Research aim
This study examines the experience of community among older LGBTQ+ people in a Swedish context. Using life-course interviews with 33 participants aged between 59 and 94, we aim to explore the significance of community, belonging and community spaces at different points in time and at different ages.
Research questions:
- How are stories of seeking, entering and creating community spaces described?
- How do time and geographical context influence these experiences?
- What is it like to grow older within these communities and to enter these queer spaces at a later age?
Results
The analysis shows how older age can be a barrier to entering or participating in the queer community (particularly when it comes to dating), but the results also indicate how older age can increase people’s social capital within these groups. The findings suggest that it is important to take social, cultural and economic resources into account when analysing relationships among older LGBTQ+ people.
Keywords: ageism, ageing, family, interpersonal relationships, social norms, LGBTQ+.
Many older LGBTQ+ people in Sweden lived and came out at a time when there were few public queer spaces, visible role models and organisations. Entering the queer community was a life-changing experience for many who were trying to carve out an acceptable life on the margins of heteronormativity.
Historical context: the situation in Sweden
LGBTQ+ rights in the Nordic region have changed radically over the past 40 years. By the 1980s, homosexuality had been removed from the list of psychiatric diagnoses. However, the simultaneous emergence of HIV/AIDS had a dramatic impact on the LGBTQ+ community and social life.
Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce laws in the 1970s ensuring access to public healthcare for trans people. However, this support was conditional on meeting strict gender normativity requirements and compulsory sterilisation (which was only abolished in 2013). It is important to understand that the term ‘transsexualism’ is outdated and pathologising. Its retention in documents is merely a relic of the old medical system, which the ICD-11 aims to rectify by shifting gender identity from the field of psychiatry to that of sexual health.
Methodology and theoretical perspectives
The empirical data consists of 33 interviews conducted between 2009 and 2013. We used Sara Ahmed’s concept of orientation to examine how subjects are situated in time and space:
- ‘The Straight Line’: the heteronormative life course (school – marriage – children – retirement), which is intertwined with the social promise of happiness. Deviating from this line deprives one of familiar support, but opens the way to community.
- Queer-time-spaces: a term describing processes of identification as material and discursive products, encompassing linguistic, spatial and bodily dimensions.
Coming in, coming home: the search for spaces of belonging
In those days, when coming out to society was impossible, ‘coming in’ to the community was crucial for affirming one’s identity.
Lars (gay, came out in the 1960s): ‘You had to bring your passport and driving license and ID yourself as well as be recommended by someone else. At Timmy’s gay club, there were closed heavy velvet curtains, so no risk that someone from the outside would be able to see in.’
Lily and Lena (trans women): Early trans groups were characterised by strict secrecy. Lily applied by post, and the group used secret names. Lena recalls locked doors and instructions never to speak of her experiences outside the room. Finding these spaces is described as ‘liberating’.
Participants involved in activism speak of the value of collective strength. Saga notes: “IIt has strengthened me a lot. When I meet my old classmates, I feel that I have my own life, I belong somewhere and I have my own context.” Weston (1991) pointed out that ‘coming home’ is linked to the search for invisible kinship and combines the meaning of coming out with life within the community.
Spaces of friction: uncomfortable places
Creating their own spaces was accompanied by the need to adhere to strict internal norms.
Clara (lesbian, trans woman): Clara faced exclusion in the 1990s, despite years of involvement in building the women’s movement. Her access to the queer community depended directly on whether other participants accepted her as a woman.
The experiences of Kjell and Sture show that within LGBTQ+ groups there was sometimes just as much ignorance regarding trans issues as in the wider society. Often, the community was reduced to ‘gay-centrism’, which marginalised trans realities. Lesbian-feminist spaces of the 1970s also had strict norms: bisexuality was often not accepted, and appearance (a ban on skirts, mandatory Palestinian scarves) was strictly regulated.
Ageing, bodies and community: continuity and change
Ageing does not mean that community spaces become less important, but it changes how a person perceives themselves within them.
Kari: 'At Mermaid Pride, I just felt “What am I doing here?” I walked there with two other ladies with grey hair and we looked at each other and then there was a lot of gay guys in spandex around us, I mean I felt I had more in common with the cops who walked there.'
Ivar (67): 'The older you get, the more you have to count on that you won’t meet anyone younger than forty, that is not happening. On dating sites, people just want to laugh at me: "Are you that old?"'
Commentary: In a youth-oriented gay culture, the ageing body is often constructed as ‘unattractive’. This is a social construct, not objective reality. The industry and the community dictate beauty standards that marginalise natural bodily changes, causing people to feel internalised ageism.
In contrast, Anita sees age as a resource. Older activists are perceived as role models. In lesbian spaces, there is often less ageism and focus on appearance, which increases the social capital of the older generation.
Repression and strategies of resistance
In the 1980s, the state forcibly closed gay saunas under the pretext of combating HIV. Sweden’s experience shows that even in democratic countries, the community’s rights can come under pressure.
Inge (born in 1922): ‘Older people don’t go out at night. Many were beaten up in the past. We meet in our gay group during the day. We are frightened by past violence, so we have combination locks everywhere.”
Discussion
Using Sara Ahmed’s concept, one could say that it is often easy to follow the well-trodden heteronormative path. The tangled paths leading to other lives are harder to find, but they lead to new worlds. Queer communities are central to the formation of identities outside heteronormativity.
Key findings:
- Age as a factor of exclusion and inclusion: Older age can be a barrier in a youth-oriented culture, but it also confers the status of custodians of history and wisdom.
- The impact of resources: Access to the community is determined by geography, class, economics and health. Analysis must take these factors into account as determinants of the ability to form relationships.
- The need for inclusive policies: Safe spaces are important not only for young people. Ageing in the community is not the end of the road, but an opportunity to become the keepers of the history that young queer people so desperately need. We need intergenerational dialogue.
Authors: Anna Siverskog and Janne Bromseth
