In the month of June, we celebrate PRIDE!

What is PRIDE? Well, PRIDE celebrates the ongoing resilience within the LGBTQIA+ community, and their ability to navigate and overcome adversity stemming from prejudice, discrimination, and violence rooted in homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia.

For decades, LGBTQIA+ individuals have been developing skills and abilities in response to these challenges, often involving "doing well while still in pain," according to research. Resilience is not a fixed trait, but a continuous process, and the LGBTQIA+ community has a long history of resilience in the face of ongoing adversity. 

Serenity supports environments where LGBTQIA+ individuals can thrive.

Studies show that LGBTQ youth with more personal resilience have decreased rates of anxiety and depression (Smith et al., 2008).

LGBTQIA+ youth in supportive homes and schools reported higher resilience, highlighting that affirmation of one’s LGBTQ identity may contribute to increased feelings of personal resilience. 

High levels of family support, living in an affirming home, or attending an affirming school were all associated with higher resilience, suggesting the importance that support from family, peers, and other adults aids in increasing and developing resilience among LGBTQ youth. There may also be therapeutic interventions that can help LGBTQ youth build increased capacity to bounce back from hard experiences when these affirming environments are not available for them, such as an LGBTQ affirming therapist.

Results

LGBTQ youth who have supportive families and are in supportive environments have higher resilience. 

LGBTQ youth who reported high levels of family support had higher resilience than their peers with low levels of family support. Both LGBTQ youth who reported living in an affirming home or attending an affirming school also reported higher resilience than LGBTQ youth in non-affirming homes or schools. 

Higher resilience was significantly associated with decreased risk for depression and anxiety among LGBTQ youth.

Higher resilience was consistently associated with better mental health outcomes. Youth with medium or high resilience reported lower odds of both recent anxiety symptoms and recent depression symptoms, as well as suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in the past year, compared to youth with low resilience.

LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported 81% lower odds of anxiety symptoms, compared to LGBTQ youth with low resilience. 58% of LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported symptoms of recent anxiety, compared to 89% of LGBTQ youth with low resilience. LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported 79% lower odds of recent depression, compared to LGBTQ youth with low resilience. 41% of LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported symptoms of recent depression, compared to 79% of LGBTQ youth with low resilience.

LGBTQ youth with high resilience had 59% lower odds of reporting a suicide attempt in the past year compared to LGBTQ youth with low resilience.

9% of LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported a suicide attempt in the past year, compared to 22% of LGBTQ youth with low resilience. LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported 69% lower odds of considering suicide in the past year, compared to LGBTQ youth with low resilience. 31% of LGBTQ youth with high resilience reported seriously considering suicide in the past year, compared to 63% of LGBTQ youth with low resilience.

Methodology

Data was collected from an online survey conducted between September and December 2021 of 33,993 LGBTQ youth recruited via targeted ads on social media. Resilience was measured using an adapted version of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), which seeks to measure an individual’s ability to “bounce back” from challenging circumstances. Recent anxiety was measured using the GAD-2 and recent depression was measured using the PHQ-2 (Plummer et al., 2016; Richardson et al., 2010). The questions assessing past-year suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey.