Exploring the Heterogeneity of Teen Dating Violence Experiences: The Importance of Inclusive Queer Identities

• In Event: 30461 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. Youth and Peer Relationships

Abstract

Adolescents are reporting emergent sexual and gender identities at higher rates than ever before, but current understanding of queer youth dating experiences is limited due to exclusion, small sample sizes, and fragmented measurements of violence. This study examines reported experiences of teen dating violence (TDV) victimization and perpetration of youth aged 13-18, centering expansive queer identity categories. A sample from the Teen Dating Experiences Survey included 837 adolescents (47% non-heterosexual; 22% genderqueer; 72% White) who reported having been in a dating relationship at some point during the past 18 months. Binary and multivariate logistic regression models indicated significantly higher rates of violence across the board for heterosexual and cisgender youth compared to non-heterosexual and genderqueer youth, respectively. Pansexual youth and asexual youth, compared to their nongroups, reported the lowest rates of violence across the sexuality spectrum. While no significant differences were found between the reports of transgender youth and their nongroup, genderqueer youth did report significantly lower rates of TDV across the board compared to their cisgender peers. These results highlight the importance of capturing expansive emergent identity categories to understand the heterogeneity of dating violence experiences and indicate there may be protective characteristics associated with queer identities or socialization in regard to dating violence.

Author

• Gabriel Ancil Rangazas, University of California-Irvine