Representations of LGBT ageing and older people in Australia and the UK

Abstract

While there is evidence of the cultural scripts lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) older people use in making sense of their lives, little attention has been given to how these scripts are themselves produced. This article examines cultural representations of LGBT ageing and older people in 40 UK and Australian websites. It is argued that these sites form part of a cultural imaginary about LGBT ageing and older people accessed by policy makers and service providers. Employing membership categorization analysis, the study revealed attributes attached to LGBT ageing categories that related to constraint and celebration narratives. It also uncovered anomalies within the text of 23 websites where celebration and constraint attributes were juxtaposed, although in 15 websites only celebration representations were apparent. The findings highlight the complexity of some representations of LGBT ageing and older people, and the limitations of framing LGBT ageing and older people in homogenous ways.