The Age-Old Problem of LGBTQ Representation: Ageing, Intergenerational Relations and Queerness in Galician Literature

Abstract

When the question of ageing in Galicia, as elsewhere in Spain, is reduced to a ‘problem’ for political geographers and policy makers, we fail to consider the value of intergenerational relationships, and the role these play in the transmission of cultural and historical memory. This article looks to contemporary literary works to analyse the ways in which queer Galician men create complex, alternative intergenerational ‘carescapes’ within their families. By caring for older and younger relatives, the men in these works both challenge and queer conceptualizations of masculinity, ageing and the family.

Key Words:

• Antón Lopo
• Fran Lorenzo
• Gonzalo Hermo
• Carlos Callón
• Eva Mejuto
• Ageing
• Memory
• Masculinity
• Queer
• Gender

Notes

1 Antonio Rafael Fernández Paradas, ‘Patrimonio y memoria LGTBI en las leyes autonómicas en España’, El Profesional de la Información, 29:1 (2020), n.p.; <http://profesionaldelainformacion.com/contenidos/2020/ene/fernandez.html> (accessed 8 April 2022).

2 I use the phrase ‘queer world-making’ as described in Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner’s ‘Sex in Public’: a ‘fragile and ephemeral’ project that ‘has required the development of kinds of intimacy that bear no necessary relation to domestic space, to kinship, to the couple form, to property, or to the nation’. See Lauren Berlant & Michael Warner, ‘Sex in Public’, in Intimacy, ed. Lauren Berlant, Critical Inquiry, 24:2 (1998), 547–66 (pp. 561 & 558).

3 Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York/London: New York U. P., 2005), 2 & 6.

4 See Raymond Berger, Gay and Gray: The Older Homosexual Man (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1982); and Dustin Bradley Goltz, Queer Temporalities in Gay Male Representation: Tragedy, Normativity, and Futurity (London/New York: Routledge, 2010).

5 Maria Brown, ‘LGBT Aging and Rhetorical Silence’, in Sexuality and Aging: A Late-Blooming Relationship, ed. Brian de Vries, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 6:4 (2009), 65–78 (p. 65).

6 Brown, ‘LGBT Aging and Rhetorical Silence’, 68.

7 See Consello da Cultura Gallega, ‘Dereito a existir: falan elas’, YouTube video, 22 June 2021; <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H_DamhudQg> (accessed 8 April 2022). Details about and access to the Facémonos escoitar? project can be found at <http://culturagalega.gal/noticia.php?id=32661> (accessed 8 April 2022).

8 For more on this subject, scholars such as Beatriz Suárez Briones and Xosé Manuel Buxán Bran have been forerunners of Galician Queer Studies, while other Galician scholars such as José Colmeiro and Santiago Fouz Hernández have made invaluable contributions to understanding queer masculinities in Spanish cinema and literature more broadly. For works dealing specifically with the difficulty of preserving queer Galician memory, see the following: Nós, xs inadaptadxs: Representações, desejos e histórias LGBTIQ na Galiza, coord. Daniel Amarelo (Santiago de Compostela: Através Editora, 2020); and Carlos Callón, Amigos e sodomitas: a configuración da homosexualidade na Idade Media (Santiago de Compostela: Sotelo Blanco, 2011).

9 Isidro Dubert, ‘Limiar’ in A morte de Galicia, ed. Isidro Dubert (Vigo: Edicións Xerais de Galicia, 2019), 7–12 (p. 7). See also Antía Pérez-Caramés, ‘The Breakdown of Consensus on Pro-Natalist Policies: Media Discourse, Social Research and a New Demographic Agreement’, in Framing Age: Contested Knowledge in Science and Politics, ed. Iris Loffeier, Benoît Majerus & Thibauld Moulaert (New York/London: Routledge, 2017), 149–65.

10 R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005 [1^st ed. 1995]).

11 Gabriela Spector-Mersel, ‘Never-Aging Stories: Western Hegemonic Masculinity Scripts’, Journal of Gender Studies, 15:1 (2006), 67–82 (p. 78; original emphasis).

12 Jeff Hearn, ‘Men, Ageing and Power: Can Men’s Ageing Challenge Patriarchy?’, in Genusmaraton 2007. Mittsveriges genusforskare på frammarsch, ed. Red Siv Fahlgren & Britt-Marie Thurén (Östersund: Mittuniversitetet, 2007), 71–79 (p. 75).

13 Hearn, ‘Men, Ageing and Power’, 74.

14 Hearn, ‘Men, Ageing and Power’, 75–77.

15 Spector-Mersel, ‘Never-Aging Stories’, 78.

16 Dustin Bradley Goltz, ‘ “We’re Not in Oz Anymore”: Shifting Generational Perspectives and Tensions of Gay Community, Identity, and Future’, Journal of Homosexuality, 61:11 (2014), 1503–28 (p. 1506). See also Goltz, Queer Temporalities in Gay Male Representation.

17 Cynthia Port, ‘No Future? Aging, Temporality, History, and Reverse Chronologies’, Occasion. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 4 (2012), 1–19 (p. 2); <https://arcade.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdfs/OCCASION_v04_Port_053112_0.pdf> (accessed 8 April 2021). See also Jane Gallop, Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus (Durham, NC/London: Duke U. P., 2019).

