This community-based study examined how queer-identified youth in a rural county of Colorado experience interpersonal and community belonging. Despite increased awareness and acceptance of LGBTQIA2S+ populations rural queer youth have worse mental health outcomes than their urban, cisgender, and heterosexual counterparts. This study conducted semi-structures interviews with queer-identifying youth (14 to 18 years old) living in Gunnison County, Colorado (n = 7). Participants were recruited through Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) clubs at public high schools and the local university. Parental consent was waived for minor participants, and participants received a $15 Visa gift card upon completing an interview. Interviews were captured online and in-person from August 2025 to February 2026 and audio recorded. The General Belongingness Scale (GBS) was administered during interviews to assess overall sense of belonging. Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim analyzed in two rounds of coding for narrative and theme, respectively. The findings reveal queer youth belonging impacted by community climate, acceptance in interpersonal relationships, anti-bullying policy enforcement in schools, self-expression, and socioemotional coping skills for resilience. This study was conducted in partnership with Gunnison County Juvenile Services and Gunnison Watershed School District.
Keywords: sense of belonging; adolescent; emerging adult; LGBTQIA2S+; rural
I want to thank the young queer folx in Gunnison County who shared their stories for this study. This work would not be possible without their knowledge and willingness to participate. They told stories of queer joy, resilience, and carving out a space for oneself despite demands for queer people to shrink and conform to the cis-hetero-patriarchy. Thank you for trusting me to tell a part of your stories.
This study was made possible through partnerships with Gunnison County Juvenile Services (GCJS), Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project (GCSAPP), Gunnison Watershed School District (GWSSD), and Western Queer Collective. I am eternally grateful to Alex Stephan, Socioemotional Learning Coordinator for Gunnison County, for her constant collaboration and care for the community. Thank you to Jennifer Read, Kelsey McDonald, and Sara Lamar for sharing your knowledge and for creating safe spaces where LGBTQIA2S+ students can belong at school.
I am grateful to my colleagues and faculty in Western Colorado University’s Master of Behavioral Science (MBS) program who supported this project in its entirety. To my faculty advisor, Dr. Matt Aronson, thank you for all our discussions, meetings, tearful phone calls, and your generous hospitality. Thank you, Dr. Jess Eckhardt, for teaching me ways to conduct restorative, ethical research and to Kari Commerford for teaching me to better understand the diversity of experience found at all life stages. I give special thanks to Jennifer Schartz and Tyler Yinling for assistance with interviews and Natalie Pax for our meetings, without which I would still be stuck coding a spreadsheet of data. Lastly, I thank my friends and family who have supported me and given me a place to belong, with special thanks to the Such family who encouraged me to apply to this program.
This research was conducted in the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Ute Nation and peoples, now known as the Gunnison Valley. This project was supported by the Rocky Mountain Public Health Training Institute (RMPHTC) and the Southwest Colorado Opioid Regional Council (SWCORC).
Queerness lacks an easy-to-follow blueprint, though one can look to myriad pieces of queer literature, art, and media for inspiration, there is no singular way to be queer. Instead, queerness is a messy creation we sculpt from scraps of sensation and desire that are cut up, re-arranged, pasted together, and smashed apart amid a cacophony of criticism which tells us that we’re too perverse, too disruptive, and too disobedient. These external narratives, for many, reverberate into internal narratives that relegate one’s own voice into a psychic “closet” of sorts. Being queer or acting queer means to fail at conforming to the cisheteronormative expectations of contemporary American society (Halberstam, 2011). I came out as trans/non-binary eight years ago and I still find my internal “self” pressured by external expectations (e.g., to marry, to feel romantic attraction, to conform to one’s sex assigned at birth, etc.). However, this experience of “queer failure” can yield freedom and joy when one steps out of the confines of cisheteronormativity and into authentic self-expression. Maggie Nelson (2016) writes, “Sometimes one has to know something many times over. Sometimes one forgets, and then remembers. And then forgets, and then remembers. And then forgets again” (p. 18). As this report examined the lived experiences of belonging in queer-identified youth living in rural Colorado, their stories remind and the reader not to forget the joyful resistance found among queerness, youth, and queer youth. Sense of belonging can be understood as “the subjective feeling of deep connection with social groups, physical places, and individual and collective experiences” (Allen et al., 2021, p. 87). Henceforth “belonging” and “sense of belonging” are used interchangeably to describe this subjective, internal feeling of connection. The desire to belong is a universal fundamental human need (Maslow, 1943; Kunc, 1992) whereby a lack of belonging is associated with increased incidence of psychopathology, stress, immune dysfunction, suicide and suicidal ideation, cardiovascular disease, and early mortality (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Cruwys et al., 2025). An individual’s capacity for belonging is influenced by an interconnected network of individual, interpersonal, systemic, and temporal factors (Allen et al., 2021; Bronfenbrenner, 1981). For instance, an individual’s socioemotional coping skills, developmental history, quality of available interpersonal relationships, group membership, cultural norms, place of residence, and generational cohort all influence their feeling of and capacity for belonging. Greater visibility and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community have led queer youth to come out earlier than past generations, often during adolescence rather than early adulthood, which means they are coming out and navigating stigma at a developmentally sensitive time (Garcia et al., 2020; Russell & Fish, 2016). Research consistently shows that coming out increases risk for “verbal and physical harassment” (Russell & Fish, 2016, p. 475) yet is protective for mental health as it increases confidence and allows an individual to integrate parts of their identity into a cohesive sense of self (Solomon et al., 2015). Normative adolescent development is characterized by “experiences of instability” (Torkelson, 2012, p. 134) and “heightened self- and peer regulation regarding (especially) gender and sexuality norms” (Russell & Fish, 2016, p. 475). Thus, adolescents and emerging adults are particularly vulnerable to the negative outcomes of poor belonging as they explore and disclose their gender and sexuality identities during an unstable life stage (Garcia et al., 2020; Gonzales et al., 2022). This is demonstrated in research that finds queer-identified youth experience forms of discrimination, harassment, and structural barriers that are not experienced by their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts. These experiences create what psychologist Ilan Meyer (2003) termed minority stress, a chronic elevated stress response in the queer body caused by living