LGBTQ+ Homeless Young Adults and Sex Trafficking Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

The sexual exploitation of LGBTQ+ young adults and how to best serve this population is an emerging field of knowledge. In July 2015, a cross-sectional purposeful sampling design was used to recruit 215 homeless young adults (ages 18–25) from greater Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, to complete the paper and pencil Youth Experiences Survey. Over a third of the sample reported having been sex trafficked, and of those, over half were LGBTQ+. Further, amongst the sample, the odds of being LGBTQ+ and sex trafficked were two times higher compared to being heterosexual. Sex trafficked LGBTQ+ homeless young adults were found to be significantly more likely to report exchanging sex for money and were also found to have reported higher rates of challenging life experiences, including suicide attempts, drug use, risk-taking, and being raped between ages 13–17 compared to sex trafficked heterosexual homeless young adults. The implications of these findings are discussed, and future research on sex trafficked LGBTQ+ homeless individuals is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• At-risk youth
• homeless youth
• human trafficking
• LGBTQ+
• sex trafficking
• sexual exploitation

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development and the Arizona State University School of Social Work, Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. Thank you to Our Family Services in Tucson, Arizona, One-n-ten in Phoenix and the staff at Tumbleweed for their assistance in collecting this survey data. Thank you to Matthew Cox for his research assistance.