOCE and those who were not. At baseline, participants engaged in SISOCE reported more religiousness, self-alienation, desires to be exclusively heterosexual (i.e., internalized homonegativity), and concealment than participants not engaged in SISOCE. We also found that participants engaged in SISOCE reported less social support, well-being, and self-rated health alongside more depression than participants not engaged in SISOCE at baseline. Two years later, participants who engaged in SISOCE at baseline reported more depression and less social support than participants not engaged in SISOCE. Results support the idea that trying to change one’s sexual orientation is health-undermining and ineffective with caveats on how health-undermining, whether we know it is ineffective for everyone, and whether it is always health-undermining. We recommend therapists provide acceptance-focused and person-affirming assessments/interventions that promote identity development.

Latter-day Saint (LDS) sexual minoritized (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer) persons may face unique challenges to forming and maintaining satisfying romantic connections. Grounded in minority stress theory and relational-cultural theory, the current study examined authenticity as a statistical mediator underlying the association between indicators of proximal minority stress (i.e., identity concealment and internalized homonegativity) and relationship satisfaction among a sample of 237 LDS sexual minoritized adults who were in a committed relationship (i.e., partnered) at the time of the study. In addition, level of connectedness to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) and LDS communities was examined as a moderator of these associations. Cross-sectional mediation and moderated mediation analyses were completed using the SPSS PROCESS macro (models 4 and 7). As expected, identity concealment and internalized homonegativity were both indirectly associated with lower relationship satisfaction via lower authenticity. The indirect path from internalized homonegativity to relationship satisfaction via authenticity was moderated by LGBTQ+ community connectedness; statistical mediation was significant only for participants with higher levels of LGBTQ+ community connectedness. Taken together, these findings underscore the need to consider authenticity and community connectedness when assessing relationship functioning among individuals with multiple, potentially conflicting identity-based group memberships. Such knowledge can help researchers and clinicians develop culturally-responsive individual- and couple-level interventions that best support sexual minoritized Latter-day Saint persons in coping with proximal minority stress and related relationship difficulties.

Introduction: LGBTQ+ adults face elevated rates of loneliness and suicide attempts, yet little research has examined whether religious coping—a protective factor for people generally—effectively mitigates these risks for LGBTQ+ adults raised in theologically conservative, cis/heteronormative religious traditions. Method: This longitudinal study examined whether religious coping moderates the relationship between loneliness and suicide attempts among 369 LGBTQ+ adults who at some point in their lives were part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints, a notably cis/heteronormative tradition, across levels of immoral views of same‐sex sexuality and demographic subgroups. Results: Contrary to expectations, religious coping generally exacerbated rather than buffered the loneliness‐suicide relationship, with greater religious coping strengthening the loneliness‐suicide relationship among White and transgender/gender‐diverse adults. Religious coping buffered the impact of loneliness on suicide attempts only for adults of Color and non‐religious adults. Conclusion: These findings challenge assumptions about the universal benefits of religious coping for LGBTQ+ adults raised LDS, suggesting that suicide prevention research should assess individuals' views of the morality of same‐sex sexuality rather than promoting religious coping universally, as this may inadvertently increase risk for certain LGBTQ+ adults in similarly theologically conservative religious contexts.

In this article, the incoming editorial team for The Counseling Psychologist ( TCP ) outline the vision for the journal and address their positionalities as a model of reflexive practice. The editorial team, comprising the Editor and Associate Editors, review the increasing call for psychology to be anti-racist, decolonial, and liberatory. The authors document the role the TCP can play in this endeavor and commit to TCP being an extension of the values of the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP).

Using a U.S. nationally representative sample of 1,529 sexual and gender minorities (SGMs), we examined the demographic and developmental correlates of Christian religious de-identification. We found that SGMs who were older, Black, cisgender men, and/or lived in the American South were more likely to identify as Christian in adulthood, relative to other SGMs. Those who were never Christian reported being more out to family and friends at earlier ages than those who were raised Christian. SGMs who were raised Christian, but did not identify as Christian in adulthood reported, more adverse childhood experiences and bullying than other SGMs. Sexual minorities who identified as Christian in adulthood reported more internalized homophobia in adulthood than other sexual minorities. Finally, sexual minorities who were raised Christian, regardless of their adulthood religious identification, reported experiencing more stigma than sexual minorities who were not raised Christian. No differences were noted in measures of adulthood resilience or health. Taken together, results indicate that identifying as Christian—in childhood and/or adulthood—is associated with greater experiences of stigma and stress than not identifying as Christian in adulthood.