Subcultural Spaces: LGBTQ Aging in a Swedish Context

This study takes its starting point in the Swedish context to explore experiences of community among older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) adults. Using life story interviews with 33 self-identified LGBTQ older adults between the ages of 59 to 94 years, our aim is to explore meanings of community, belonging, and subcultural spaces at different times and in different ages. How are narratives of finding, entering, and creating subcultural spaces described, and how does time and geographical context play into these experiences in particular? What is it like to age within these communities and to enter these queer spaces later in life? This analysis illustrates how old age can be a disadvantage for entering or participating in queer subcultures, especially when it comes to dating, but the results also point to how old age can be something adding to one’s social capital within these subcultures. Further, results suggest that it is important to take social, cultural, and economic resources into account when analyzing community and relationships among older LGBTQ people

“They Just Don’t Have a Clue”: Transgender Aging and Implications for Social Work

This article explores transgender aging, drawing from life story interviews with transgender adults aged 62–78. The analysis focuses on 3 themes: intersections of age and gender during the life course, lack of knowledge of transgender issues, and how previous experiences of accessing care and social services matter in later life. It illustrates how older transgendered adults carry physical and mental scars from previously encountered transphobia, which affect various aspects of later life. Implications for social work are discussed and client-centered care, with a biographical approach, is suggested to better meet the needs of transgendered older adults

Developing a critical trans gerontology

Within existing academic literature, ageing within trans populations has primarily been addressed from the perspective of offering advice to service providers and clinicians, with relatively limited application of critical sociological perspectives. This article seeks to integrate the critical perspectives on gerontology with transfeminism, identifying areas of commonality regarding accounts of an integrated lifecourse, scepticism of biomedicalisation, and an emphasis on local context. The article suggests that this integration provides a fruitful basis for developing future research into the study of trans ageing, and also provides theoretical development across many debates around age, gender and the lifecourse