The Resource Project

Does the gender of the person who caused the harm affect recovery?

Parents sometimes wonder whether their child's recovery will be different depending on whether the person who caused the sexual harm was male or female. It is an understandable question. Research does not suggest that sexual abuse by one gender is automatically more or less harmful than sexual abuse by another.

What matters much more is what happened to the child, the circumstances surrounding the abuse, the child's relationship with the person who caused the harm, and what happens after the abuse is discovered or disclosed.

The gender of the person who caused the harm may be part of your child's experience and create some specific challenges. It does not determine their future.

What affects recovery?

There is no formula that can predict how a particular child will respond to sexual abuse. Children can experience similar events and respond very differently.

A child's response and recovery may be influenced by many things, including:

• their age and developmental stage

• the nature and duration of the abuse

• whether force, threats, manipulation, grooming or secrecy were involved

• their relationship with the person who caused the harm

• whether they depended upon or loved that person

• whether other forms of abuse or adversity were also present

• how adults responded when the abuse was disclosed or discovered

• whether the child was believed

• whether they feel safe now

• the support available from parents, caregivers and other trusted people

• access to appropriate therapeutic support when it is needed.

No single factor tells us how a child will recover. And a child who is struggling now is not destined to struggle forever.

Does gender matter at all?

It can — but perhaps not in the way people expect. Gender may influence how the child understands what happened and how other people respond to it. We carry cultural assumptions about who sexually abuses children, who can be harmed, and what sexual abuse is supposed to look like.

Those assumptions can affect whether abuse is recognized.

For example, sexual abuse by a woman may sometimes be minimized, misunderstood as caregiving or affection, or treated as less threatening than similar behaviour by a man.

A boy abused by a woman may encounter messages suggesting that he should have wanted the sexual attention or that the experience was something to be proud of. A boy abused by a male may later question their sexuality which can be particularly challenging if the child is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

A girl abused by a woman may struggle to find language for an experience that does not match what she believed sexual abuse looked like. And again, this may cause the girl to question their sexuality and be conflicted later in life.

These reactions can add another layer to what the child is trying to understand.

The difference may not be the gender itself. It may be what that gender causes the child — and the people around them — to believe about what happened.

When abuse is minimized or not believed

Being believed matters. Children and adult survivors of female-perpetrated sexual abuse have described difficulty having their experiences recognized as abuse. Some have reported being dismissed, minimized or not believed because the person who harmed them was a woman. That can create additional confusion.

A child may begin to wonder:

• “Was it really abuse?”

• “Am I making too much of this?”

• “Why does everyone act like this wasn't serious?”

• “Does it count if she was a woman?”

Those questions can interfere with the child's ability to make sense of their experience and seek support. The same principle applies regardless of the gender of the person who caused the harm:

Your child's experience does not need to fit someone else's idea of what sexual abuse looks like in order to matter.

The relationship may matter more than gender

Sometimes the more important question is not whether the person was male or female.

It is:  Who was this person to my child?

Sexual abuse by someone a child loves, trusts or depends upon can create complicated feelings.

The person may have been:

• a parent

• sibling

• relative

• babysitter or caregiver

• teacher or coach

• family friend

• older child or teenager

• romantic partner

• another trusted person.

A child can love someone who harmed them. They can miss them. They can worry about what will happen to them. They can be angry with them and still want to see them. They can remember good experiences alongside abusive ones. None of those feelings mean that the abuse did not happen or that it was not harmful. Recovery sometimes involves helping a child understand that relationships and feelings can be complicated without making the sexual harm acceptable.

What if my child doesn't seem traumatized?

Not every child responds to sexual abuse in the same way. Some children show distress immediately and others may appear relatively unaffected for a period of time. Some experience difficulties later, particularly as they develop a more adult understanding of what happened.

A child may also have symptoms that do not immediately appear connected to the abuse. There is no single reaction that proves how serious an experience was. And there is no required amount of distress a child must show for their experience to deserve support.

Recovery does not have one appearance or one timeline.

What if my child is struggling a lot?

Significant distress does not mean your child will always feel this way.

Child sexual abuse can be associated with difficulties involving anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, relationships, trust, self-esteem, sexuality, substance use, self-harm and other areas of emotional and physical health.

But these are possible outcomes — not predictions for an individual child.

Children and survivors can and do heal. Supportive relationships, being believed, safety, appropriate therapeutic care and opportunities to understand what happened without shame or blame can all be important parts of recovery. Your child's story is still being written.

What research is telling us

Research comparing child sexual abuse perpetrated by women and men remains limited, particularly because female-perpetrated abuse has historically been under-recognized and understudied.

The evidence we do have does not support the idea that abuse perpetrated by women is inherently less harmful.

A large study using information from 3,351 people who contacted a sexual-abuse helpline found that

the overall quantity of reported mental-health consequences was similar among people reporting female- and male-perpetrated child sexual abuse, although there were differences in the types of difficulties reported.

Research involving survivors of female-perpetrated sexual abuse has documented depression, post-traumatic symptoms, difficulties with relationships and sexuality, self-injury, substance use and other long-term effects.

Survivors have also described an additional challenge: having their experiences minimized or misunderstood because the person who caused the harm was female. At the same time, research cannot tell us how any individual child will respond. Gender is only one characteristic of the person who caused the harm.

The child's relationship with that person, the nature of the abuse, other experiences in the child's life, the response to disclosure and the support available afterward may all be important.

What helps recovery?

You cannot change what happened. but what happens afterward matters.

You can help by:

• believing your child

• reminding them that what happened was not their fault

• helping them feel physically and emotionally safe

• allowing them to have complicated feelings about the person who caused the harm

• avoiding assumptions about how they “should” feel

• not minimizing the abuse because of the gender of the person involved

• protecting them from blame or shame

• seeking trauma-informed professional support when appropriate

• allowing recovery to happen at your child's pace.

You do not need to make your child forget what happened. You do not need to find the perfect words. You need to help create the conditions in which healing is possible.

A note for the parent reading this

You may be looking for something that will tell you how much this experience will affect your child.

Research cannot give you that answer. Neither can the gender of the person who caused the harm. Your child is more than what happened to them. Their response may change over time. They may have difficult periods and easier ones. They may need professional support. They may surprise you with their resilience.

What you can give them now is something powerful:

• A person who believes them.

• A person who does not minimize what happened.

• A person who allows them to feel whatever they feel.

• A person who keeps reminding them that the responsibility belongs with the person who crossed the sexual boundary — never with the child.

The gender of the person who caused the harm does not determine your child's capacity to heal.

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