Queer Elders Lives and Life Lessons

Please hear me. We get here, you and me, my dark eyed, lost younger me, we found an answer to the question of feeling or being real. We are real and we are very much alive. We made it to an older age. Getting older as a queer person has a complicated history. Stigma, violence, HIV, and the pervasive effects of long-term discrimination have taken too many queer people before their time, and social attitudes towards ageing can close even more doors in the faces of people moving into the next phase of life. But there is also a fierce, defiant joy. Through interviews with iconic queer elders, including Joelle Taylor, Karen Fisch, Jonathan Blake, Ash Kotak, Lola Flash, and Marc Thompson, this book explores what it means to grow older in the LGBTQIA+ community and the wealth of possibilities beyond 50. Interviewees discuss their experiences, life lessons, and share the joys of ageing through a queer lens.