What does it mean to be working-class and queer in twenty-first century Britain? How is class experienced under conditions of austerity, while we are told society is classless? Do younger and older queers identify in class terms? How do queers navigate life in a post-feminist and 'post-gay' world?
This book focuses on the lives of working-class queers, contextualising experiences and identities in changing cultural, social and legal contexts. Amidst grand statements on LGBTQIA+ equalities as 'diversity rhetoric', it shows how struggles for recognition are always material, and that class continues to shape queer lives.
Yvette Taylor addresses these lives through a wide range of contexts, including education, employment, family and queer space. Exploring who is represented and who is excluded within the globalized rainbow acronym, she looks at the commercialisation of queer spaces and the political endorsement of a certain type of 'queer subject', and how employment can act as a barrier and a disadvantage for working-class queers.
1. Introduction and Methods 2. Legacies, Tensions and Trajectories in Education 3. Not Queer Enough: Risk, (Un)Employment and Retirement 4. Families of Choice and other Queer Networks 5. Mapping Contemporary Queer Spaces: Pushed Out, Moving In Conclusion
