Understanding Socioecological Supports and Multi-Victimization Among Transgender and Cisgender Adolescents

Background and Purpose: Transgender and gender-diverse adolescents (TGDA) experience multiple victimization types, also known as multi-victimization (i.e., bullying, physical and sexual violence) at higher rates than their cisgender peers. While greater socioecological supports are associated with reduced victimization, little is known about their role in protecting TGDA against multi-victimization.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of health risk behavior survey data from students (N=4,207) across 13 high schools in a mid-sized U.S. city. The analytic sample was predominantly cisgender girls (60%), followed by cisgender boys (38%), and TGDA (7%) and was approximately half white (49%), and half minoritized racial/ethnic identities (25% Black/African American; 11% multiracial; 8% Latine; 4.3% Asian/Pacific Islander; 2.7% other racial/ethnic identities). The mean age was 15.7, and 32% of the sample were sexual minorities.

We conducted bivariate analyses to describe victimization, housing security, food security, parental monitoring, and perceived social support by gender and used multi-level logistic and linear regression models to identify differences between gender groups. To examine multivariable associations of socioecological supports and number of victimization types experienced, we conducted multi-level ordinal logistic regressions in which responses were clustered within schools, controlling for demographic covariates. To examine the moderation effect of gender on the association between socioecological supports and number of victimization types, our final model included two-way interactions between gender and socioecological supports.

Results: TGDA reported more frequently experiencing multiple types of victimization (i.e., multi-victimization) and lower levels of socioecological support than cisgender adolescents. Across all groups, greater socioecological supports (i.e., food security, housing security, parental monitoring, perceived social support) were associated with experiencing fewer victimization types. Food security was more protective for cisgender girls than cisgender boys. All remaining interaction terms were non-significant.

Conclusions and Implications: While our findings suggest that strengthening parental monitoring, social support, food security, and housing security may be effective for reducing multi-victimization for all high school students, our finding that TGDA report lower levels of socioecological supports and higher rates of multi-victimization suggest that they have the greatest need for programs and policies that positively impact these socioecological supports. With federal and state policies inhibiting interventions to bolster socioecological supports among TGDA, innovative strategies are needed to bolster socioecological supports for TGDA to reduce multi-victimization inequities. To support TGDA, social workers may want to focus on developing partnerships with institutions and programs that are less reliant on federal/state funding than schools and facilitating or supporting TGDA-led mutual aid efforts that exist outside of formal institutions.