Gay men in early midlife: Intergenerational accommodation for approval, reclaimed status, and distinctiveness

No country for old gay men: Age and sexuality category intersection renders older gay men invisible

“…Researchers have expressed concerns that the young gay generation may internalize the consensual representation of gay individuals as “only young and beautiful,” thus experiencing the specific fear of becoming a peripheral ingroup member as they age (Grant, 2010; Wight et al, 2015). Also, the consensual stereotype of gay men as young may enact the invisibility of elderly gay men (Wahler & Gabbay, 1997), and the feeling among this group that they need to act young to gain acceptance within gay communities (Hajek, 2015). Moreover, the overrepresentation of elderly men as heterosexual undermines the institution of inclusive social policies, as in the case of nondiscriminating LGBT retirement communities (Cronin & King, 2010).…”

“…The media representation of gay men (e.g., Avila-Saavedra, 2009; BBC, 2012; Fejes, 2000; Jankowski et al, 2014; Saucier & Caron, 2008) is particularly skewed towards young individuals. Also, elderly gay men may tend to avoid gay recreational centers and bars due to a perception of ageism within the gay community (Slusher et al, 1996; Wight et al, 2015), and they may sometimes behave in a youthful way to feel accepted (Hajek, 2015). Some elderly gay men born in the postwar period were under enormous pressure to internalize the heteronormative premise (i.e., the presumption of heterosexuality unless informed otherwise) in their early years to pass as heterosexual (Cronin & King, 2010; Harrison, 2006; Rosenfeld, 2009), and thus may avoid coming out at a later stage (Harrison, 2006; Shankle et al, 2003).…”

Gendered Tweets: Computational Text Analysis of Gender Differences in Political Discussion on Twitter

“…Communication accommodation refers to a phenomenon that "communicator adjusting his/her language or nonverbal behavior as a result of perceptions of an interaction partner's particular attributes and behavior" (Palomares et al, 2016, p. 123). It has been demonstrated by many studies (e.g., Hajek, 2015;Mulac et al, 2013). In a gender salient context, or more specifically, in a discourse traditionally dominated by men, women might adopt or assimilate men's speech patterns to avoid an inferior association (Williams & Giles, 1978).…”

Communication accommodation competence: The nature and nurture of accommodative resources across the lifespan

“…Software programs like Discursis might help analysts to manage even more complex data in the future. Complementing the inclusion of dyadic discursive data, several authors directly investigated (Van Hofwegen, 2014) or mentioned (Hajek, 2014;Chakrani, 2014;Gasiorek et al, 2014) multiple social and personal identities that are in play during conversations that influence the accommodation process -a point we take up later in the section on competence and intergroup communication.…”