in a stigmatized social position, which is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, cardiovascular disease, immune dysfunction, and early mortality. In recent decades, the rural United States has reached historical levels of cultural and informational exchange with metropolitan areas due to advancements in technology and communication (Fu et al., 2024). However, rural populations continue to experience worse health outcomes due to limited access to healthcare, lower socioeconomic status, and rising incidence of diseases of despair (i.e., alcoholism, depression, suicidality; Ferdinand et al., 2023). Researchers consistently find that rural LGBTQIA2S+ youth have poorer mental health compared to their urban queer peers which is often attributed to geographic isolation, religious conservativism, and lack of access to resources (Kemmerer et al., 2025). Studies by Paceley and colleagues (2017; 2019; 2020) offer a nuanced explanation of this rural-urban health disparity, finding that community climate to be a stronger mediating factor than community size in queer health outcomes. In other words, they argue that the absence of queer-affirming policies, queer-accepting spaces, and queer-identifying people in a community is more harmful to LGBTQIA2S+ youth than population size or geographic isolation alone. Moreover, extant research largely overlooks the experiences of gender and sexual minorities and non-metropolitan communities with very few studies on queer-identified youth who live in rural settings. This study attempts to fill this gap and takes place in a rural and frontier county on Colorado’s western slope, Gunnison County (henceforth referred to as Gunnison County, Gunnison Valley, or “the Valley”). The two largest townships in the county, Gunnison and Crested Butte, are mountain towns which house Western Colorado University and Crested Butte Mountain Resort, respectively. The State of the Community 2022 Report (Powell et al., 2022) identified LGBTQ+ youth as a population of concern for poor mental health outcomes, particularly suicidality. Additionally, the 2023 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (HKCS) which provides essential data on student behavioral health was forced to suppress data on queer-identifying students due to low response rates (CDPHE, 2026). This study emerged from conversations with Alex Stephan, the Socioemotional Learning Coordinator for Gunnison County Juvenile Services, who highlighted the need for a highly local study which seeks to better understand the behavioral health needs of queer youth in the Valley.
This report presents findings from a community-based study which examines experiences of interpersonal and community belonging among queer-identified youth ages 14 to 18 years (n=7) living in rural Gunnison County, Colorado. The purpose of this study was to generate a foundational understanding of queer youth in the Valley, address gaps in local data on queer youth, and inform efforts of local stakeholders in supporting LGBTQIA2S+ youth behavioral health. Accordingly, the research design was inductive and community-based, meaning findings were generated from emerging patterns in the data rather than through hypothesis testing, and community partners were key collaborators throughout the study. This study worked closely with Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project (GCSAPP), Gunnison Watershed School District (GWSD), and Western Queer Collective in the design, recruitment, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of findings. This study explored the following questions: (1) How do queer youth in Gunnison County experience belonging? (2) What factors promote and constrain their sense of belonging? (3) How might queer youth belonging be impacted by rurality, online spaces, and queer-affinity spaces? Participants were recruited with respondent-driven sampling (RDS) with local queer affinity spaces (i.e., GSAs) and word-of-mouth were primary sites and strategies for recruitment which is a recommended for difficult-to-reach populations (Heckathorn, 1997; Jones, 2016). Minor participants were given the option of providing parental informed consent or minor assent to ensure the inclusion and safety of participants who are not out to their families (Smith and Schwartz, 2019). Data were collected through one-time interviews which were audio recorded and included semi-structured verbal dialogue and an online survey which collected responses to demographics, pseudonym preferences, and the General Belongingness Scale (GBS; Malone et al., 2012), which assessed general sense of belonging. Interviews were conducted both in-person at public locations (e.g., coffee shops, libraries) and virtually via video call to promote participant safety, agency, and comfort (Nye et al., 2025). Data were analyzed with thematic narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) which assesses the content and themes of stories with young people as active agents in telling their stories. The study received approval from the Institutional Review Board at Western Colorado University (#HRC-2025-02-06-R34).
Qualitative research challenges traditional positivist epistemologies which prioritize establishing statistical significance, generalizability, and causality (van de Sande & Byvelds, 2015). Instead, qualitative research is “interested not in prediction and control but in understanding” (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007, p. 4) and narrative inquiry, a form of qualitative research, views story “as the fundamental unit that accounts for human experience” (ibid, p. 4). In narrative and qualitative research, critical reflexive practices that examine the inevitable biases and presuppositions of the researcher are essential tools to ensure validity (Newman et al., 2022; Nye et al., 2025; Reed, 2023). The principal investigator holds disproportionate power as the decision-maker in a study’s design, analysis, and dissemination; as such, they have the potential to distort findings, exclude perspectives, and cause harm (Bishop, 1998; Riessman, 2008). This study incorporated critical reflexive practices into all stages of this study from design to data analysis to generating this report (Olmos-Vega et al., 2023), and this positionality statement serves as a disclosure of how my own identities might inform my analysis. My role in this study is as a graduate student and principal investigator, and the identities I hold include being white, middle class, college educated, U.S. citizen, non-local to Gunnison Valley, trans/agender/non-binary, lesbian, queer, relationship anarchist (polyamorous), ideologically Left, able-bodied, and atheist. My membership with the LGBTQIA2S+ community enabled me to code switch to a queer vernacular and lexicon with participants which might have helped me gain their trust. However, I was careful to consider how differences such as age and rurality create vastly different experiences of queerness for participants. Throughout the research, I engaged with writing memos and field notes as an essential practice to sustain a critical dialogue with myself to examine biases, subjectivity, and observations. I relied on meetings with my advisor, colleagues, and community partners to further examine and critique these observations and beliefs. During data analysis I regularly revisited the audio recordings and transcripts to check for accuracy. Positionality statements and reflexive practice are methods to reduce subjectivity, but they do not address the disparities among who has access to conduct research within the Western academy (van de Sande & Byvelds, 2015). This statement aims for transparency to allow you, as the reader, to better understand the context of this report.
