Homophobic bullying victimization trajectories: The roles of perpetration, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality

There is a paucity of research on developmental trajectories of bias-based aggression. We examined homophobic bullying victimization trajectories among high school students (N = 3,064; M age = 13.67; Girls = 50.2%) and how these developmental pathways vary as a function of factors like homophobic bullying perpetration, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality. Using data from a 3-wave longitudinal investigation over a 2-year period, we utilized latent growth mixture modeling to explore the aforementioned trajectories. Findings suggested that there were three distinct classes characterized by high initial rates and declines over time, low initial rates, and increases over time, and low, stable, rate across time. Furthermore, results indicated that homophobic bullying perpetration, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality all predicted class membership.