Intersections of gender and sexual minority status: Co-occurring bullying victimization among adolescents

• Published in: Computers in human behavior 2018-03, Vol.80, p.262-270
• Main Authors: Ash-Houchen, William, Lo, Celia C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Body weight; Bullying; Co-occurring bullying victimization; Cyberbullying; Gender; Intersections; Offline bullying victimization; Risk; Sexual minority status; Sexuality; Studies; Teenagers; Youth
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.023

The present study refined existing bullying literature by examining differences in risk of three types of bullying victimization (offline only, cyberbullying only, and co-occurring victimization) for four different gender-sexual minority status groups using data generated from high-school aged adolescents in the United States. We used data from two years (2011 and 2013) of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) to obtain a final sample of 91,588 individual cases for evaluation with multinomial regression. Generally, results suggest that adolescents who are outside a normal body weight and those belonging to a sexual minority face increased risks of offline and co-occurring victimization. Results also revealed that observed differences in risk of victimization are often significantly different across gender-sexual minority status groups leading to disparities in risk for male and female adolescents depending on whether they identify as a sexual minority. •This study examines bullying victimization's associations with BMI, age, and race.•Differences in offline, cyberbullying, and co-occurring victimization are examined.•Overweight or obese status is generally linked to heightened risk of victimization.•Gender and sexual minority status affects victimization's associations.•Minority racial status protects against bullying victimization among adolescents.