This report uses the terms ‘LGBTQIA2S+’ and ‘queer’ to describe identities, behaviors, symbols, and performances which fail to conform to the standards of cisheteronormativity (Cohen, 1997; Worthen, 2016). The initialism LGTBQIA2S+ stands for the sexual and gender minority (SGM) identities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual and/or ally, Two-Spirit, and the plus symbol aims to include any unnamed identities (Levounis et al., 2020). The term LGBTQIA2S+, along with its variations (e.g., LGB, GLBT, LGBTQ+), have been widely adopted in the United States since the 1990s, proceeding the gay and lesbian movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Jagose, 1996). Humans have demonstrated a diversity of sexual orientations, gender identities, sex characteristics across time (Foucault, 1978) and the language used to describe these acts is equally fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing. In the United States pre-WWII, ‘queer’ was the predominant term used both descriptively by homosexual men and women and pejoratively by straight and cis- people to marginalize and discriminate against homosexual men and women (Jagose, 1996). During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, widespread homophobia prevented adequate public health responses, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of LGBTQIA2S+ people, and coincided with increased usage of ‘queer’ as a slur (ibid). However, activists and groups in the 1980s and 1990s, such as QUEER NATION, refused ‘queer’ as a sentence of death or criminality and reclaimed ‘queer’ as an act of resistance (Jones, 2023). Alexander Doty (1993) describes queerness as a “flexible space for the expression of all aspects of non- (anti-, contra-) straight cultural production and reception” (pp. 2-3). Queer has been adopted more widely in recent decades but remains contested among queer scholars who critique its association with white queerness, queer elders who associate it with its pejorative usage, and the growing anti-gender movement which deem ‘queer’ a threat to conservative understandings of gender (Butler, 2025; Jones, 2023). This report adopts ‘queer’ to reflect the language of young people who use it as an all-encompassing term for the LGBTQIA2S+ community, as its own identity label (i.e., queer, genderqueer), and as a transformative politics (Cohen, 1997; Jagose, 1996).
The next section will synthesize extant discourse and research on belonging and rural queer youth health disparities. Then, the “Methods” section will explain this study’s guiding methodologies, recruitment and sampling techniques, instrumentation, data collection methods, and, finally, the steps taken to analyze and theme data. The “Results” section will present the findings in five themes which include: (1) definitions of belonging, (2) spaces that promote and constrain belonging, (3) narratives about local community, (4) life stage differences in belonging, and (5) narratives for coping and resilience. Lastly, the findings will be discussed in conversation with current scholarship, limitations of the study will be highlighted, and recommendations for future research and programming will conclude the final “Discussion and Conclusion” section of the report. See Appendix A for a list of figures, Appendix B for a list of acronyms, Appendix C and D for the General Belongingness Scale and demographics survey questions, respectively.
Following the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020, there has been a rise in social disconnection and isolation in what the U.S. Surgeon General (2023) calls “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” Social geographers have connected rising “conservativism, nationalism and nativism” (Halse, 2018, p. 1) to changes in the social environment. Geographer Ash Amin (2012) critiques policies of assimilation and nationalism for creating a “society of strangers.” These changes have generated increased attention on sense of belonging across the fields of political science, gender studies, cultural studies, social geography, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and adolescent health (Halse, 2018). Widely accepted as a core human need (Maslow, 1943), O’Nell (1996) writes in her ethnographic study with Native Americans on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, “[b]elonging is crucial for the self” (p. 179). Without a sense of belonging, an individual is at risk for cardiovascular disease, physical illness, depression, immune system dysfunction, psychopathology, and premature death (Allen et al., 2021). Belonging, as a psychological concept, can be understood as “an internal affective or evaluative feeling, or perception” (Hagerty et al., 1992, p. 174) of being an integral, accepted member of a relationship, system, or environment (Hagerty et al., 1992; Yuval-Davis, 2006). It is relational, meaning belonging must be understood as it related to a referent such a social group, relationship, place, or object (Haggerty et al., 1992). Any one person may hold membership to several social groups “formed on the basis of shared values, attitudes, and cultures, of emotional attachments to specific places, spaces, people, animals and material things, or by participating in specific flows of ideas, cultures and social practices” (Halse, 2018, p. 5). Experiences of belonging, Halse argues, “assert hegemonic and counter-hegemonic symbolic and social practices including languages, values, and cultural practices” (p. 4). Social group membership connects “individuals into social alignments based on shared commonalities, such as race, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship and national affiliation” (ibid, p. 4). In other words, sites of belonging maintain (or disrupt) cultural expectations and norms. Belonging is often conflated with related constructs, yet it is conceptually distinct from other social and psychological experiences. Functional aspects of relationships describe observable elements of social ties rather than how those relationships are subjectively experienced (i.e., belonging). This includes concepts such as social support (receiving help and companionship; Langford et al., 1997), inclusion (access to participate in a social collective; Jansen et al., 2014), isolation (social, sensory, or spatial deprivation; Gilmartin et al., 2013), and sense of community (shared group membership and resource exchange; Frost and Meyer, 2012). Related subjective experiences often coincide with but are not synonymous with belonging. For instance, acceptance (being welcomed), inclusion (granted access), and relatedness (perceived care, trust, and connection) may be present in the absence of belonging (DeWall & Bushman, 2011). Commonly coinciding with diminished belonging are loneliness (negative feeling of lacking connection; Hagerty et al., 1992) and alienation (physical presence with emotional or existential disconnection; Overend, 1975). These examples demonstrate belonging as distinct from and related to other social and affective experiences. Sense of belonging, informed by one’s social and geographic environment, is negotiated differently depending on an individual’s identities, experiences, and temperament (Allen et al., 2021). Thus, for queer-identified youth in rural Gunnison County, belonging is influenced by their rural environment, queer identities, life stage, and social ecology. This literature review will orient the reader to dominant theories on belonging, connect these understandings of belonging to extant research on the health and well-being of queer-identified youth, and situate queer youth belonging within rural contexts, specifically that of Gunnison County, Colorado.
