This document summarizes research on sexualities, gender, and aging. It discusses competing narratives around non-heterosexual identity and aging experiences, noting both positive accounts of identity management and lonelier accounts. Qualitative research was conducted through focus groups and surveys with self-identified lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals aged 50-80. Key findings included the intersections of sexuality and gendered experiences, economic disadvantages faced by some older non-heterosexuals, variations in domestic and social roles between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and both supportive and exclusionary experiences within LGBT communities for older individuals.

1. Sexualities, Gender and
Ageing
By Brian Heaphy
A presentation by Niamh Kavanagh & Fiona Marfoa

2. Sexual Identities and Ways of
Living
 Competing narratives of the personal possibilities and constraints
that face non-heterosexuals.
 Some research has emphasised the positive ways in which non-
heterosexual identity shapes ageing and later life experiences e.g.
successful management of their identity and skills in „crisis
competence‟.
 However, other research suggests different, with non-
heterosexuals being lonely and isolated with old age.
 Points out that sexual identity is not the key determining factor of
later life experience.
 No unitary non-heterosexual experience, we must look at other
ways that it intersects with other factors that influence the life
course.

3. Sexualities and Gender
Ginn and Arber (1995) looked at how sexuality and ageing
intersect with gender and how it is understudied.
This contributes to social invisibility of older non-
heterosexual which stems from the historical invisibility.
According to Rich (1983) Invisibility- “heterosexual
panorama” so it seem like heterosexual is the only visible
and legitimate sexuality.
Sexuality plays a big role in understanding gender and
ageing. Feminist theorists argue that sexuality is central to
the maintenance of the patriarchal order (Jackson, 1995)

4. Aims, Method and Data
 The issue of non-heterosexuality and ageing raises many
questions that a researcher may want to answer.
 Qualitative data was gathered from focus group interviews
and survey questionnaires.
 Self-identified lesbians, gay men and bisexuals aged between
their 50s and 80s.
 Snowball sampling used to get in touch with hard to reach
non-heterosexuals.
 Wants to highlight how the data and discussion in this article
should be recognised as capturing specific experiences.

5. Gender, Sexuality and Material
Resources
 Many lesbians in later life are likely to be disadvantaged by gendered
processes in the labour market (Bernard& Phillips, 1998) especially
women who have been previously married and who assumed roles as
carers and mothers.
 Dunne (1997) has argued that economic independence is a key
determining factor of many non-heterosexual women‟s lives.
 Social and legal sanctions against homosexuality have worked in
different ways at different historical times to disrupt or limit non-
heterosexual individuals‟ career choices and earning capacity.
 “was very „out‟. This influenced the jobs I was sent to. Poor pay, but a com-
munity of queens”
 Indicate that some women and men „choose‟ to work in lower paid areas
of employment where they assume their sexuality will be accepted.
 Dunne(1997) Study- Lesbian under 60: The older the woman, the less
choice she is likely to have had in relation to her (paid or unpaid) working
life.

6. Sexual Differences and Ways of
Relating
 Non-heterosexuals do not experience domestic work in same way
their heterosexual counterparts do e.g. same sex couples actively
negotiate roles in relation to domestic tasks. Roles cannot be
simply assumed so same sex couple households are „un-
gendered‟ spheres.
 BUT, in some cases, traditional gender roles have become
internalised, and some assume there is a „natural order of things‟ -
Bourdieu (1977) – this is due to „habitus‟ – “History turned nature”
forming a common sense surrounding people‟s expectations of
ways of living.
 Increase in solo-living - more common amongst older gay men.
 Non-heterosexual women attach to emotional and relational
connectedness which is evident through friendships, and gay men
also highlight the personal significance of friendship.

7. Ageing in Non-Heterosexual Cultures
 Ageing in a non- heterosexual context can, for
example, sometimes mean that individuals are less aware
of the ageing process. Older lesbians‟ narratives often
suggest that the privileging of youth is less of a pressure in
lesbian cultures than it is for women in mainstream
cultures.

8. Sexual Communities and Mutual
Care
 Conceptualised sexual communities as radical social and political
developments - Opening up social, cultural, political and individual possibilities
for non-heterosexuals in generating social capital.
 Communities are viewed as self-made forms of socialising and support that
provide a crucial context for collective and individual agency.
 Striking resemblance between these theoretical accounts of the communities
and the personal narratives provided by non-heterosexuals in the focus group
interviews.
 The narratives indicate the support that non-heterosexuals provide for their
members in later life, and is apparent in both men and women.
 BUT - if women and men come together for mutual support, gendered values
and expectations can cause conflict in relation to „care‟.

9. Communities that Exclude
 Older gay men‟s narratives of community exclusion equate non-
heterosexual communities with the visible and economically thriving
urban commercial scenes i.e. bars, clubs etc.
 It is the older gay men who are most likely to tell stories of the
implications of age for a sense of „exclusion‟ from the scenes and
groups they perceive to make up sexual communities.
 The older men feel that there is a lot of „ageism‟ within the gay male
communities, and that their ageing bodies mark them as unwelcome
in gay-identified places.
 The gay male communities are essential youth-orientated.
 Vincent: I think [the gay] community [is now] based around pubs and clubs…I suspect if we tried to
walk in, a very sweet bouncer might say, ‘Sorry sir, we’re full up’ or something.
Sean: Yeah because we’re too old.