Sexual Identity Differences in Aging and the Life Course
Queer theory questions and destabilizes normative and traditional ideas about gender and sexual expressions and identities (Butler, 1990; Fabbre, 2014; Halberstam, 2005; Sedgwick, 1990)
Relying on the traditions of critical gerontology and queer theory, I develop the concept of queer aging to suggest that the meaning of aging among LGB adults ). The term queer is used in this article to signify a nonnormative way of being, consistent with its usage within queer theory. Queer theorists also emphasize the distinctiveness of queer culture and lives, which in part developed out of systematic exclusion from the institution of ). For example, due to estrangement from biological family, LGB people formed their own unique subculture, rejecting biological and reproductive definitions of kinship; in turn, they embraced friends as chosen family and as a source of support (de Vries et al., 2019; Weston, 1997). Despite pressures to assimilate into mainstream culture given the liberalization of same-sex ; Warner, 1999), some members of the LGB community retain distinctive features of queer subculture, including continuing to embrace chosen family (Hull & Ortyl, 2019). (mais…)
