Is it Loneliness: Narrative of Social Connection & Disconnection Among LGBTQ+ Older Adults

Watch time: 45 minutes

Dr. Celeste Pang, Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Mount Royal University, draws on her ethnographic and interview-based research with LGBTQ+ older adults to critically interrogate the 'loneliness epidemic' narrative that has come to dominate public health discourse on aging. She argues that this narrative misrepresents the richly varied social worlds of older LGBTQ+ people, erases queer forms of kinship and community, and positions a white, heteronormative model of social connection as the universal standard of well-being.

• The dominant 'loneliness epidemic' narrative in public health and media is built on heteronormative assumptions about what relationships, family, and social connection look like. These assumptions can render queer sociality invisible or deficient.
• 2SLGBTQIA+ older adults have developed rich, diverse forms of chosen family, community, and connection over their lifetimes. These forms of sociality deserve recognition and support rather than correction toward normative models.
• Reframing aging and social connection through a queer lens reveals the structural failures that shape isolation, not individual deficits (for example, unaffordable housing, inaccessible services, discrimination). 
• Ethnographic and qualitative approaches to aging research reveal forms of meaning, connection, and resilience that population-level surveys cannot capture, and that are essential for building responsive services.
• Research and services for 2SLGBTQIA+ older adults must be designed with the full diversity of these communities in mind, including women, lesbians, gender-diverse people, and those with intersecting marginalized identities."

Loneliness Epidemic Narrative: The dominant public health framing of social isolation as a measurable crisis affecting modern populations, noted by Pang to rely on universalizing, heteronormative assumptions about what constitutes meaningful connection.

Queer Sociality: The distinctive forms of social connection, chosen family, community-making, and mutual care developed by 2SLGBTQIA+ people, often appearing in response to exclusion from normative social structures.

Ethnography: A research method involving sustained, immersive engagement with communities through observation, interviews, and participation. Ethnographic work aims to understand the meanings, practices, and structures that shape everyday life.

Pang, C. and Maclennan, E. (2023). Aging & Living Well Among LGBTQI Older Adults in Canada: Key Findings from a National Study. Toronto, ON: Egale Canada. 

Pang, C. (2024). When Choosing Doesn’t Stick: Limits of Queer Kinship and Community in Old Age. In Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care, edited by Sandra Bamford and Kathryn Goldfarb. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 
 
Celeste Pang's Research and Publications: https://celestepang.ca/research/