About this session

Thursday, 1:40 PM - 3:10 PM

School Bullying & Victimization among Sexual and Gender Diverse Youth: Promoting Mental Health & Access to Care

Sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth are disproportionately impacted by school bullying and victimization compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers. These experiences can contribute to unsafe school environments and school discipline, which often exacerbate mental and behavioral health challenges and hinder access to care. Experiences with victimization, compounded by other minority stressors (i.e., discrimination, stigma, and internalized homophobia; Meyer, 2003), can lead to short- and long-term psychological and behavioral health consequences. Furthermore, many schools lack inclusive policies and SGD-competent mental health providers, which prevent SGD youth from accessing help.

This symposium examines SGD adolescent victimization and mental and behavioral health, with a focus on school policy, discipline, and access to care in schools. Paper 1 grapples with the conceptual distinctions between peer victimization and school bullying and tests the degree to which these experiences uniquely drive mental health and substance use disparities between heterosexual and sexual minority youth. Paper 2 examines the association between victimization and school discipline, presenting implications for strategies that reduce school pushout for SGD adolescents. Paper 3 describes the association between latent policy classes and SGD experiences with victimization and the moderating role of policy classes in SGD-based disparities in the Netherlands. Paper 4 concludes the symposium with an investigation into SGD youth experiences accessing school mental health services. Collectively, the findings from these studies offer critical insights and implications for future research and prevention and intervention practices that promote safer schools, reduce victimization, and improve access to school-based mental health services for SGD youth.

Paper #1
Title	Mechanisms of Sexual Minority Health Inequities: Conceptual Distinctions & Methodological Implications of Peer Victimization and Bullying
Presenting author	Samantha A. Moran, M.S.W., University of Maryland, College Park, United States

Paper #2
Title	When Sexual and Gender Minority Early Adolescents are Victimized, They Offend, and Get Punished
Presenting author	Allison Woosley, University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign, United States

Paper #3
Title	Unraveling the Power of School Policies: Sexual Orientation & Gender Modality-Based Disparities in Victimization & School Unsafety
Presenting author	Miriam Dietz, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Paper #4
Title	LGBTQ+ Student Perspectives on School Mental Health
Presenting author	Brandon Stratford, Ph.D., Child Trends, United States

View all paper details

Session chairs
Samantha A. Moran, M.S.W., University of Maryland, College Park, United States; Jessica Fish, Ph.D., , United States

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