The Formative Cultural, Economic and Social Meanings in the Construction of Social Identity by Ageing Sexual Minorities

As societies are now becoming more tolerant to sexual minorities, the pushing need is to understand and pave the way for the younger generation of LGB to know the ageing processes of sexual minorities within a homo-friendly and heteronormative conjuncture. As an open view of the younger LGB, their 21st-century perceptions of being gay/lesbian or bisexual are quite different from the older LGB groups who had to deal with various homophobic state policies. Social identity brings public issues and troubles into the personal frame, as a result, individuals consciously and unconsciously find themselves renegotiating various institutional and structural orders. Therefore, it is impossible to try to do a research study on ageing sexual minorities without looking at the intersectionality of history, ageing and sexuality that shape their social identity. This paper uses Bourdieu`s work as a theoretical foundation to investigate the point of intersectionality on the cultural, economic and social meanings that are mostly formative (having profound influence) in the construction of social identity by ageing sexual minorities. The main goal of this paper is to broaden the theoretical research focus on sociological gerontology by using Bourdieu's thinking and pinpointing the occurrence of intersectionality in the construction of social identity. The aim that is pushed in this paper by juxtaposing Bourdieu`s work on the forms of capital with other theoretical frameworks on ageing sexual minorities, is to establish at what point social, economic and cultural capital do intersect to create the multiple social identities of the ageing LGB.

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