© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
Debra A. Harley and Pamela B. Teaster (eds.)Handbook of LGBT Elders10.1007/978-3-319-03623-6_44. Deconstructing Multiple Oppressions Among LGBT Older Adults
(1)
Northeastern University, Boston, USA
(2)
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Boston, MA 02467, USA
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to interrogate oppression through an analysis of discourses related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults. As part of our reflexive posture, we attend to the social constructions of meaning about age, ability, gender, race, and sex and their colossal impacts on LGBT older adults. We are mindful of the weight of oppression for LGBT older adults in general but in particular overlooked subgroups of this diverse population (e.g., people who are with low income, people of color, and people who are transgender and do not fit into the binary of woman or man, gay or straight). We confront multiple layers of discrimination by deconstructing cultural assumptions of normalcy (e.g., heteronormativity within the LGBT community) presented in visual form, verbal text, and within discourses.
Keywords
LGBT eldersAgeismRacismHomophobiaTransphobiaMultiple oppressionsOverview
In this chapter, we examine gender and sexuality, race, privileged queer identities, and policy issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults. A case study with discussion questions concludes our work. The following tenets guide our formulations and constructions of meaning: (1) Sexuality is fluid; (2) there is a difference between LGBT identity and same-sex behavior; (3) differences as well as inequities exist within the LGBT population and mirror the differences and inequities that exist among non-LGBT and the under-65 population; (4) there is inadequate attention devoted to ethnic and racial diversity among LGBT older adults; (5) there is inadequate attention devoted to transgender issues in the research on LGBT older adults; and (6) patriarchy and racism produce and perpetuate silence about race and transgender among LGBT older adults.
As authors, we bring our lens, biases, and positions to the writing of this chapter. We acknowledge our subjectivity informed by our location within multiple identities. We are heterosexual and lesbian, faculty member and graduate student in counseling psychology, black and white, married and single, and baby boomer and millennial. Despite our differences, our similarities are greater and galvanize us to speak truth to power. We monitor our proximity to a multitude of live discourses in our interactions with LGBT people and clients. We have queried ourselves and one another about the unconscious and/or unspoken discourses that lie beneath socially constructed categories of difference relative to LGBT older adults.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter, the reader should be able to:
1.
Understand the role of discourses in the lives of LGBT individuals in general and for LGBT elders, in particular.
2.
Understand the multiple impacts of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia on the LGBT older adult population.
3.
Understand the roles of policies and laws on older LGBT individuals.
Introduction
Within the last few years, the United States of America (USA) has witnessed dramatic changes regarding who can legally marry. As of the writing of this book, nineteen states now sanction marriage between two women or two men. The heterosexist discourse is being challenged that dictates that marriage between a normal XY male and a normal XX female is the only acceptable union that warrants legal protection. Another major cultural shift pertains to people with 65 years of age and older. Older adults are living and working longer than ever before. Although the actual numbers are inaccurate, millions of older adults are LGBT. In not being young and not being heterosexual, LGBT older adults are distinguished by multiple identities that run counter to the dominant culture’s fascination with and insistence on youth, beauty, and traditional gender roles (Robinson-Wood 2013).
Ageism or age discrimination is fueled by a cultural belief that people who are middle-aged and older are past their prime, disabled and unproductive that denies the vast diversity among old LGBT adults. Although successful aging refers to the physical and emotional ability to thrive, cope, socialize, and learn (Van Wagenen et al. 2013), the USA culture places considerable emphasis on anti-aging, youth, and the body beautiful (Robinson-Wood 2013). Ageism and ableism intersect and are codependent on one another for their existence.
Gender prescriptions normalized by heterosexuals extend to LGBT populations. Moreover, the social construction of race is evident within the LGBT community. LGBT individuals of color experience more psychological distress, financial instability, limited access to culturally competent care, and housing inequality than their white counterparts.
Discrimination occurs among most LGBT older adults; however, vast intragroup differences exist and are related to disability, age, gender status, race, income, the quality of aging, and identity development. An LGBT older adult, who is transgender, single, working class, a person of color, and resides with friends in an apartment, lives in a society where his or her gender, sexuality, and marital status are inconsistent with cultural values such as patriarchy, heterosexual marriage, home ownership, economic success, and reproduction. Conversely, the middle-class gay male, who is married to and living with his husband, has children, and owns a home, occupies identity statuses that are culturally privileged and valued.
The purpose of this chapter is to interrogate oppression through an analysis of discourses related to LGBT older adults. As part of our reflexive posture, we attend to the social constructions of meaning about age, ability, gender, race, and sex and their colossal impacts on LGBT older adults. We are mindful of the weight of oppression for LGBT older adults in general but in particular overlooked subgroups of this diverse population (e.g., people who are with low income, people of color, and people who are transgender and do not fit into the binary of woman or man, gay or straight). We confront multiple layers of discrimination by deconstructing cultural assumptions of normalcy (e.g., heteronormativity within the LGBT community) presented in visual form, verbal text, and within discourses.
