Bullying is no longer viewed as a routine "part of growing up" and is instead seen as a serious social and public health problem. Looking or acting differently from the majority is a key risk factor for youth to experience bullying. Weight, size, color, ethnicity, clothing choices, as well as real or perceived group membership, are all reasons for which youth may be targeted.
Sexual minority youth (i.e., lesbian, gay, and bisexual; LGB) are at a particularly high risk for peer victimization and bullying experiences. Further, even if youth do not identify as LGB, LGB name calling is frequently used as form of bullying behavior. Yet few studies have assessed the specific use of LGB name calling as a form of bullying behavior.
Evans and Chapman (2014) (PDF, 170KB)opens in new window, in a recent article entitled, "Bullied Youth: The Impact of Bullying Through Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Name Calling" published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, used latent class analysis (LCA) to address two questions:
- How does LGB name calling fit into the repertoire of bullying behavior?
- What behaviors do youth identify as "bullying" behaviors?
A large sample (N=3,379) of youth in grades 3 through 10 enrolled in 16 elementary, middle, and high schools in a rural school district answered a 36-item bullying survey. Items were grouped together to assess physical, electronic, and social bullying victimization as well as LGB name calling. One additional item assessed whether youth defined their experiences as bullying. LCA was then used to see if victimization experiences clustered into groups and were viewed by students as bullying.
Figure 1 summarizes the findings.
Figure 1. Latent class profiles of victimization experiences.
Three identified subgroups consisted of a Non-Victims Group (not bullied in any way; 56%), a Social Victims group (high probability of experiencing social victimization such as being teased, ignored, and left out; 37%), and an All-Victims group (high probability of endorsing social, physical, electronic, and LGB name calling; 7%).
Findings suggest a relationship between being called gay, lesbian, and queer and the most extensive experiences of bullying including physical, cyber, and relational victimization.
Two interpretations of these findings are possible.
First, the All Victims group may be comprised of youth who are particularly susceptible to bullying and are bullied in every way assessed by this survey. In this case, the actual or perceived sexual orientation of the victim does not affect the bullying; homophobic name calling is one technique in the bullies' arsenal of bullying tactics.
A second possibility is that the All Victims group openly identifies as LGB or is perceived by others to be LGB, and therefore, these youth are bullied by being called gay, lesbian, or queer due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
Youth in the Social Victims group and the All Victims group had nearly equal probabilities of reporting that they were bullied (87 % and 90%, respectively), indicating that most youth who have experienced the behaviors assessed in this study define those behaviors as bullying.
Although this study highlights bullying by LGB name calling, existing bullying prevention programs rarely, if ever, address LGB status or LGB terms being used as bullying epithets. Researchers and practitioners concerned with bullying must use their positions to understand the role of homophobia in bullying behavior and victimization and to intervene on behalf LGB youth.
Citation:
Evans, C. B. R. & Chapman, M. (2014). Bullied Youth: The Impact of Bullying Through Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Name Calling. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 84(6), 644–652. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ort0000031
Note: This article is in the Clinical Psychology topic area. View more articles in the Clinical Psychology topic area.