Announcement of ED. D. Proposal Defense Stephen G. Beun: “At the Intersection of LGBTQIA+ and ADHD”

ABSTRACT: Individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, who are members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersexed, Asexual, aka LGBTQIA+, community belong to two marginalized populations. Each marginalized population has been found to be at risk of various negative outcomes in education, employment and in their social, emotional, and mental health. Students with ADHD have higher rates of academic struggles including failing courses, lower GPAs and standardized test scores, higher rates of absenteeism and tardiness, are eight times more likely to drop out of high school, and if they do complete high school, they are less likely to pursue college (Kent et al., 2011; Kuriyan et al., 2013). LGBTQIA+ students have more negative school experiences and have a high school dropout rate more than three times that of their heterosexual peers according to the United States National Mental Health Association (Chen and Keats, 2016; McFarland et al., 2018; White et al., 2018). Individuals with ADHD have been found to have increased rates of peer harassment victimization (Heiman & Olenik-Shemesh, 2015; Kowalski & Fedina, 2011; Wells et al., 2019) as have individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community (Abreu et al., 2022; Robinson & Espelage, 2011). Increased suicidal ideation exists among LGBTQIA+ youth as well as with those with ADHD; the rates of suicide are higher in both populations across age ranges (Burns, Butterworth, & Jorm, 2018; Fitzgerald, 2019; Giupponi et al., 2018; Moody & Smith, 2013). These and other potential negative outcomes warrant a closer look at the lived experiences of those living at the intersection of ADHD and LGBTQIA+.

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