Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) are school clubs for LGBTQ+ youth and peer allies to support one another. This eight-week weekly diary study considered whether a youth's positive and negative affect during a given week could be predicted by experiences in their most recently attended GSA meeting. Ninety-nine GSA members (M[subscript age] =…

The protective effects of talk with parents about sex in delaying sex and reducing young people's risky sexual behaviour may extend from adolescence to emerging adulthood. However, little is known about the content and process of this communication, or how parents and their emerging adult children perceive their conversations about sex and…

Belonging to a school Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) is associated with lower substance use among LGBTQ+ youth. However, it is unknown whether GSA participation facilitates access to resources for substance use concerns. Using longitudinal data from 38 Massachusetts high schools, we compared sources of support for substance use concerns…

Research among sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth has suggested associations between Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) involvement and better health. Emergent research has similarly demonstrated associations between family support and general well-being among SGM youth. However, the trait of bravery has received little attention in this…

Attention to youth advocacy and sociopolitical efficacy has been evident in developmental research on critical consciousness, yet this literature has given little attention to sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth or issues, or to the interplay between these dimensions of critical consciousness over time. We addressed these limitations within the…

This qualitative study examines elementary teachers' strategies for supporting trans and/or gender-expansive elementary students. The findings come from observations and interviews with a purposive sample of 31 teachers from five elementary schools with principals whom parents characterized as supporting their transgender and/or gender-expansive…

Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) aspire to empower youth to address multiple systems of oppression, including those affecting transgender and racial/ethnic minority youth, yet there is little indication of factors contributing to youths' self-efficacy to do so. We examined individual and group factors predicting self-efficacy to address transgender…

Background: Differences in sexual health-related outcomes by sexual behavior and identity remain underinvestigated among bisexual female adolescents. Methods: Data from girls (N?=?875) who participated in the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey were analyzed. Weighted logistic regression models were fit to examine sexual and…

Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and heterosexual youth from diverse backgrounds. Although some attention has been given to youth members in general, little attention has been given to adult advisors. Among 47 GSA advisors from 33 high schools (39 cisgender female, 8 cisgender male), the authors…

Over the past three decades, much of the conversation about LGBTQ students in schools has centered on safety--anti-bullying policies, the "safe space" of gay-straight alliances, and "safe zones" marked by rainbow-colored stickers on classroom doors. In this article, Michael Sadowski argues that it's time to move beyond safety…

Using youth program models to frame the study of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs), we identified individual and structural predictors of greater engagement in these settings with a cross-sectional sample of 295 youth in 33 GSAs from the 2014 Massachusetts GSA Network Survey (69% LGBQ, 68% cisgender female, 68% White, M[subscript age] =16.07).…

"Safe Is Not Enough" illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive…

This article investigates the legal, semantic, and material implications of Massachusetts' anti-bullying law through an analytic framework of structural liberalism. Specifically, this article asks how the law produces categories of fit and unfit subjects of the state through raced and gendered practices of individualism, paternalism, meliorism,…

Although LGBTQ youth are at risk for peer rejection, substance abuse, mental health disorders, and dropping out of school, research shows that most mental health training programs do not include a course on working with this population (Carroll & Gilroy,2001; Matthews, 2005; McCabe & Rubinson, 2008;Sherry, Whilde, & Patton, 2005;…

Many prospective teachers are unaware of the encounters that Black, heterosexual women or White lesbians face. Here, we present encounter stories--individual narratives of poignant encounters and interactions that we have experienced with people unlike us--to identify with and ultimately draw on their experiences. Subsequently, the narratives…