Mary Welch is an award winning journalist, author, magazine writer, and many more. She is the editor and founder of Widows in Wanderland.com. She has works in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Daily Report, Today.com, and many more. In her article on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Understanding the Generation Gap within the LGBTQ+ Community, she writes about the differences within the two generations of LGBTQ+ Members and other contributing factors to the differences in generations. She cites the AIDS crisis as one reason and creating a community as another. Stating that older generations created the support group of sorts for younger generations. This article will help me set a background for my own argument and also help me provide tools to advance the argument.
Welch, M. (2020, June 14). Understanding the generation gap within the LGBTQ community. ajc. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/understanding-the-generation-gap-within-the-lgbtq-community/MEwi8qsf1warPQtrL5zwwN/
Amy Brainer is an associate professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn as well as the director of women’s & gender studies and coordinator of LGBTQ studies there as well. She posted a research article analyzing the discourse within Taiwan about ‘coming out’ and the generational variance with relevance to queer lives. She draws on fieldwork with gender and sexually nonconforming people within the ages of 20-70. Arguing that dominant identity-based frameworks are insufficient in understanding why this discourse emerged in Taiwan. She finds generational shifts within family interdependency and intimacy are more adequate reasons. I plan to use this as a stepping stone within my writing, as I think showing how an Asian country, typically seen by the world as no accepting towards the LGBTQ+ community, that change is not always a bad thing nor is it something that we can avoid but we must learn to accept and live with.
Brainer, A. (2017). New identities or new intimacies? rethinking ‘coming out’ in Taiwan through cross-generational ethnography. Sexualities, 21(5-6), 914–931. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716677282
Published in 2019, LGBT Older Adults at a Crossroads in Mainland China: The Intersections of Stigma, Cultural Values, and Structural Changes Within a Shifting Context highlights how lives of LGBTQ+ older adults in China are shifting within the context of cultural shifts. Boya Hua get a master’s degree in mental health and social work from the University of Washington. Vickie Yang had 2 bachelors degrees, one in psychology and one in social work as well as a master’s degree in social work also from the University of Washington. Karen Fredriksen Golden also helped author this article, she is a professor at the University of Washington as well as the Director of Healthy Generations Hartford Center at Washington. The 3 authors look at the stigma of familial responsibility, filial piety, and loss of face along with larger shifts such as the aftermath of the one-child policy and economic reforms are creating quite dramatic shifts within Chinese society. However, the increase of HIV within older LGBTQ+ adults are also a contributing factor. I want to use this as a way to shift into how to protect LGBTQ+ rights around the world, and even within our own country today. Especially after the proposing of the “Don’t Say Gay” bills, and numerous other bills that want to take away rights that LGBTQ+ Members and advocates have worked so hard for.
Hua, B., Yang, V. F., & Goldsen, K. F. (2019). LGBT older adults at a crossroads in mainland China: The intersections of stigma, cultural values, and structural changes within a shifting context. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 88(4), 440–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091415019837614
Rheana Murray had a graduate degree from Stony Brook University in Creative Writing. She is a part-time freelance writer who is regularly contributing to TODAY.com. Her writings have been featured on known websites such as Buzzfeed, Architectural Digest, Good Housekeeping, etc. In her article, 12 people share their coming-out stories in honor of Pride Month, she retells 12 difference coming-out stories from 12 difference people, ages ranging from 15-years-olds to 77-year-olds. The article is organized from youngest to oldest, and the older men and women who told their stories all shared a similar idea of ”you don’t come out to your families, it isn’t something we do” while the younger men and women had grown the courage to tell their parents at a fairly young age. Which I will use to help my build the idea that we have come a long way, but there is still so much work to do. These stories will help me by giving real examples of what coming-out looks like in the real world, unlike what we often see in media.
Murrary, R. (2021, June 28). 12 people share their coming-out stories in honor of Pride Month. TODAY. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.today.com/specials/coming-out-stories-pride-month/
Roberts, S. (2018, November 23). The queer generation gap. Longreads. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://longreads.com/2018/11/23/the-queer-generation-gap/
Wickham, R. E., Gutierrez, R., Giordano, B. L., Rostosky, S. S., & Riggle, E. D. (2019). Gender and generational differences in the internalized homophobia questionnaire: An alignment IRT analysis. Assessment, 28(4), 1159–1172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191119893010