Words Owen Myers
The statistics are heartbreaking. One child in every 10 will experience sexual abuse before their 18th birthday, and LGBT+ people are especially at risk of abuse. In fact, self-reported figures show that we’re twice as likely to be subjected to this trauma as our heterosexual peers — about one in every seven gay men and lesbians is abused when young, compared to approximately one in every 16 straight people.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) worms its way through our community. Without help and support, survivors’ lives can be destroyed from the inside. A third of sexual abuse survivors experience depression later in life, and many of those have suicidal thoughts.