Abstract
It has been suggested that some older people are drinking at levels considered harmful to health and that LGBT+ older adults drink more than their heterosexual/cisgender counterparts. However, this research both ignores consumption settings and socio-historical context whilst continuing to pathologise and focus on problem drinking.
This thesis provides a contextualised account of older LGBT+ people’s ‘everyday’ drinking through interviews with 35 adults, aged 45 years and over. The research finds that drinking practices are diverse and context dependent, and not dissimilar from those of their heterosexual/cisgender counterparts. Most participants drank for pleasure and to relax with friends, typically in licensed mainstream venues and/or the home and often with or around food. Life course narratives obtained through the lens of drinking suggest that the ageing body and a reduced alcohol tolerance have limited the capacity to drink as much as in the past and have shown that drinking in scene venues occurs less frequently, if at all. Reports of self-imposed rules and strategies to monitor and moderate consumption were common. Accounts of contemporary drinking practices have also shown that older LGBT+ people live diverse connected lives in which alcohol has an important social role but is not the main priority.
Drawing on Bourdieu, the habitus in relation to drinking typically developed via social interaction in different (heteronormative) drinking cultures before being queered as participants came-out and drank in scene venues. However, development of a queer drinking habitus (QDH) was not always a linear or homogeneous process. Conceptual framings suggest the QDH is both durable and fluid, providing a means by which certain drinking practices have remained intact or have been (re-)created in different settings. Ultimately, this research challenges representations of LGBT+ ageing and the pathologisation narrative and engages with the sociology of consumption by emphasising diversity and difference in experiences.