18 Brown, ‘LGBT Aging and Rhetorical Silence’, 74.

19 Christine Milligan & Janine Wiles, ‘Landscapes of Care’, Progress in Human Geography, 34:6 (2010), 736–54 (p. 741).

20 Sophie Bowlby, ‘Recognising the Time–Space Dimensions of Care: Caringscapes and Carescapes’, Environment and Planning A: Economy & Space, 44:9 (2012), 2101–18 (p. 2116).

21 Bowlby and Linda McKie distinguish between ‘caringscapes’ and ‘carescapes’, understood respectively as the interpersonal, intimate ways care is provided (i.e., an adult child taking care of an older parent) and the larger political context in which those take place (i.e., state services or the welfare state etc.). See Sophie Bowlby & Linda McKie, ‘Care and Caring: An Ecological Framework’, Area, 51:3 (2019), 532–39. Tarrant’s use of ‘carescapes’ seems to be less concerned with this distinction.

22 Anna Tarrant, ‘Grandfathering As Spatio-Temporal Practice: Conceptualizing Performances of Ageing Masculinities in Contemporary Familial Carescapes’, Social & Cultural Geography, 14:2 (2013), 192–210 (pp. 204–05). See also, by the same author, ‘The Spatial and Gendered Politics of Displaying Family: Exploring Material Cultures in Grandfathers’ Homes’, Gender, Place & Culture, 23:7 (2016), 969–82.

23 Port, ‘No Future?’, 3.

24 Goltz, ‘ “We're Not in Oz Anymore” ’, 1508.

25 See Andrew J. Hostetler, ‘Generativity and Time in Gay Men’s Life Stories’, in The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course, ed. Phillip L. Hammack & Bertram J. Cohler (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2009), 397–424 (p. 399).

26 Goltz, ‘ “We’re Not in Oz Anymore” ’, 1525.

27 Gordon Brent Ingram, ‘Lost Landscapes and the Spatial Contextualization of Queerness’, Undercurrents. Critical Environmental Studies, 6 (1994), 5–9.

28 Ingram, ‘Lost Landscapes and the Spatial Contextualization of Queerness’, 5.

29 Ingram, ‘Lost Landscapes and the Spatial Contextualization of Queerness’, 8.

30 These organizations’ mission statements can be found in Nós, xs inadaptadxs, coord. Daniel Amarelo, 285–88 & 289–92 (pp. 289 & 285). More information about these organizations can be found on their respective websites at <https://www.facebook.com/colectivoagrolgtbiq> and <https://asociacionarelas.org/gl> (both accessed 12 April 2022).

31 See María Reimóndez, Cobiza (Vigo: Xerais, 2021); Emma Pedreira, Os corpos invisibles (Vigo: Xerais, 2019); and Iria Misa, Mamá, quero ser Ziggy Stardust (Vigo: Xerais, 2018).

32 Goltz, ‘ “We’re Not in Oz Anymore” ’, 1506.

33 Eduardo Blanco Amor, A esmorga (Vigo: Editorial Galaxia, 2010 [1^st ed. 1959]), 100.

34 María Xosé Queizán, A semellanza (Santiago de Compostela: Sotelo Blanco, 1988), 77.

35 While I do not wish to repeat the misrepresentation, misgendering and misnaming with which a transgender character is treated for over two chapters of the book, I include this novel in a discussion about masculinity because the protagonist self-identifies as Juanjo throughout the novel and attempts to detransition before opting for death.

36 Xavier Álcala, Fábula (Vigo: Editorial Galaxia, 2015 [1^st ed. 1980]), 234. Further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically in the main text.

37 Brown, ‘LGBT Aging and Rhetorical Silence’, 69.

38 Gonzalo Hermo, Diario dun enterro (Vigo: Editorial Galaxia, 2019), 42 & 75. Further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically in the main text.

39 Antón Lopo, Extraordinario (Vigo: Galaxia, 2018), 27. Further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically in the main text.

40 Lisa Duggan, ‘The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism’, in Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics, ed. Russ Castronovo & Dana Nelson (London/Durham, NC: Duke U. P., 2002), 175–94 (p. 179).

41 Goltz, ‘ “We’re Not in Oz Anymore” ’, 1519.

42 Goltz, ‘ “We’re Not in Oz Anymore” ’, 1519.

43 Carlos Callón, Atravesar o fantasma (Vigo: Xerais, 2014), 19. Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the main text.

44 Carlos Callón, Inscricións (Vigo: Editorial Galaxia, 2019), 47. Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the main text.

45 Hostetler, ‘Generativity and Time in Gay Men’s Life Stories’, 405.

46 Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place, 5.

47 Hostetler, ‘Generativity and Time in Gay Men’s Life Stories’, 419.

48 Just as these works queer notions of masculinity and family through the formation of intergenerational bonds and carework, they also resist the queer pessimism, negativity and antisociality represented by theorists such Leo Bersani and Lee Edelman, and challenged by others, such as Sara Ahmed and José Esteban Muñoz. By rejecting ideas of queer unbelonging, these works counter not just assumptions about ageing in queer scholarship, but also queerness’ belonging within a Galician national framework. This idea deserves far more attention than can be provided here, but it certainly informs my discussion in the following section.

49 Elizabeth Freeman, ‘Queer Belongings: Kinship Theory and Queer Theory’, in A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies, ed. George E. Haggerty & Molly McGarry (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 295–314 (p. 299).

50 Eva Mejuto, 22 segundos (Vigo: Xerais, 2017), 49. Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the main text.

51 Fran P. Lorenzo, Cabalos e lobos (Vigo: Xerais, 2015), 44. Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the main text.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.