Sense of belonging, due to its ubiquitous nature, is often mistaken for other social experiences (such as sense of community or exclusion) making it difficult to operationalize. Halse (2018) points to this issue in conversations about belonging, saying that belonging is “naturalised, unspoken, and unrecognised” (p. 7). In other words, people are not always talking about belonging when they use the term ‘belonging’. Belonging has been theorized across the social sciences of psychology (e.g., Allen, Baumeister, Leary, Maslow), sociology (e.g., Yuval-Davis), and geography (e.g., Antonsich, Chavis, McMillan). Theories of belonging were influenced by early psychological research on social group dynamics and sense of community. For instance, Lewin (1948) found that membership to a social group shapes individual perceptions, feelings, and behavior and offers a sense of safety necessary for psychological stability. McMillan and Chavis (1986) extended earlier research by defining sense of community through membership (i.e., sense of belonging), influence (i.e., sense of mattering), integration and needs fulfillment, and emotional connection which positioned sense of belonging as central to community. In a seminal study, Baumeister and Leary’s (1995) belongingness hypothesis theorized belonging as an evolutionary-grounded motivation to form and maintain meaningful social connections which influence cognition, emotion, and behavior. They argued that individuals often resist losing social bonds even when doing so is maladaptive, which reinforces the pervasiveness of the need to belong. Baumeister and Leary emphasize the role of frequent, stable interactions characterized by care and concern in creating a sense of belonging. Allen and colleagues’ (2021) integrative framework for belonging expands on the belongingness hypothesis by identifying four components for belonging which include competencies, opportunities, motivations, and perceptions. Competencies refer to socioemotional “skills and abilities” that support an individual’s capacity to belong. Opportunities encompass the “groups, people, places, times, and spaces that enable belonging to occur” (ibid, p. 92). Motivations for belonging, to Allen and colleagues, differ between individuals depending on past experiences and personality traits. Finally, perceptions are the “subjective feelings and cognitions” (ibid, p. 94) that emerge from lived experience and reflect how belonging is interpreted. These components work synergistically with sociocultural, environmental, and temporal contexts to create one’s experience of belonging. Belonging has consistently emerged across studies as a measurable construct shaped by motivations, relationships, and developmental processes. Hagerty and colleagues (1992) argue that an individual’s energy, perceptions, motivations, and potential for meaningful connection influences their capacity for belonging. Moreover, they identify valued involvement (i.e., feeling “valued, needed, [and] accepted”; ibid, p. 174) and fit (i.e., social compatibility) as core components of belonging. A later study by Lee and Robbins (1995) argues that early life experiences of “[c]hronic or traumatic empathetic failures” (p. 233) is associated with isolation behaviors and lack of belonging later in life. They assert that belonging is indicated by interpersonal experiences of companionship, affiliation (i.e., shared values, beliefs, identities), and connectedness. Together, these perspectives frame belonging as a multidimensional construct influenced by interpersonal experiences and developmental histories. Social geographers and political scientists have expanded concepts of belonging beyond interpersonal relationships to include attachment to place, feelings of home, and political identity (Antonsich, 2010; Youkhana, 2015; Yuval‑Davis, 2006, 2011). Political geographer Marco Antonsich‘s (2010) concept of place-belongingness defines belonging as an “emotional and spatial connectedness to places and spaces” (p. 32), shaped by interwoven autobiographical, relational, cultural, economic, and legal dimensions. Similarly, Nira Yuval-Davis’s politics of belonging situates belonging within power structures that include or exclude individuals based on their social locations (e.g., nationality, profession, kinship). For Yuval-Davis (2011), belonging is inseparable from a “perpetual state of becoming” (p. 16) in which identities are continuously “construct[ed], authoriz[ed] and contest[ed]” (p. 16). This understanding aligns with Halse’s (2018) notion of “identity auto-narratives” which describe a person’s understanding of their own identity as “partial, incomplete, performance[s] based on past and present experiences, conditions and the socio-cultural context” (p. 9). It is at the intersection of belonging and identity that ethical and political considerations become unavoidable (Halse, 2018; Yuval-Davis, 2011). The politics of belonging are concerned with “the boundaries of the political community of belonging, the boundaries which, sometimes physically, but always symbolically, separate the world population into ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Yuval-Davis, 2011, p. 20). Central to Yuval-Davis’s work is a “feminist political project of belonging” (2011, p. 45) that foregrounds intersectionality as essential for examining how identities, power, and belonging are mutually constituted. While these frameworks may appear abstract, they directly attend to the material consequences of inclusion and exclusion, demonstrating how belonging is structured through unequal power relations. In extreme circumstances, these dynamics consolidate in what Pfaff-Czarnecka (2011) terms “regimes of belonging” which can legitimatize exclusionary practices and threaten democratic participation and rights.
