The Sexual Diversity Debate in Brazilian Psychology: Professional Regulation at Stake

• Autor(a) principal: Macedo,Cleber Michel Ribeiro de
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Sívori,Horacio Federico
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Psicologia (Conselho Federal de Psicologia. Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414-98932019000700302
• topic: Psychology; Sexual Diversity; Homosexuality; Religion; Pentecostalism

Abstract So-called “sexual reorientation therapies” represent a challenge to the scientific and professional development of Psychology, and to the exercise and free expression of sexual orientation as a human right. Since 1999 the Brazilian Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) has implemented a ban against the pathologization of homosexuality. The validity of that normative instrument, known as Resolution 01/99, has been contested by moral entrepreneurs within the profession, self-identified as Evangelical Christians, who pose a broader challenge to Psychology, standing as a secular, science-based profession. The controversy created by the challenge to CFP’s positions on homosexuality and on religion extrapolates the domain of Psychology and its regulation as a science and profession, and becomes one more dispute related to sexual politics in Brazil. In this paper we explore the process by which sexual diversity has become a contentious issue for Brazilian Psychology, affecting the politics and regulation of the profession.