Self-Check Exercise:
What kind of messages did you receive from your family about LGBT people and the elderly? What is your proximity to current discourses about LGBT elders? Do you know any persons who are LGBT elders?
Weedon (1987) defined discourses “as ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity, and power relations which inhere in such knowledge and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning, they constitute the ‘nature’ of the body, unconscious and conscious mind, and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern” (p. 105). Discourses can be subtle, yet they are pervasive throughout society and hold enormous power. Discourses can be unconscious. They can be insidious in that people are unaware of where they are located within and positioned by certain other discourses (Robinson-Wood 2013).
Discourses portray older people as homogenous, feeble, disabled, unproductive, asexual, unattractive, and forgetful (Robinson-Wood 2013). The tenets of patriarchy privilege LGBT older adults whose lives are most closely aligned with dominant cultural values and norms. In America, marriage, youth, gender conformity, wealth, ability, heterosexuality, and white skin operate as valued identities and commodities. Falling outside of this cultural swath has significant implications for financial stability, employment, dating, marriage, access to and quality of health care, and social capital.
Discussion Box:
Can you think of any movies (non-musicals) where LGBT elders have been depicted? What were their lives like? What race were they? How similar were their lives to cultural values? How do movies reinforce dominant cultural values and often perpetuate race, gender, and sexuality stereotypes?
LGBT Older Adults
Within the next 15 years, the number of older adults in the USA will nearly double, from 38 to 72 million. In 2030, one in five Americans will be 65 or older (Grant et al. 2010a). Between 2012 and 2030, the non-Hispanic white population is expected to increase by 54 % compared to 125 % for older racial and ethnic minority populations, including Hispanics (155 %), African Americans (104 %), American Indian and Native Alaskans (116 %), and Asians (119 %) (US Department of Health and Human Services 2012). Widely represented among LGBT older adults are people of color: black (non-Hispanic), Hispanic, American Indian or Native Alaskan, Asian or Pacific Islander. See Chaps. 6–8, and 10 respectfully, for further discussion on these groups.
Self-Check Exercise:
What does deconstruction mean to you? How does deconstruction take place within society? Social construction suggests that society creates race, gender, and sexuality as meaningful categories of privilege and oppression among people. Society makes sense of these meanings, and difference is created rather than intrinsic to a phenomenon. Deconstruction is taking part; unlearning; analyzing the way that meaning was constructed; and engaging in a different process of social construction with different meanings and outcomes.
Health and policy researchers have examined the implications of this dramatic increase in the numbers of older adults with respect to Medicare, the sustainability and availability of social security, healthcare affordability, retirement pensions, and tax revenues. LGBT older adults have recent scant attention from researchers. Approximately 3.5 % of the adult population or 8 million adults in the USA are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Over 700,000 people are transgender (The Williams Institute, 2011). Due largely to advances in health care, aging baby boomers are living longer than those in previous decades. There are also significant numbers of LGBT people among aging baby boomers. Nonetheless, LGBT aging has been grossly understudied in health research.
Examining 2010 Census data, demographer Gary Gates (August 25, 2011) from the Williams Institute Study reports that in the USA there are 901,997 same-sex couples who are represented in 99 % of the counties. The 2010 Census included LGBT persons; however, marital status was queried but not sexual orientation. For instance, a woman living with another woman to whom she is not married could check the “unmarried partner” box. According to Gates (2011), as many as 15 % of same-sex couples were not identified as same-sex couples in the 2010 Census. Approximately 10 % of same-sex couples described their relationship as “roommates” or “non-relatives” and not as “spouses” or “unmarried couples.” When queried further, researchers learned that confidentiality was a concern among one-quarter of respondents. One-third took issue with the Census for not asking about sexual orientation or gender identity. Some people were offended by the options presented to them.
The actual percentage of the LGBT population is a complex issue. People can and do, for a variety of reasons, conceal and/or camouflage their sexuality. The invisibility of LGBT sexuality and, in some cases, lack of disclosure about one’s sexual status presents methodological obstacles to research investigations on aging. The fluidity of sexuality over time and the nebulous nature of defining LGBT identity confound the methodological difficulties involved with researching this population. Estimates of persons who report any lifetime same-sex sexual behavior and any same-sex sexual attraction are substantially higher than estimates of those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The distinction between behavior and identity may be illuminating. An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2 %) report that they have engaged in same-sex sexual behavior. Nearly 25.6 million Americans (11 %) acknowledge at least some same-sex sexual attraction.
