Homosexuality and Childhood Trauma in Tunisia

Our goal was to assess the traumatic experience suffered in childhood by homosexual subjects and to compare it with the experience of heterosexual subjects. We carried out a study between January 2018 and March 2018 at a non-profit organization in Tunisia (ATL MST-SIDA). Participants who self-identified as homosexual were recruited (n = 24). The control group included healthy heterosexual adults recruited from the hospital staff (n = 24). Childhood trauma was assessed using the French version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. In the homosexual group, we found that the most common form of abuse was physical neglect (61.6%), followed by physical abuse (38.5%), sexual abuse (30.8%), emotional abuse (23.1%), and emotional neglect (23%). The childhood trauma total score was 49.6 in the homosexual group and 35.0 in the heterosexual group, which is a statistically significant difference (p = 0.001). All subscale scores were found to be significantly higher in the homosexual group than in the control group, except physical and emotional abuse. The high reported frequency of childhood trauma among homosexuals calls for immediate attention from government and public health officials.