School climate, victimization, and mental health: a joint latent profile analysis of transgender youth’s experiences and identities within educational contexts

As transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people (TNGY) increasingly hold multiple marginalized identities (e.g. multiple gender identities), we must examine how holding these identities relates to victimization and negative mental health outcomes. Educational contexts may be particularly important to consider as these contexts play a key role in the health and development of young people. The analytical sample included 610 TNGY (18-28 years) from the U.S. Participants shared retrospective accounts of their experiences of victimization, perceptions of school climate, and mental health during high school. Reflecting a growing understanding of multiple identities, 18.6% of the sample reported multiple racial identities, 27.6% reported multiple sexual orientation identities, and 27.9% reported multiple gender identities. Joint latent profile analyses were conducted to establish TNGY identity profiles and determine how these profiles were associated with anxiety, depression, victimization, and perceptions of school climate within educational contexts. Results indicated that those who held multiple identities within at least one domain were more likely to be part of the “seriously concerned about youth adverse outcomes” profiles (i.e., high anxiety, depression, & experiences of victimization, negative perception of welcoming climate). Implications of findings include how we might best support TNGY within educational contexts.