Time, age, and sexuality: The construction of non-normative identities in later life

This chapter explores how older same-sex couples in Scotland construct their identities in later life, challenging the argument that queer people have no future (Edelman 2004). Based on data from qualitative interviews and written diaries, the chapter presents narratives of the couples’ imagination of the future and their role in its construction (Adam & Groves 2007). The ability to be active agents in the construction of the future stems from the different imagined communities the couples identified with: being queer, being a part of the couple, being older, and being a part of Scottish society. These identities serve as building blocks for utopian thinking about the future (Bloch 1995) and dispute the idea that older people in general, and queer older couples in particular, belong to non-futurity (Sandberg 2015). The chapter focuses on lived experiences of older same-sex couples, illustrating how the intersection of time, sexuality, and age aids in constructing queer time (Halberstam 2005), challenging dominant sexual and temporal norms and offering alternative narratives to the mainstream understanding of time and sexuality