What does it mean to be working-class and queer in twenty-first century Britain? How is class experienced in austere climates, with still abundant proclamations of 'classlessness'? 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', contextualizing experiences and identities in a changing cultural, social and legal contexts. Amidst grand statements on LGBT Equalities as 'diversity rhetoric', it shows how struggles for social, cultural and economic recognition are always material, and the ways that class continues to shape queer lives.Taylor addresses queer working class subjectivities in a diverse range of key empirical contexts, including education, employment, family life and queer space. In doing so, Taylor explores who is represented and who is excluded within the expanding and globalized rainbow acronym; the commercialisation of queer spaces and the political endorsement of a certain type of 'queer subject'; and how employment can act as a key barrier and a site of continuous disadvantage for working-class queers. Taylor's extensive use of up-to-date case studies grounds the key arguments of the book.
Working-Class Queers : Queering Identities, Communities and Futures