Membership experiences in gender-sexuality alliances (GSAs) predict increased hope and attenuate the effects of...

We examined whether students' experiences in their Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) over the school year predicted positive development or thriving in the form of higher relative levels of hope at the end of the school year and whether GSA experiences also promoted resilience by attenuating the link between victimization and lower relative levels of hope among 366 student members of 38 GSAs (M_age = 15.53 years; 85% sexual minority; 55% cisgender female; 72% White). Our findings indicated that, when considered one at a time, students' perceptions of receiving more social-emotional support, receiving more information and resources, and undertaking more advocacy in their GSA throughout the school year predicted higher relative levels of hope at the end of that school year (adjusted for students' initial hope at the beginning of the year). When considering all three GSA-based experiences concurrently, receiving more information and resources in their GSA had a unique predictive association with hope and it reduced the extent to which reported experiences of victimization at school predicted diminished hope at the end of the year. There was a similar, though statistically non-significant, moderating trend for advocacy.