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Childhood Maltreatment, Gender Nonconformity, and Adolescent Sexual Orientation: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study
Author(s) -
Xu Yin,
Norton Sam,
Rahman Qazi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13317
Subject(s) - nonconformity , psychology , sexual orientation , developmental psychology , poison control , injury prevention , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , occupational safety and health , orientation (vector space) , adolescent development , social psychology , medical emergency , medicine , operations management , pathology , economics , geometry , mathematics
This study tested whether associations between childhood maltreatment and adolescent sexual orientation were accounted for by childhood gender nonconforming behavior (GNCB) in a prospective birth cohort ( N = 5,007). Childhood parental maltreatment (physical and emotional) and GNCB were assessed on multiple occasions up to age 6 years, and sexual orientation at 15.5 years. Boys with a history of maltreatment were significantly more likely to be nonheterosexual. Using propensity score weighting, maltreatment was associated with a 3.5% ( p = .03) increase in the prevalence of nonheterosexuality accounting for confounders not including GNCB, and by 2.9% ( p = .06) when also accounting for GNCB. These findings suggest that maltreatment is associated with an increased prevalence of nonheterosexuality in boys but may be explained by confounding factors including GNCB.