Intergenerational Relationships

Hey All,

First and foremost I wish to express my deepest and greatest apologies for not contributing to this blog for a while, it seems that I had more confidence in my 'natural' technological competence which proved undeserved, as I have been working with Adobe Flash, and it has proven to have been the biggest thorn in my side, how hard can it be to create a button? apparently,very. Though I have gone through the difficult process of trying to understand it, and now I feel I am able to create something relatively decent, given the time and the voice to shout at the computer when it is doing silly things. But I digress.

I want to mainly concentrate on the importance of Intergenerational Relationships within the Queer community (or the LGBT for community for those who dislike the term 'Queer'). Before vulgar images spring immediately to mind, I do not mean sexual relationships (do not misunderstand, I am not trying being detrimental towards Intergenerational sexual relationships, this is just not the focus of this particular topic) rather, I wish to concentrate on the convivial interactions between the different generations of the LGBT Queer community.

The nature of Intergenerational interactions within the LGBTQ community was brought to my attention through a couple of interviews I was conducting with people who have 1 or 2 generations proceeding them. From what I can gather, there is a rising concern in the loss of 'information' and familial support in a non-heteronormative family network one supposedly has in a straight family with regards to all aspects of their life, assuming that most 'straight' families speaking straightly at each other about straight things.

I am intrigued by this claim, it basically suggests that there are few interactions within the queer community to count as 'intergenerational interaction' and that 'we' tend not to affiliate with other generations for various reasons. This could perhaps be because a certain generation are widely cast as 'homophobic', therefore making it seem difficult to become more 'open' with people from an older generation. Perhaps some avoidance is taken proactively to avoid assumptions from the watchful eyes of the surrounding public who instinctively tut at sight of seeing any younger person in the same company as an older person in a non-family/employer situation. I recall tutting at the idea of this being true initially when I heard this theory, in my head it couldn't possibly be true because I knew... well there is uh... there's definitely that guy... ... .

I had to realise that I actually did not interact with a member of the queer community, or do not consider any much older (OR much younger) other than my own family of origin as 'kin', and unfortunately for them, they are straight (I hope the full force of my sarcasm or irony was made clear with the joke, I may have to append if it proves too heterosexist). We are living in an age now where our family of origin are 'vertical' in that there are several generations within them, but very few people within each generation, this family dynamic makes it quite improbable to have a 'biological' queer connection in an alternative generation. As i looked back, I realised that apart from this project, I had very few interactions with any other generational levels in my social network. My initial, internal snorts of derision had to be reconsidered.

Of course I am speaking as one person, who has had one set of life experience. I am also speaking as one person who is aware of the reservations of several other people from the queer community to integrate with other generations for fear of said assumptions. Social and familial cohesion proves to be have an incredible amount of significance in terms of feelings of support and stability and this can be affected and distorted through differences in 'status' within the family, this becomes more problematic, it seams, when it comes to your sexuality. This can be quite worrying as we (as humans) are quite reliant on this support system. One of the keywords I have identified has been 'information', in that the majority of the participants in my study had felt their queer kinship network had given them practical knowledge such as "where are the best gay clubs here?", "I just broke up with my Boy/Girl-friend, What do I do?" etc.... and representative information, they provided a model of some description (be it good or bad) for the person in question to base their life experience from. I think this is an incredible thing to have. now. as someone who doesn't have immediate access to a queer kinship network. How do I go about getting one? I hear all 8 of you cry.

I feel we can get this information, this cohesion, through general interactions with older/younger generations of the queer community, without searching for that 'familial' bond (even though that would be an incredible bonus I guess). My personal perspective (which I would gladly say does not derive from any particular academic research) would be that the more you come into contact with diversity, you yourself become diverse (diverse also being a synonym for awesome), In a more professional tone, the less you pigeonhole yourself, the more you are able to interact and work within different social circuits, thus creating more opportunities to learn and develop.

