Exploring the role of telling teachers about identity-based harassment in relation to psychological distress among a national sample of sexual and gender diverse youth

Abstract

Extant research has explored factors that promote adolescents to seek help from school personnel when experiencing victimization. Yet, little is known about how reporting peer harassment to teachers and staff is associated with emotional distress among adolescents with stigmatized sexual and/or gender identities experiencing discriminatory harassment. The present study leveraged a large national sample of sexual and gender diverse youth who had experienced peer harassment in the past year (M_age = 15.44, SD = 1.36) and explored how talking with school personnel about harassment and perceptions of staff responses were associated with psychological distress. Structural equation modeling revealed that, over and above experiences of harassment, sexual and gender diverse youth who talked with school personnel about their experienced harassment tended to report lower levels of psychological distress (β = -0.07, p < .001); however, the protection provided by reporting harassment was dampened among students experiencing frequent gender-based harassment (β_{never reported} = 0.14, p < .001; β_reported = 0.22, p < .001). Among youth who had reported, perceived reporting effectiveness moderated the association between gender-based harassment and distress (β = -0.06, p = .03), such that sexual and gender diverse youth who experienced frequent gender-based harassment were less likely to report elevated psychological distress the more they felt that school personnel responded to their reports effectively. The associations between reporting experiences and psychological distress did not depend on sexuality- and gender-expression-based harassment (β = 0.04, p = .14; β = -0.00, p = .95). These findings highlight a need for school systems to cultivate effective responses among school personnel when students report their experiences with discriminatory harassment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Figure 1. Structural Equation Models of SGDY Reporting Harassment to School Personnel

Note. All models controlled for region, age, highest caregiver education, sexual identity, gender identity, and racial-ethnic identity. Standardized coefficients are reported. ^aDenotes a significant difference in the path coefficient between groups in panel ‘b’. Panel ‘c’ only included the subsample of SGDY who indicated they had told a teacher about their harassment (n = 2,283). Dashed lines represent non-significant paths *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001..