According to Rust (2006), a person’s “sexual landscape might change, thus creating new opportunities for self-description while transforming or eliminating existing possibilities” (p. 174). LGBT individuals may be recently out, whereas others have been out for a lifetime since adolescence or early adulthood. Others lived primarily heterosexual lives and came out during middle adulthood. Some people have lived a portion of their lives according to a particular sexual orientation and have, with time, come to question their sexuality.
Methodological challenges withstanding in researching this largely invisible population (Shankle et al. 2003), recent research has begun to explore the unique issues LGBT older adults face. Pressing issues include these: (1) social isolation from communities of support; (2) identifying suitable and affordable LGBT-friendly housing; (3) elder abuse; (4) financial instability; and (5) health concerns related to aging (Grant et al. 2010a; Hash and Rogers 2013; Sargeant 2009; Fredriksen-Goldsen and Muraco 2010; Graham 2011; Hudson 2011; SAGE 2010). Research on the intersection of race and LGBT older adults has begun and is spearheaded by Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) and the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging.
Gender and Sexuality
Gender refers to the complex interrelationship between those traits and one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both, or neither as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception (American Psychological Association 2006). Whereas sex refers to the XX and XY chromosome pairs for genetically healthy female or male (Atkinson and Hackett 1998), gender is a crucial part of identity presentation and representation across the life span. Although the meaning of gender varies among different cultures and changes throughout time (McCarthy and Holliday 2004), the most common definition refers to culturally determined attitudes, cognitions, and belief systems about females and males. Sex, gender, and gender expression are formed from interactions with parents, peers, and teachers and transmitted through the educational system, religious institutions, politics, and the media.
Gender marginalization can be found within the LGBT older adult community. Due to sexism or the institutionalized system of inequality based on the biological and social stratification of gender, LGBT individuals who are born male enjoy privileges that women and transgender persons do not. More specifically, power and privilege are conferred upon men who are viewed as masculine, powerful, and wealthy and conferred upon women who are regarded as attractive and emotionally available and pliable. As forms of expressions of one’s gender, masculinity and femininity are shaped by traditional gender roles. Masculinity discourses embody men as aggressive, strong, and in control (much like America herself), whereas feminine discourses include female submission to men and masculinity validation. Lesbians, across age groups, suffer from gender discrimination by virtue of their sex and also due to a failure to compliment men as sexual and emotional partners (Sargeant 2009).
Discussion Box:
Lesbians, across age groups, suffer from gender discrimination by virtue of their sex and also due to a failure to compliment men as sexual and emotional partners (Sargeant 2009). Do you think this applies to lesbian elders?
Cisgender individuals are those who have gender-confirming identities where biological sex and gender match. This sex-gender congruity affords privilege and a cover of normalcy within society. Conversely, gender non-conformity refers to an individual’s gender identity that does not align with biological sex; however, one’s view of their sex is consistent with their sex at birth. Individuals who are gender non-conforming and transgender/transsexual (e.g., trans*) contest the dominant model of gender identity. People who are trans* may be biologically one sex but identify emotionally, physiologically, and psychologically with another sex or gender expression. They may identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. A male-to-female transsexual who has completed gender-confirming surgery might say: I see myself being with a man, but I did not see myself as a man with a man. I saw myself as a woman with a man.
According to the Diagnostic Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5, people who are transgender have gender dysphoria. The DSM-5 is the diagnostic authority relied upon by all mental health clinicians to classify diagnostic codes for their patients, but this diagnosis can be controversial with people who are trans* and trans* rights advocates. Required for third-party billing, the DSM-5 has more than a 60-year history in the USA. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from that which is typically associated with their sexual assignment at birth. Often a source of confusion, transgender is not synonymous with homosexuality. Various transgender terms exist, including transsexual, genderqueer, transman, and transwomen.
Across race, class, culture, disability, and sexuality, gender influences what we believe about ourselves and others. Gender labels are applied to people, and, once assigned, people behave toward individuals based on a set of expectations for persons with the same label. Deviation from prescribed gender roles attracts notice and comment from a scrutinizing public. At the center of cultural and gender normativity is patriarchy through which gender oppression is maintained. Among older people, gender is eclipsed by age unless it is nestled within youthfulness or age defiance. Among people of color, gender tends to be obscured by race, in that race vies for more attention as the salient identity construct (Robinson-Wood 2013).
Social constructions of gender and sexual identity impact one’s lived experience. The visible signs of aging that mark a person as undesirable or unappealing are a phenomenon in the LGBT community (Sargeant 2009). Ageism in the gay community is rampant with gay men being particularly vulnerable to becoming “too old” for relationships if over the age of 35 (Sargeant 2009). Gay and bisexual men are twice as likely to live alone as heterosexual men. Gay and bisexual men tend to have a harder time successfully aging, and they seemed to be overwhelmed and even depressed, in comparison with lesbian and bisexual women (Macdonald and Rich 1983; Schope 2005). Feminism has exerted a tremendous impact on the formation of lesbian and bisexual women’s communities, thus inspiring resistance to and confrontation of ageism (Grant et al. 2010a).