In terms of this particular subject, this could be actively searching communities in the area that serve as facilitators for these kinds of interactions for example the GEM soc, Allsorts and PFLAG to name a few. Also perhaps find out more about the 'AGE project being led by the ILGA-Europe / IGLYO which is quite an incredible initiative. If you want to read what they have to to say check out the bottom of this post for the reference.

I can't say how this is possible on a day to day basis, as Dyer has identified, the invisibility of the LGBTQ community makes it difficult to address this issue. Though I do think it is an important thing to keep in mind when going about your day to day life. I know looking back during the period where I was re-conciliating my sexuality I would have appreciated someone being there to answer my questions (other than the internet) and I still like the idea of exchanging stories with others as a form of learning. Humans are a story telling species, we have been doing since the dawn of time, perhaps think about hearing someone else's or sharing yours.

PROGRESS REPORT:
I am nearing the end of my interview collection. I just need to code them now, I have done 6 so far and my flash installation is... going. I hope this proves sufficient enough material!

Until next we speak.

(ILGA: Paulick, S. (2008). Joint ILGA-Europe / IGLYO - Age Project - Intergenerational Dialogue with(in) the LGBT Community. ILGA Europe.)

The Process

Hey all,

As I may or may not have mentioned earlier, building up the necessary levels of energy for me to update this blog is to a large extent, quite taxing. However, I will not deprave you, dear reader who ever you are, of my research misadventures, blunders and successes. Without further ado:

The project officially started on the 05 July, and I'm currently on day 7 of my project and so far, I might say, so good. I have spent a lot of time getting to know the whole of Brighton, frantically waving my recruitment flyers and posters to every pub/bar/bookshop/hairdressers/group I can get a hold of. I am completely sure that i'm not the only bright eyed bouncy student they've seen claiming that their research is incredibly important to the society at large and therefore I almost as sure I was going to be met with a barrage of negative critiques or worse still. Nothing. However, I could not have been more wrong if I say so myself, every pub/bar/bookshop/hairdressers etc... greeted me with smiles and questions which A) was thoroughly delightful and B) rather threw me off. You see I imagined that I would be hand signalled to the nearest poster/flyer spot after regurgitating my research abstract in broken 'plain english', and then be asked to leave. I did not imagine that I would be met with inquisitive and thought provoking questions by the general public - who may have more important things to do than to entertain an undergrad student with his musings on Queer theory. Anyway I thought I might put up some of the said questions at the end of this blog and maybe open the panel for you to offer your opinion or correct, expand, contribute, rebut, your thoughts about the topic at hand (preferably, refraining from petty insults).

Officially I have not done any 'real' interviews, barring a pilot interview with my supervisor Kate O'Riordan which I feel went well (in that I didn't go down like a fiery zeppelin) and i've organised a few interviews which is exciting. And i've been updating a growing resource list for journals and the like that have some relevance to this research. In actual fact, I've found that Kate Weston's book "Families we choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship" and Jeffrey Weeks' "Same Sex Intmacies" are proving to be quite interesting reads. These articles deal with finding ways to challenge our conventional ideas surrounding families- i.e. the need for there to be a biological connection and the need for there to be a female and male presence in the immediate family - which resolves several tensions that surrounds queer kinship and in doing so, questions the concept of 'family' by exploring “the ways they live their lives, and discourses and ideologies of how they should live their lives” with regards to the heteronormative standards that have been put in place in society (Gittens 1993). Through the initial stages of research I have found that for some, the 'chosen family', requires more attention, the word 'nourish' appears - and people's biological kin are often considered a stable pillar of support. I'm not sure if I agree with Weeks on this point, however, alot of what his work goes through seems to make sense. Let me know what you think of it all.

As promised, questions:
Do you think that the term 'Queer' has softened and perhaps undermined the work of those who took part in the LGBT rights campaigns in the 1970s or is their power in its ambiguity?

What do you consider to be family? especially with the LGBTQ community in mind?

What difference does it make having LGBTIQ family for your own identity? (for this particular question I would like to suggest this article which is quite positive and therefore makes me happy: Raising Children in an Age of Diversity - Advantages of Having a Lesbian Mother

Enough from me, now to pester more people about this project!