Adolescence and emerging (or “young”) adulthood refer to the developmental transition from childhood to adulthood which occurs during the ages of approximately 11 to 17 years old and 18 to 25 years old, respectively. Emerging adulthood is a relatively new developmental construct that arose in response to cultural and economic shifts that have prolonged the transition toward financial, social, and familial independence, particularly in the United States (Arnett, 2000; Torkelson, 2012). During this period, it is developmentally normative for individuals to explore sexual orientation and gender identity, begin engaging in romantic and sexual relationships, develop individual belief and value systems, and differentiate themselves from their family (Erikson, 1968; Remschmidt, 1994; Russell & Fish, 2016). Notably, the average age of coming out as LGBTQIA2S+ has dropped from approximately 20 years old in the 1970s to around 14 years old by 2010 (D’Aguelli et al., 2010; Russell & Fish, 2016; Troiden, 1989). As a result, many queer adolescents come out during middle and high school amid a period of “heightened self- and peer-regulation regarding gender and sexuality norms, heightened prejudicial attitudes, and internalized homonegativity” (Dürrbaum & Sattler, 2020, p. 299). As Russell and Fish (2016) observe, contemporary queer youth disclose their identities in contexts of “strong peer influence” which makes them particularly vulnerable to social exclusion and harassment. LGBTQIA2S+ youth experience poorer mental and physical health disparities compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers – a pattern established in the early disparity-focused studies from the 1980s onward and reaffirmed by current findings (Bostwick et al., 2014). National surveys indicate alarmingly high rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among LGBTQIA2S+ youth. For instance, in 2024, the Trevor Project reported that 39% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. These inequities are commonly explained through the minority stress model (Meyer, 2003) which is the predominant framework guiding LGBTQIA2S+ health research (BlackDeer, 2025). Minority stress posits that chronic, socially produced stressors – including victimization, discrimination, anticipated rejection, and internalized stigma – accumulate over time to undermine health and well-being. The model distinguishes between external experiences such as harassment and exclusion (i.e., distal stressors) and internal processes like identity concealment and internalized stigma (i.e., proximal stressors), both of which have been empirically associated with increased depressive symptoms, suicidality, and disordered eating among LGBTQIA2S+ youth (Dürrbaum & Sattler, 2020; Gorse, 2022; Parker & Harriger, 2020).These risks are markedly elevated among youth of color, bisexual/pansexual, transgender, and questioning youth who face additional forms of discrimination (e.g., racism, bi/panphobia, transphobia) and threats to embodiment such as gender dysphoria (Gorse, 2022; Trevor Project, 2024). Despite known health disparities within the LGBTQIA2S+ community, research has historically privileged mainstream, binary, and Western identity categories (Suárez et al., 2021; Walker, 2021) and failed to capture fluid, Indigenous, and non-binary identities. Examples include “Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, nonbinary, genderqueer, agender, asexual, pansexual, graysexual identities” (BlackDeer, 2025, p. 4). Moreover, McBride (2021) delineates between gender and sexuality identities, maintaining that “gender identity development is independent from sexual orientation” (p. 105). LGBTQIA2S+ experiences must be understood as “intersecting with other salient personal, ethnic, cultural, and social identities” (Russell & Fish, 2016, p. 466). Colonial rule criminalized and pathologized non-normative genders and sexualities, producing intergenerational and community traumas that continue to shape family relationships, migration from homelands, and health outcomes (O’Sullivan, 2021). An intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1991) acknowledges that individuals who hold multiple minority identities navigate a layered experience of “discrimination based on the combination of their race, sexual orientation, or gender, as well as their social class, skin tone, or gender expression” (BlackDeer, 2025, p. 3). Intersectionality remains an underutilized framework in LGBTQIA2S+ research (Kemmerer et al., 2025) as evidenced by the persistent overrepresentation of white youth in study samples with 70-90% of participants in extant literature identifying as white, according to Reed (2023). This trend “not only obscures the realities of youth of color but also misrepresents the diversity of rural communities” (Kemmerer et al., 2025, p. 13). In response, a growing body of scholars call for community-based, culturally grounded, and intersectional research approaches as an ethical imperative for LGBTQIA2S+ scholarship (BlackDeer, 2025; Walker, 2021). The ubiquitous depiction of queerness as one of discrimination, violence, and disparity is a narrative of deficit which overlooks the adaptive strategies through which queer cope, resist, and thrive despite their circumstances (Russel & Fish, 2016). As Kemmerer and colleagues (2025) write in their review of literature on rural LGBTQIA+ youth, “[a]cross studies, youth show the capacity to build supportive networks, foster affirming identities, and navigate hostile environments” (p. 12). In response, scholars have adopted strengths-based approaches which foreground protective factors and inform efforts to support queer youth (Gates & Kelly, 2017). For instance, pathways toward self-acceptance and psychological well-being include identity disclosure (Bridge et al., 2022; Charbonnier et al., 2018), supportive peer and familial relationships (Russel & Fish 2016; Sheets & Mohr, 2009; Shilo & Savaya 2011), access to queer-affirming affinity spaces (Madireddy & Madireddy, 2022), and anti-bullying policies (McBride, 2021). This underscores the need for research, policy, and practice which prioritizes “protective, affirming, and culturally responsive” (Kemmerer et al., 2025, p. 12) approaches toward supportive LGBTQIA2S+ well-being. Research consistently demonstrates that belonging for queer youth is deeply relational and embedded within multiple overlapping social contexts with family relationships playing a particularly central role (Gorse, 2022; Kemmerer et al., 2025). Familial acceptance of queer identities and open conversations about gender and sexuality are among the strongest protective factors for mental health, with studies showing that approximately 40% of queer youth identify family as their primary source of support and affirming home environments (Shah et al., 2024). Conversely, family rejection of a youth’s LGBTQIA2S+ identity is associated with elevated depression, anxiety, suicidality, homelessness, substance use, and sexual risk-taking behaviors (D’Aguelli, 2010; Madireddy & Madireddy, 2022; Russell & Fish, 2016). Coming out improves well-being when met with acceptance but exacerbates health risks when met with rejection (Doyle, 2018; Hall, 2018). Beyond parents and caregivers, recent research identifies siblings as under-recognized allies with perceived sibling support acting as a buffer against internalizing symptoms among transgender and non-binary youth (Shah et al., 2024). Schools, peers, and community environmental substantially shape queer youths’ experiences of belonging. Since adolescents spend much of their time at in learning environments, school climate powerfully mediates belonging and mental health outcomes (Shah et al., 2024). Schools with affirming GSAs, inclusive curricula, protective policies, and trusted adults promote safety, self-esteem, and well-being, whereas hostile environments marked by misgendering, exclusion, and erasure predict depression, anxiety, and suicidality, especially for transgender and GNC youth (Gorse, 2022; Kosciw et al., 2009; Russell & Fish, 2016). When families or schools are unsafe, queer youth frequently cultivate peer support and “chosen family” as an adaptive and resilient response (Morgan, 2025). Peer connectedness, particularly