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<p>&#8212; As a survivor of childhood sexual trauma, there are many misconceptions I live with on a daily basis. My pain is treated as fodder for jokes and people with backgrounds like mine are assumed to be abusers-in-the-making. Both of these are very real issues, but today I want to talk about a third issue that many people don&#8217;t even realize about sexual abuse victims: the effect that the abuse has had in obscuring our own understanding of our sexual and gender identities. It&#8217;s impossible for some of us to even understand what an innate gender or sexual identity would even feel like. Our entire perception of our &#8220;true&#8221; gender and orientation is mutilated by our experiences.</p> 
<p>It&#8217;s a well-established fact that child abuse does not cause homosexuality or gender fluidity, nor does gender fluidity or homosexuality cause people to become child abusers. This is an important truth that needs to be continually disseminated as too many people still think there is a causal link in one direction or both.</p> 
<p>It is unfortunate, however, that the well-intentioned desire to keep the LGBT community from being maligned has resulted in the experiences of many CSA victims being silenced because it confuses the narrative. It is a testimony that is actually quite simple: for many victims of CSA, especially repeated CSA, nothing about their identity can be fully separated from the early trauma. That includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Which means that many CSA survivors will tell you that they cannot say with a straight face that their perception of their gender identity or sexual orientation was not shunted down a different road by their experiences.</p> It is a testimony that is actually quite simple: for many victims of CSA, especially repeated CSA, nothing about their identity can be fully separated from the early trauma. 
<p>This requires a steady mind and a grasp of nuance to understand what is being said. Obviously not all, or even the majority if, gay CSA victims attribute their orientation to their abuse. Nor do, or should, gender fluid victims give credit to abusers when it comes to discovering their true self. What it does mean, however, is that men who do say their identity was affected by their trauma should not be dismissed out of hand. In abusive situations, coercion is often mixed with reward (such as emotional attention) and being forced to do something can still lead to physical arousal. Such experiences can rewire the brain into seeking out similar situations as an adult for complex psychological reasons other than because of natural inclination.</p> 
<p>Among male victims, the term &#8220;SSA&#8221; (same-sex attraction) continues to be a meaningful term. This is a term that in other circles has become appropriately abandoned, given the connection and connotations it has with fundamentalist conversion therapies. On its face, the term is benign and non-judgmental. In usage, however, it is a denial of orientation as an innate and non-changing element. That aspect of it, which when applied to homosexuals en masse is insulting and invalidating, is ironically exactly why some CSA survivors willingly apply it to themselves. Because they are not convinced that their sexual attraction to men was not the result of early trauma. In fact, they feel as if recognizing that attraction and their true orientation are at odds is actually a more authentic description of themselves.</p> 
<p>I&#8217;ve seen the term &#8220;abuse reactive&#8221; to label the difference between people who are able to know themselves apart from the abuse and people for whom the self before the trauma is a black hole difficult or even impossible to ever fully explore. One of the confusing aspects to this is that throughout history and even to this day, boys who showed effeminate characteristics were and are more likely to be denied a proper support system. They are more likely to be bullied and socially isolated and seen as unsatisfactory by both peers and adults. This puts them at a greater risk of abuse. No child is immune from the risk of being preyed upon, but many predators look for the outcast unlikely to be listened to or believed and desperate for ANY adult attention. Therefore, because of society&#8217;s prejudice, LGBT youth are often at greater risk of being sexually exploited.</p> 
<p>Drawn to signs of non-heteronormative behavior or not, a predator may very well strike before the boy himself understands his own orientation and gender. Across his entire lifespan, a male is most in danger of being sexually assaulted between the ages of 4 and 13. Think about what you didn&#8217;t know about yourself at age 7.</p> 
<p>The risk here is that conversation like this only gives fire to the bigots who want to say that there is something &#8220;wrong&#8221; with everyone who identifies as LGBT. That would be the wrong takeaway. The correct lesson is to believe individuals. For those who say &#8220;I was always this way,&#8221; believe them. For those who say &#8220;I can&#8217;t tell you for sure&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m pretty sure my SSA was caused by my abuse,&#8221; believe them too. Don&#8217;t silence their voice because some people might misinterpret it. Don&#8217;t assume you know their true selves better than they do. &#8212; More on this subject by Dr. Joe Kort:</p> 
<p>Sexual abuse disorients you; it does not orient you.</p> 
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<p>Photo credit: <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/638971397" type="external">Getty Images</a></p>
Identity in a Fog: Gender Identity After Sexual Abuse