Wow! How? Peer Support for Queer Youth

Today’s “wow” is unfortunately a troubling statistic: 49% of LGBTQ+ young people in the U.S. experience depressive symptoms, according to a survey conducted by Hopelab and Common Sense Media, compared with 24% of their straight and cisgender peers.

But many Queer youth are meeting the challenge by accessing online therapy to a greater degree (44%, compared with 23% of straight and cisgender youth) and fully 91% of LGBTQ+ youth have looked online for behavioral health information, compared with 61% of their peers who do not identify as queer or transgender. Social media is a key source of connection and inspiration. Queer youth are likely to curate their feed to turn up the volume on supportive accounts and minimize their exposure to harassment and negative comments.

Although the online world can often be hostile to Queer young people, it also serves as a major source of support, connection, and mental health information for this same group. At Hopelab, we’re dedicated to investing in companies with leaders who channel their lived experience into solutions such as TRACE, a mobile app to foster a brighter and more gender-affirming future for transgender and nonbinary individuals.

– Amy Green, Ph.D., Head of Research at Hopelab. 

Young people crave mental health content that’s relatable, as one young person described in response to a prompt about seeing mental health-related content online: “The most recent time was a month ago. I watched videos of people who were going through the same thing, so I trusted it because they have been in the same situation.” This aligns with previous findings: 61% of U.S. teens and young adults said that they have read, listened to, or watched other people share about their health experiences online and 40% of young people said they have gone online to try to find people with health conditions similar to their own.

Another young person said, in the current study, “I found most of my [mental health] information on Google, but most of the time, I ended up coming across stuff on social media from people’s opinions and perspectives and decided to see how I could relate to it.” For many young people, this relatability helps them feel less isolated (e.g., “looking for people with similar lived experience to feel like I’m not alone”). Peer support is another way young people find mental health support online. As one young person stated, “On X (formerly Twitter), I had expressed how stressed out I was and how some of my body’s functions weren’t working right, and someone attributed it to how stressed I was and sent a link on what to do when stress gets that bad.” Social media can connect people with the “just-in-time someone-like-you” who can make all the difference.

As a survey researcher myself (including the 2018 and 2021 surveys of 14- to 22-year-olds that preceded these recent reports) I appreciate the nuanced portrait of a generation in motion. Hopelab and Commonsense Media worked with young people to craft the questions and interpret the results. The researchers also gave respondents ample opportunities to express their thoughts in their own words.

Co-creation of research is a key tenet of the patient-led revolution in medical care. In the lexicon of my book, Rebel Health, Hopelab and Common Sense Media are Champions, directing the spotlight of research and press attention to the innovations being created and shared by young people themselves. 

Image: A young person holds up a phone while standing near a car in the middle of a field of yellow flowers. Photo by Meghan Fox.