with LGBTQIA2S+ peers and allies, strengthens self-acceptance and protects against minority stress, the physiological stress response to chronic experiences of discrimination, stigma, and victimization (Bridge et al., 2022). Digital spaces further extend opportunities for belonging, enabling identity exploration, peer support, and LGBTQIA2S+ education (Kemmerer et al., 2025). In online spaces, queer youth can “control the expression of their sexual or gender identities to prevent or reduce exposure to stigma and discrimination” (Berger et al., 2022, p. 14). The expansive possibilities of online spaces are especially influential for individuals experiencing isolation and hostility in-person, though emerging research also underscores the need to mitigate online risks (Berger et al., 2022; Kemmerer et al., 2025). At the structural level, inclusive state and school policies are associated with reduced victimization and harassment which underscores that belonging is not solely interpersonal but also politically and institutionally produced (Kosciw et al., 2009; Russel & Fish, 2016). Unfortunately, the current political climate and so-called “gender ideology movement,” which deem queer youth a threat to the traditional family (Butler, 2024), have created drastic disinvestment in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs, negatively impacting LGBTQIA2S+ students and faculty (Goldberg, 2024). As Russel and Fish (2016) elaborate, the “lack of support in the fabric of many institutions that guide the lives of LGBT youth (e.g., their schools, families, faith communities) limits their rights and protections and leaves them more vulnerable to experiences that may compromise their mental health” (p. 472). The extant literature present queer youth as resilient individuals who navigate and live within institutions, policies, and relationships which fail to understand their experiences and protect their rights.
Rurality is defined inconsistently across the literature and can refer to an area’s population size, proximity to metropolitan centers, degree of geographic isolation, and cultural identification (Elliott et al., 2022). This study adopts the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural-Urban Continuum (RUC) codes, which classify counties based on population size and distance from metropolitan areas to identify Gunnison County as rural (USDA ERS, 2023). Stereotypes that depict queer youth as either nonexistent or inherently at risk in rural contexts further marginalize rural LGBTQIA2S+ youth from mainstream discourses and resources. Dominant narratives do not imagine rural areas as queer areas, or as Kemmerer and colleagues (2025) write, “urban-centric framing casts the city as the ideal destination for queerness, falsely positioning rurality and queerness as incompatible” (p. 2). They go on to describe how these stereotypes arise, arguing that “[r]ight-wing political elites have strategically tapped into the socioeconomic resentment of rural communities…to advance their agendas” (ibid, p. 2). This “myth” reflects the assumption that all rural communities are uniformly shaped by conservative, religiously fundamental belief systems which limit community acceptance of LGBTQIA2S+ populations (Boso, 2019; Rickard and Yancey, 2018). Why do some rural communities create hostile environments for queer youth while others offer the benefit of small-town connectedness Paceley and colleagues (2020) found community climate to be a “more robust indicator” of sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth physical and mental health than community size. In other words, the presence of “supportive policies, open-and affirming churches, other SGM people…and visibility of SGM identities” (ibid, p. 431) is more significant for health outcomes than population size alone. Young people are profoundly influenced by their political and geographic environments, and rural contexts can present both distinct barriers and protections for queer youth well-being. In their 2025 review of research on rural LGBTQIA2S+ youth, Kemmerer and colleagues found consistent evidence of disparities in mental health and well-being, with multiple studies documenting higher rates of depression, suicidality and suicide attempts, substance use, and non-suicidal self-injury (Goldbach et al., 2023; Kemmerer et al., 2025). Structural barriers commonly include geographic distance from affirming services (e.g., gender-affirming care), which for youth in the Gunnison Valley requires travel of more than an hour, along with transportation constraints, and heightened visibility within smaller communities (Kemmerer et al., 2025). These disparities were often attributed to a lack of adequate support systems and presence of bullying, victimization, and discrimination, which create a hostile community climate (Kemmerer et al., 2025; Paceley et al., 2017). For instance, Rickard and Yancey (2018) found that higher levels of victimization in rural settings reduced queer youths’ comfort when disclosing their identity. Moreover, Kemmerer and colleagues (2025) identified 19 studies which found perceived community hostility to consistently undermine visibility, social support, feelings of safety, and social connectedness among rural queer youth (Kemmerer et al., 2025). At the same time, rural queer youth may benefit from supportive local networks, visible queer life, access to queer-informed resources and education, and inclusive policies and legislation, all of which can expand belonging and improve health outcomes when present (Kemmerer et al., 2021). With a population of 17,310 in 2024, Gunnison County, Colorado is designated as a rural, nonmetropolitan county (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024; USDA ERS, 2023). The county is predominantly white (92.8%), primarily non-Hispanic or Latino (85.4%), and largely Christian, with Baptist denominations comprising an estimated 25-49% of religious affiliation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024; U.S. Religion Census, 2020). Within the county, communities differ substantially. Gunnison is a more socioeconomically diverse university town with the Western Colorado University campus, whereas Crested Butte is characterized as a wealthier, more demographically homogenous ski resort community (Powell et al., 2025). These contrasts in racial diversity are reflected in public school demographics. During the 2024-2025 academic year, 9th to 12th grade student enrollment was approximately 410 students at Gunnison High School (59.8% white; 36.1% Hispanic/Latino) compared to 234 students at Crested Butte Secondary School (90.8% white; 6.3% Hispanic/Latino), which reflects limited racial diversity at Crested Butte (NCES, 2024). Although Gunnison is often imagined, both by outsiders and newcomers, as a mountain idyll, recent behavioral health and community assessments describe a more complex landscape shaped by economic precarity, housing instability, and mounting psychosocial stressors (Powell et al., 2022; 2025). Between 2019 and 2022, real household incomes declined by 16% while housing costs increased by 23%, leaving many families unable to meet basic needs and disproportionately affecting young people (Powell et al., 2022). The county’s suicide rate remains among the highest in the state (Powell et al., 2022). More than one-third of students qualify for free or reduced meals, and food assistance requests quadrupled from 2016 to 2024 (Powell et al., 2025). These pressures are reflected in worsening youth mental health indicators. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, students report heightened stress, isolation, housing insecurity, substance use, and limited access to youth-specific supports (Powell et al., 2022). Queer youth are explicitly identified as a population of concern, with 13.2% of LGB high school students in 2022 reporting a suicide attempt in the last year (Powell et al., 2022). Community reports describe this tension as the “paradise paradox,” wherein the scenic landscape and outdoor recreation culture coexist with exclusionary dynamics, limited services, and a strong ethos of self-reliance that may discourage help-seeking and leave marginalized youth without accessible pathways to care (Powell et al., 2022; 2025).
