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Introduction: Queer Aging and the Significance of Representation

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Queer Aging in North American Fiction

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Abstract

In the Introduction, Hess points to an absence of aging LGBTQ persons and narratives of queer aging within aging studies and queer studies alike, even though age and aging frequently serve as important narrative elements in queer fiction, and queerness can open up alternative ways of thinking about aging and the life course. Introducing temporality, futurity, productivity, success, and failure as central tropes that shape understandings of growing older, Hess focuses on a development in the representation of queer aging from the 1940s to the 2010s in North American fiction and argues that narratives of queer aging are particularly apt at casting new light on the ways in which growing older is perceived and conceptualized in North American culture.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A quick Internet search for the terms “grandmother’s lover” and “lesbian grandmother” results in a number of sensationalistic news articles about young men in relationships with older women and links to a number of porn sights respectively.

  2. 2.

    This study focuses on representations of queer aging from the United States and Canada in my study. Despite cultural, political, and historical differences between the two countries, their fictional representations of aging and queer aging show many similarities and are worth considering together.

  3. 3.

    It should be noted however, that while this approach to the passing of time is hegemonic, it is not universal. Differing perceptions of time and aging exist. In a North American context, important examples of differing models are concepts of aging in First Nations/Native American cultures. Some of the works that have explored these alternative temporalities are Jaber F. Gubrium and James E. Holstein’s Ways of Aging (2003), Michael D. McNelly’s Honoring Elders: Aging, Authority, and Ojibwe Religion (2009), and Philip Kneis’s (S)aged by Culture: Representations of Old Age in American Indian Literature and Culture (2013).

  4. 4.

    Commonly, retirement age in North America lies at about 65. In Canada one reaches eligibility for senior pension plans between ages 60 and 65, and in the United States one can join the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) at age 50.

  5. 5.

    Warnings are generally accompanied by numbers that indicate the exponential rise of the median age within North American societies. According to the United States Census Bureau in 2015, 14.8% of the US population was 65 and older. By 2060 this number is predicted to grow to 22.09% (Ortman et al. 2014, 2). In Canada, as in the United States, seniors are the fastest growing age group. Whereas in 2011 persons aged 65 and older made up 14.4% of the Canadian population, in 2061 this number is predicted to grow to 25.5% (Government of Canada 2015).

  6. 6.

    See, for example Depp, Conlin A., Alexandra L. Harmell, and Dilip Jeste. “Strategies for Successful Aging: A Research Update” in Current Psychiatry Reports, October 2014.

  7. 7.

    Bisexual and transgender protagonists are still so rare that it proved unfeasible within the confines of this project to try to trace a development. However, this is likewise changing and some highly promising projects are underway, such as Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre’s To Survive on this Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (2018).

  8. 8.

    In fact, Jane Gallop addresses such narratives in her book Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus (2019). Cynthia Port has used Lee Edelman’s theory of queer temporality in her analysis of the 2009 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

  9. 9.

    I do not mean to suggest, however, that all that is important lies “beyond” or “beneath” the textual surface. Notable absences are inherently interwoven with the actual text itself.

  10. 10.

    Although aging heterosexual persons at least have the “advantage” that it is generally assumed that they have done their duty to society by fulfilling their obligations of (re)productivity earlier in life.

  11. 11.

    Vice Versa was the first LGBTQ publication in the United States. The first Canadian, and North American, publication was an underground magazine, entitled Les Mouches Fantastiques published by Elsa Gidlow and Roswell George Mills in Montréal (CBC n.d.).

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  1. Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany

    Linda M. Hess

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Hess, L.M. (2019). Introduction: Queer Aging and the Significance of Representation. In: Queer Aging in North American Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03466-5_1

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