The Cyberbullying Research Center has added its own data to our growing understanding of bullying related to sexual orientation. The researchers, Profs. Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, found that 72% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) students have been targeted by bullying at some point in their lives, compared to 63% of heterosexual students, with an “even more striking” difference where cyberbullying’s concerned. “Almost twice as many LGBT students reported experiencing cyberbullying compared to heterosexual students (36.1% compared to 20.1%),” the authors found. As for recent experiences with cyberbullying, the differences between LGBT and heterosexual experiences were greater: “17.3% of LGBT students reported being the victim of cyberbullying in the previous 30 days compared to 6.8% of heterosexual students, and 20.7% of LGBT students admitted to cyberbullying others in the previous 30 days compared to 7.9% of heterosexual students.”
As for gender, females are more likely to experience cyberbullying than male LGBT youth: “Heterosexual males are the least likely group to have experienced cyberbullying (15.7%), whereas non‐heterosexual females are the most likely to have been the target (38.3%).
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