A Systematic Review of Family Violence Experiences Among Sexual Minority Youth

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Family victimization is a profound social problem that disproportionately affects sexual minority youth relative to their heterosexual counterparts. At present, no systematic review has been conducted that examines the childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, sibling aggression, and exposure to domestic violence that sexual minority youth experience within the family context. To fill this gap, this presentation provides a systematic review of family violence experiences for sexual minority youth, answering the following research questions: (a) What are the rates of childhood abuse, sibling aggression, and exposure to domestic violence experienced by sexual minority youth? and (b) What are the risk and protective factors and related mental and behavioral consequences of these forms of family violence?

METHODS: This review utilized four categories of search terms—sexual orientation (e.g., lgb*, gay), age (e.g., adolescen*, youth*), victimization (e.g., victim*, abuse*), and family (e.g., famil*, sibling*) across six search engines (Academic Search Complete, ERIC, LGBT Life, PubMed, PsychInfo, and Social Work Abstracts). The inclusion criteria required articles to (a) be peer reviewed, (b) be published in English between 1980 and 2016, (c) include sexual minority youth within their sample, and (d) provide rates of family violence across at least one of the above domains. The exclusion criteria included (a) articles with a non-U.S. sample, (b) articles that utilized exclusively qualitative methodologies, and (c) non-empirical articles. The search and its corresponding hand review yielded 32 articles that met the inclusion criteria.

RESULTS: In studies that included a heterosexual comparison group (18 articles), sexual minorities showed higher rates of childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and exposure to domestic violence than their heterosexual counterparts. The studies reported the following rates for childhood physical (2 to 71%), emotional (13 to 62%), and sexual abuse (7 to 78%), sibling aggression (7 to 22%), and exposure to domestic violence (22 to 27%). The most commonly explored risk factors for family victimization were at the individual-level, with bisexuals and individuals with higher levels of gender non-conformity and disclosure of their sexual orientations experiencing higher rates of family victimization. Positive father attachment was found to be a significantly associated with lower rates of physical abuse for gay men. Included studies found types of family victimization to be associated with physical (e.g. obesity), mental (e.g., depression and anxiety) and behavioral health (e.g., suicidality) problems, and revictimization (e.g., adult sexual assault).

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: This systematic review found sexual minorities were consistently more likely to report childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and exposure to domestic violence in comparison to heterosexual peers. Sexual minorities who identify as bisexual and have higher levels of gender nonconformity and sexual orientation disclosure appear to be at the greatest risk for these forms of family victimization. Few studies were found that examine sibling aggression, risk factors at the family and community-level, and protective factors across any social-ecological level. Future research is needed to address these gaps to inform new interventions designed to reduce rates of family violence for this vulnerable population.