The primary aim of this study was to examine how queer-identified youth narrate experiences of belonging and make meaning of those experiences within their social and geographic contexts. The study design was informed by intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1991), the minority stress model (Meyer, 2003), Lee and Robbins’ (1995) relational framework for belonging, strengths-based approach (Gates & Kelly, 2017), and community-based participatory action research (Collins et al., 2018; Lewin, 1939) Guided by these frameworks, the study employed narrative inquiry (Riessman, 2008) to capture and analyze participants lived experiences of belonging. An intersectional approach was central to the study’s design and analysis by considering how queer youth experience stress and belonging differently depending on the interaction of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, place, and other social positions (Crenshaw, 1991). Scholars widely recommend adopting an intersectional lens for research with queer identifying youth to better understand the nuance of different minority experiences (BlackDeer, 2025). The minority stress model was applied in conjunction with intersectionality to understand how experiences of stigma, discrimination, and victimization might create stress responses in the participant and subsequently impact belonging (Meyer, 2003). Belonging was analytically examined using Lee and Robbins (1995) which identify three indicators of belonging – companionship (secure and supportive relationships), affiliation (shared values, identities, and social alignment), and connectedness (feelings of comfort and closeness in social environments). This framework for belonging was well-suited to this study’s focus on interpersonal and community belonging as the indicators are naturally discussed in interview contexts. A study titled “’I’m Going to Live My Life Freely’: Authenticity as an Indicator of Belonging Among Urban Latinx LGBTQ+ Youth” by Gonzalez, Reese, and Connaughton-Espino (2022) used Lee and Robbin’ (1995) definition of belonging and expanded the definition to include authenticity. They explain “embracing authenticity emerged as a subtheme of thriving through adversity” (p. 88). A strengths-based approach as proposed by Gates and Kelly (2017) and supported by Madireddy and Madireddy (2022) recognizes that while adversity may be part of the queer experience, queer individuals “have a wealth of ideas, competencies, and resources that they can draw upon” (Gates & Kelley, 2017, p. 236). This approach focuses more on a queer individual’s resilience and strengths to affirm their LGBTQIA2S+ identity and experience. This approach is a rejection of historical models which condemned, pathologized, and criminalized queerness and sought to eradicate or correct it (Gates & Kelley, 2017). The framework comes from social work practices and can be applied to research, clinical practice, and community-based supportive services which makes it a possible application for readers of this report in their work. Community-based action research principles seek to de-center researcher authority and position the local community as “storehouses” of critical knowledge (Johnson, 2017). This approach aligned with the ethical and practical goal to center queer youth voices and generate findings applicable to local support efforts. Moreover, this approach resists colonial practices of knowledge appropriation by focusing on community members. Key stakeholders served as collaborators and contextual informants throughout the research process, particularly Alex Stephan (Socioemotional Learning Coordinator with Gunnison County Juvenile Services). This methodological approach builds on prior scholarship employing intersectional, narrative, and belonging-focused analysis to study queer youth experiences (e.g., Bates et al., 2020; 23Gonzales et al., 2022; and Marlin et al., 2023). We had originally planned a community-based community forum to solicit feedback from participants but given the current political climate and risks to transgender/GNC youth we decided it was safer to reach out to participants individually for feedback. This was done by sharing a one-page participant narrative with each participant. The type of analysis, thematic narrative inquiry, uses words and stories as data from which themes are generated (Riessman, 2008). This privileged participant’s stories as tools for meaning making rather than relying on observational measures of belonging. This aligned with this study’s objective to center youth as active agents in constructing lived experiences into internal memories and feelings which are communicated via words and story.
Participants were recruited using snowball and respondent-driven sampling methods, which are commonly employed for hard-to-access populations, including rural communities and LGBTQIA2S+ youth (Hughes et al., 2021; Schrager et al., 2019). Primary recruitment sites included the queer-affirming clubs and at Gunnison High School, Crested Butte Secondary School, and Western Colorado University. The research team collaborated with teachers, counselors, and student facilitators associated with these groups to distribute recruitment materials and flyers to GSAs (Newman et al., 2022). All participants were recruited through GSAs. Additional recruitment efforts included posting flyers in public spaces (e.g., coffeeshops, community boards) and sharing study announcements on the Gunnison Valley Pride Instagram account. Participants were also invited to share the study flyer with peers, consistent with respondent-driven sampling procedures (Hughes et al., 2021). Eligibility criteria required participants, at the time of the interview, to be between 14 and 18 years old, reside in Gunnison County, and self-identify as LGBTQIA2S+. During recruitment, several inquiries were excluded after being identified as likely spam or phishing responses. Following an initial social media post, an influx of inquiries came from individuals who claimed eligibility but demonstrated limited knowledge of Gunnison County and declined to answer basic screening questions related to local geography. In response, the research protocol was adjusted to prioritize in-person interviews, with exceptions made only when residency in Gunnison County could be clearly verified (e.g., use of a school email address). These procedures were implemented to protect the integrity of the sample and ensure the participants reflected the local population under study.
