Jen Marchbank

Simon Fraser University · Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Though research suggests that older adults belonging to gender and sexual minorities (GSM) are at greater risk of abuse and neglect, more needs to be done to investigate this situation, provide solid data, offer support to survivors and better inform those providing services. This article reports on a participatory action research project in which...

Matthew’s story is one of two told ‘second-hand’ as Matthew is now deceased. Matthew was an elderly war veteran who was admitted to residential care after collapsing. Doug, Matthew’s husband, visited every day and so was very aware of neglect, which he of course spoke about. Despite Doug’s presence, Matthew suffered neglect, ill-treatment, and char...

Flygirl was 63 years old when interviewed and had defined as a lesbian since her early twenties. Her sister outed her to the rest of their family, who consequently rejected her. Flygirl had two relationships that she described as strong and healthy, but several more in which she felt exploited by partners who “just wanted to be taken care of.” Diag...

Born in the UK, Candace emigrated to Canada in the early 80s. She transitioned gender in her seventies and continues to live with her wife, to whom she has been married for many years. A victim of early abuse by her peers and unwanted sexual advances by men for much of her working life, she reported great fear of being identified as gay, and conseq...

Jackie’s story is told by a care giver, Zoe. Jackie is now deceased. Zoe faced great pressure from both a university and a well-respected charity to remain silent about the neglect she saw in Jackie’s situation and others. Jackie’s case is one of neglect by caregivers who were too blinkered and too rushed to see that Jackie was a recent lesbian wid...

This chapter describes the methodology used in The Indigo Project, details the project’s goals, the methods employed, and its foundational theoretical/methodological frameworks (Participatory Action Research and Narrative Inquiry). A key component of the study was the counselling support offered by our community partner QMUNITY, BC’s Queer, Trans &...

Devan Cecilia Christian is a registered clinical counsellor who has worked extensively with elders who have experienced grief, loss, and trauma. As part of The Indigo Project, she was hired to offer participants free one-on-one counselling and/or the opportunity to take part in a peer support group that she facilitated. Two participants received in...

Courtney Dieckbrader is the specialist in Seniors’ Programming for QMUNITY, the British Columbia (BC) queer, trans and Two Spirit Resource Center. As such, she receives many direct inquiries from 55+ elders across the province and is the person who fields these inquiries and attempts to find and offer support and resources to GSM elders across the...

Trudy is a bisexual trans woman who medically transitioned in her twenties by undergoing surgery alone in New York - a not unproblematic experience. She had a difficult childhood and there is mention of suicidal thoughts. Her previous experiences of inappropriate psychiatric care still concern her. Trudy experienced sexual abuse and neglect from in...

In this chapter we offer a precis of some of the most significant events in Canadian history for GSM people. We begin with a snapshot of the current Canadian landscape and then provide details on the Cold War Purge of GSM from police, armed forces and civil service. We detail the case of the last Canadian man to be imprisoned for homosexuality and...

Joseph’s narrative describes partner violence, financial abuse, and psychological/emotional abuse within marriage. Joseph, who was 63 at the time of his interviews, and a highly successful professional, defined as gay and as nonbinary. His biological father was an alcoholic and physically abusive when drunk. He died by suicide at the family home an...

Though Pam’s story is based upon the two interviews conducted, she is a talented writer, and took the lead in revisions. Pam was 72 at the time of her interviews and reported that she had defined as a lesbian from the age of 26. She grew up in a family with domestic violence, in which she acted as her mother’s caretaker and protector from Pam’s hig...

This chapter draws together our review of the literature on elder abuse (particularly as it has discussed elder abuse in the GSM population), the histories of GSM people, and the data gleaned from the Indigo Project, as we investigate the main themes that emerged during the project. First, we discuss the similarities we observed between GSM individ...

Michele is in her mid-sixties, identifies as a lesbian, and lives with considerable disability as a consequence of her advanced ALS. She uses an electric wheelchair for mobility and an iPad to communicate. She was admitted to an extended care facility where she suffered neglect, harassment, and physical abuse. Although Michele was open about her se...

Grace was in her mid-seventies at the time of writing, and identified as a lesbian, though she also considers herself to be possibly nonbinary. Though she engaged in the interview process, Grace ultimately chose to write the narrative that follows in entirely her own words. It details her lifelong and often disappointing and traumatic search for a...

In 2015 the Gender Vectors research team received a major research grant to conduct research with and about transgender youth in the Greater Vancouver Area. A unique aspect of this research project involved combining social action research with the development of a prototype of a video game as a knowledge translation tool to depict the life experie...

Though a great deal has been written about elder abuse in the mainstream population, most of it has failed to consider how, how often, and how differently, abuse manifests in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community; moreover, specific studies of elder abuse in the LGBT community are ‘practically non-existent’ (Cook-Daniels 2017,...

This paper reports on a collaborative digital arts project conducted with LGBT youth and seniors in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, funded by the B.C. Council to Reduce Elder Abuse and conducted by faculty members and a doctoral student from Simon Fraser University. In the project, youth and seniors worked together to produce the first Canadia...

PurposeTo explore the intersecting dynamics of gender, ethnicity, age, safety, power and sexuality in two cases of qualitative research Methodology/approachReflexive analysis of community participatory action research. FindingsBeing an ‘insider’ is a nuanced and complex identity in social research leading to power flows that are not unidirectional....

Thoroughly updated in this second edition, Introduction to Gender offers an interdisciplinary approach to the main themes and debates in gender studies. This comprehensive and contemporary text explores the idea of gender from the perspectives of history, sociology, social policy, anthropology, psychology, politics, pedagogy and geography and consi...

Bringing together an international range of academics, Gender, Sexualities and Law provides a comprehensive interrogation of the range of contemporary issues – both topical and controversial – raised by the gendered character of law, legal discourse and institutions. The gendering of law, persons and the legal profession, along with the gender bias...

The Women's Liberation Movement achieved political success with several issues - but not with childcare. This article addresses the reasons for the success and failure of various WII's, examining the nature of pressure politics, methods of organising, public and private debates before focusing on women's attitudes to the childcare issue. The conclu...

In this article we draw on data from a completed project entitled Why Do Women’s Studies? involving five English Universities. However, the data reported here focuses on a single institution. The data were collected through questionnaires which combined quantitative and qualitative questions and we have the views of three distinct groups of student...

This article addresses the experience of exposure and the steps taken to ameliorate the dangers, explored through my personal observations in relation to my experiences working within British higher education for the past two decades. In particular I examine the interrelationships between my matrix of identity, my experiences and the structure and...

In this article we reflect on the process and experience of our attempts to open dialogues between Women's Studies staff and students on the topic of feminist teaching practices. The article provides biographies of the staff and students concerned, discusses what is meant by empowerment and delinates the debates regarding the Women's Studies teachi...

In this article we report on one part of an empirical project which was concerned with exploring the experience and views of Women's Studies. Data were collected from Women's Studies students and non-Women's Studies students, although here we are concerned particularly with the experience of Women's Studies students from four English universities....