Pathways to Resilience Among Lgbtq Youth: A Grounded Theory Study

Background/Purpose:

Negative psychosocial outcomes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are well-documented. Studying risk alone, however, does not directly provide solutions to the problems LGBTQ youth face. To complement past resilience-focused research on LGBTQ youth, which predominantly used quantitative methodologies to examine discrete resilience factors/resources (e.g., social support), this qualitative study sought to examine the processes of resilience among LGBTQ youth. Research questions were: How do youth interact with their social environments in an effort to navigate their experiences of adversities?; How do youth access resources in ways that promote their well-being?

Methods:

This grounded theory (GT) study engaged five youth-serving agencies to develop study questions and designs relevant to the community needs. The study consisted of two, concurrent phases of 35 in-depth individual interviews: Phase 1 with service providers (n=16), Phase 2 with racially diverse LGBTQ youth (n=19) ages 16 to 24. To sample “resilient” LGBTQ youth, service providers nominated youth who are “doing well in the face of significant adversity” for this study. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Adhering to GT methodology, data collection and analysis took place simultaneously, using both inductive and deductive analytic reasoning. GT analysis consisted of initial, focused, axial, and theoretical coding processes, using constant comparative methods.  

Results:

The following five categories emerged in the service provider and youth data as resilience processes that signified how LGBTQ youth navigate their ways to wellbeing in the face of adversity: 

• Navigating safety across contexts— Youth examined their social contexts and assessed their own physical and emotional safety level in each context. Youth often accessed services designed for LGBTQ youth as a re-charging station to assist navigating other hostile social contexts.
• Asserting personal agency— Youth capitalized on their personal agency by focusing on their own needs, limitations, and future visions and took ownership in making their own life decisions.
• Seeking and cultivating meaningful relationships— Youth sought and cultivated relationships (1) with LGBTQ people (i.e., adults and peers) who reflected their LGBTQ-specific experiences and (2) with others, LGBTQ or not, who actively supported them through physical and/or emotional resources.
• Un-silencing social identities— Youth turned their previous experience of having their social identities silenced into actively seeking out resources (e.g., social media) to un-silence and embrace these marginal social identities.
• Engaging in collective healing and action— Youth accessed relevant knowledge to conceptualize their individual challenges as a result of a larger social oppression against LGBTQ people. Some engaged in supporting LGBTQ peers as a healing process, while others engaged in larger social action.

Conclusions/Implications:

This GT study complements previous research on discrete resilience factors/resources by detailing the ways in which LGBTQ youth engaged various resources to navigate their way to well-being. This study highlights that social workers can play critical roles not only in directly engaging LGBTQ youth to build greater capacity to navigate adversities but also in working with relevant systems (e.g., families, schools, social policies) to restore and/or promote greater capacity to support the well-being of LGBTQ youth.