Reflexive homology is the homology theory associated to the reflexive crossed simplicial group; one of the fundamental crossed simplicial groups. It is the most general way to extend Hochschild homology to detect an order-reversing involution. In this paper we study the relationship between reflexive homology and the $C_2$-equivariant homology of free loop spaces. We define reflexive homology in terms of functor homology. We give a bicomplex for computing reflexive homology together with some calculations, including the reflexive homology of a tensor algebra. We prove that the reflexive homology of a group algebra is isomorphic to the homology of the $C_2$-equivariant Borel construction on the free loop space of the classifying space. We give a direct sum decomposition of the reflexive homology of a group algebra indexed by conjugacy classes of group elements, where the summands are defined in terms of a reflexive analogue of group homology. We define a hyperhomology version of reflexive homology and use it to study the $C_2$-equivariant homology of certain free loop and free loop-suspension spaces. We show that reflexive homology satisfies Morita invariance. We prove that under nice conditions the involutive Hochschild homology studied by Braun and by Fernàndez-València and Giansiracusa coincides with reflexive homology.