ARE CHILDREN AT RISK FOR SEXUAL ABUSE BY HOMOSEXUALS

Objective. To determine if recognizably homosexual adults are frequent ly accused of the sexual molestation of children. Design. Chart review of medical records of children evaluated for sexual abuse. Setting. C hild sexual abuse clinic at a regional children's hospital. Patients. Patients were 352 children (276 girls and 76 boys) referred to a subsp ecialty clinic for the evaluation of suspected child sexual abuse. Mea n age was 6.1 years (range, 7 months to 17 years). Data collected. Cha rts were reviewed to determine the relationships of the children to th e alleged offender, the sex of the offender, and whether or not the al leged offender was reported to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Results. Abuse was ruled out in 35 cases. Seventy-four children were allegedly abused by other children and teenagers less than 18 years old. In 9 ca ses, an offender could not be identified. In the remaining 269 cases, two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian. In 82% of cases (222/269), the alleged, offender was a heterosexual partner of a clos e relative of the child. Using the data from our study, the 95% confid ence limits, of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexu al adults as the potential abuser, are from 0% to 3.1%. These limits a re within current estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality in the general community. Conclusions. The children in the group studied were unlikely to have been molested by identifiably gay or lesbian people.