Gay and bisexual men appear to have had little connection to dialogues in which queer women have participated (Grant et al. 2010a). The youth orientation of gay culture has helped to cultivate internalized ageism among some gay and bisexual men who feel rejected and isolated from the mainstream gay community. Schope (2005) took a different position and argues that gay men are actually better able to cope with aging than are heterosexual men.
Although lesbian and bisexual women are more likely to live alone than heterosexual women (Grant et al. 2010a), lesbians seem to fare better than their gay counterparts and have broader social support networks and community involvement. Many lesbians enjoy intimate and sexual relationships well into older adulthood (Kimmel et al. 2013) and are less likely to be viewed as unattractive as they age. The heteronormative standard of beauty has been critiqued by many older lesbians who refuse to be bound by body image ideals that harass heterosexual women (Kimmel et al. 2013). Although older lesbians are likely to be welcomed, respected, and even “treasured” by younger lesbians (Schope 2005), the challenge with this endearment is the perception of being patronized (Macdonald and Rich 1983).
Unlike the majority of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals, many trans* individuals decide to transition later in life after retirement and after adult children have moved out of the house (Kimmel et al. 2013). The economic means to live one’s gendered and sexual identity exists for many older trans* individuals; nonetheless, problems remain with dating, finding culturally competent healthcare providers, and coexisting within a marginalizing society. Little research is available on trans* individuals and how they live in older adulthood.
Privileged Queerness
Queer theorists have excluded LGBT older adults from their research in much the same way that LGBT older adults have been excluded from health care, policy, and mental health research. Brown (2009) argued that the producers of queer and gerontological theory communicate from a position of power that both silences and ignores the realities of LGBT older adults. She argues that homophobia , heterosexism in gerontology, and ageism in queer theory drive this production.
Halberstam (2005) identified two new terms in queer theory that have direct implications for LGBT older adults. Queer time and queer space is a model for minimizing the heteronormative gaze of aging. A new queer version centers on the present and is not focused on biological reproduction and the traditional family. Queer time and queer space questions the mainstream definition of healthy development and identity politics. Brown (2009) proposed that this perspective of living for today may have emanated from the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s, which had a profound and lasting impact on the LGBT community. Brown (2009) also postulates that queer theory has historically focused on the young, creating a power differential and a dismissal of LGBT older adults’ voices, bodies, desires, and perspectives.
Research and media on LGBT individuals ignores stratification and diversity within the LGBT community. Television shows such as The L Word and Will and Grace made a valiant attempt to empower and give voice to LGBT individuals. LGBT portrayals were overwhelmingly problematic because they presented people in stereotypical and sensationalized fashion (Akita et al. 2013). Far too often, a preferred type of LGBT person blankets the media. Despite the number of prime time television shows that give voice to the LGBT experience, such as Orange is the New Black and Gray’s Anatomy, more often than not, media reflect dominant discourses concerning which LGBT individuals are worthy of watching. People who are young, attractive, white, wealthy, promiscuous, dramatic, gender-conforming, and physically fit are iconic. Most LGBT individuals and heterosexuals do not resemble these unrealistic television images.
A bifurcated and binary system of gender and gender expression is still imposed at this point in the twenty-first century. Within this system some, albeit not all, LGBT individuals are positioned at the periphery of mainstream society, which can increase one’s susceptibility to oppression, prejudice, and stereotyping. Adherence to a binary gender and sexuality system contributes to discrimination against bisexuals within the LGBT community. Men and women who identify as bisexual experience biphobia and may not be considered as serious romantic partners or are perceived to be in transition or experimenting sexually, similar to adolescence. Bisexuals and trans* individuals have historically been silenced and excluded with many regarding them as part of the “out group” within LGBT organizations and movements (Graham 2011). Little research is available on internalized transphobia and ageism within the trans* older adult population.
Internalized homophobia can cause serious mental health effects and is fairly prevalent in the LGBT older adult population. Although many LGBT older adults are typically well adjusted and mentally healthy (Graham 2011), the Aging Health Report (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al. 2011) stated that 26 % of the 2500 LGBT older adults in the project tried at one time or another to not be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. On a scale of 1–4 with 4 representing higher levels of stigma, the average level of stigma on a nine-item measure adapted from the Homosexuality-Related Stigma Scale was 1.5 for LGBT older adult participants; 1.3 for lesbians; 1.5 for bisexual women; 1.5 for bisexual men; and 1.8 for transgender older adults.