Complicating trauma connections : lesbian and queer survivor experiences

Drawing on interviews from lesbian and queer female survivors, this article aims to problematise the trauma(tic) connection frequently made between child sexual abuse and sexuality in psychological and popular discourse. It also considers the ways that lesbian and queer survivor narratives might complicate mainstream assumptions about child sexual abuse and adult sexual pathology. As I argue, not only does psychological and popular discourse suggest that an abuse history can explain the outcome of lesbian sexuality; it rarely positions this outcome as positive. Rather, lesbian sexuality is often presented in the literature as a failed attempt by survivors to achieve 'normal' (hetero)sexuality, or is translated in terms of their 'impossibility to heal'. Yet, it was perhaps their unique positionality that allowed the lesbian and queer survivors in this study more opportunity to resist cultural discourses and to transcend usual modes of healing. Furthermore, by challenging simple connections between healthy (hetero)sex and recovery, lesbian and queer survivors were able to engage more fully in their own sexual subjectivities.