The study sample consisted of seven queer‑identifying youth aged 14 to 18 years at the time of enrollment (M=16.57, SD=1.81). Participants were permitted to select multiple gender identity and sexual orientation categories and provide write‑in responses. Sex assigned at birth intentionally was not collected being that gender identity was more relevant to the research questions. Gender identities represented in the sample included female (n=3), male (n=3), non‑binary (n=1), unsure/questioning (n=1), and “Eldritch horror” (self‑described; n=1). At the time of the interviews, three participants identified as transgender, three as cisgender, and one as questioning. Reported sexual orientations included asexual (n=3), bisexual (n=3), queer (n=3), pansexual (n = 1), and gay/homosexual (n=1). All participants were enrolled in school at the time of the study. Four participants were high school students aged 14 to 17, with two attending GHS and two attending CBCS. The CBCS participants were slightly older on average and, like the GHS participants, were recruited through their schools’ GSAs, GHS Safe Space and CBCS SAGA. Among the high school cohort, two participants identified as local to Gunnison County and two as non‑locals who relocated to the area during elementary or middle school from metropolitan and non-metropolitan towns. The remaining three participants were 18‑year‑old first‑year undergraduate students at Western Colorado University; all identified as Colorado residents who grew up in metropolitan areas near Denver (n=2) or Pueblo (n=1). All participants reported growing up in regions of the American West including Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. See Table 1 for participant profiles and Table 2 for participant demographics.
Data were collected through semi‑structured qualitative interviews designed to elicit participants’ narratives of belonging while allowing flexibility for participants to guide the interview. Following each interview, participants completed the General Belongingness Scale (GBS; Malone et al., 2012) via an online survey to provide contextual support for qualitative findings (see Appendix D). The GBS captures achieved belonging in a variety of contexts via twelve items on a seven-point Likert scale. Interviews were scheduled via text or email and conducted by the principal investigator. During interviews with participants under 18 years old, there was a second adult trained in human subjects’ research present to advocate for the participant and ensure safety. The second adult was either an MBS graduate student or a community partner. Minor participants were also encouraged to bring a peer or family advocate, as recommended by Newman and colleagues (2022), though none chose to do so. Interviews took place between September 2025 and February 2026, either in person (n=4) at public locations selected by participants (i.e., coffee shops) or via video call (n=3). Interviews lasted an average of 48 minutes and ranging from 34–71 minutes. All interviews were audio‑recorded with participant consent and followed an interview guide with questions regarding belonging across interpersonal relationships, school contexts, online spaces, and community life. Prior to participation, all individuals were screened for eligibility and provided with detailed information about the study’s purpose, confidentiality, potential risks, and consent procedures, which were reviewed both in writing and verbally before the interview (Dixon, 2015). Participants under 18 were given the option of independent minor assent or parental consent which is evidence that mandatory parental consent can bias participation or place LGBTQIA2S+ youth at risk (Nye et al. 2025; Schrager et al. 2019). All minors elected to waive parental consent, and additional safeguards were implemented (i.e., frequent check-ins to assess participant comfort, presence of a secondary adult, thorough review of informed consent). After the verbal interview questions, participants completed a demographic and identity survey which allowed for the selection of multiple options and write‑in responses for gender identity and sexual orientation (Hughes et al. 2021). See Appendices C and D for survey questions. Upon completion of the interview, participants received a digital $15 Visa gift card and a resource guide for local basic needs and LGBTQIA2S+‑affirming support. This study was approved by Western Colorado University’s Institutional Review Board (HRC‑2025‑02‑06‑R34) on April 29, 2025.
Survey data were cleaned and analyzed using JASP (JASP Team, 2025). Negatively worded items on the General Belongingness Scale (GBS) were reverse coded, and descriptive statistics were calculated. Inferential analyses were not conducted due to the small sample size. GBS total scores were used as a contextual indicator of perceived belonging and compared with interview data to assess consistency. While scores generally aligned with participants’ narratives, they tended to reflect higher overall belonging and provided a limited snapshot, as the GBS measures general belonging and does not capture the multiple relational, institutional, and contextual dimensions explored qualitatively. All interviews were transcribed from audio recordings, and all identifying information was redacted. Participants selected or guided the creation of their own pseudonyms via the post‑interview survey, consistent with research emphasizing names as “key symbols of identity” (Itzik & Walsh, 2023, p. 705) important for participant agency (Lahman et al., 2015). In cases where participants provided descriptive preferences rather than a specific name, the principal investigator selected a pseudonym that met those criteria. Pseudonyms were reviewed with a community partner to avoid duplication with known local youth and were shared with participants for feedback prior to finalization. Given the exploratory nature of the research questions, an inductive analytic approach was used (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Interviews were first analyzed individually to understand each participant’s narrative of belonging, supported by analytic memos, field notes, and reflexive writing (Riessman, 2008). Narrative codes and exemplar episodes were identified by participants then examined across participants to identify shared patterns and themes. The principal investigator conducted all coding and analysis, with ongoing consultation from a graduate advisor and a community partner. Consistent with community‑based research principles, participants were invited to review brief narrative profiles and offer feedback (Johnson, 2017). None of the participants responded to this request. During analysis, differences in developmental stage and sociocultural context between high school students and first‑year university students became salient. Accordingly, themes were organized to reflect both shared experiences and subgroup‑specific patterns. Final themes were iteratively reviewed against the transcripts to ensure analytic rigor, credibility, and relevance to the local Gunnison County community.
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