#queer elders

[genderqueerdykes]

just talked to a 65 year old genderfluid person on an internet forum whose topic was completely unrelated to queerness. people love to tell young genderfluid people that we're "confused" or that it's "just a phase" but that just ain't the truth. we're out here, and we make it to old age, just the same as we were all those years ago, unchanging in knowing who we are on the inside. my heart is full, my skin is clear, and my crops are flourishing

[brainwormcity]

We all know there's a fat erasure problem with Good Omens art and photo edits. We've gotta stop being afraid to let them have skin folds, stretch marks and soft bellies but another thing we don't talk about is how important it is leaving them their wrinkles, their eye bags and their imperfections of age. It's part of their beauty but it also signifies something incredibly important, in my opinion.

Part of what makes Crowley and Aziraphale such unique and wonderful examples of representation, is that they're not perfect, model-like young adults. Middle aged queer characters are so important because queer elders as a whole are so rare. The world's respective governments significantly failed queer folks during the AIDS crisis in the 80s and as a result, older queer couples, especially mlm or masc presenting couples aren't particularly prevalent in media, and having that example is a strange little beacon of hope.

So please, let Crowley have his forehead wrinkles and let Aziraphale keep his eye bags. Not only are they lovely, notable parts of their appearance but they symbolize something larger than just that. Let these old, alt, soft, queer man-shaped beings be just that.

[gay-impressionist]

AN ODE TO QUEER JOY

Part 1 : Joy in each other (Community)

@artbyeloquent / lil nas x and elton john wearing a rendition of each other's iconic costumes. photographer unknown / @ghostcauliflower / alison bechdel / @android-boy / heartstopper : scene where nick, a bisexual boy, sees his two lesbian friends kiss. gif by @nicks-nelson / @canaryomenharbinger / shatzi weisberger with three unknown people / anonymous / new york city 2021 pride parade. photographer unknown

[fragrant-stars]

Ok so I'm tired of misinformation and the erasure / rewriting of queer history. Running a poll to test something out:

Please reblog so more people can put in their votes, thank you!

[batwynn]

Listen. The moment you get an older than 45 queer romance going in media I’m thrilled and I just don’t gaf if it’s sad, ‘Bad Rep’, light and happy, plot B, not ‘serious enough’, ‘too serious’, Can’t Happen Because One of Them Only is in Love With the Other Inside a Mind Split Work Place, Not Safe For Work, etc. I don’t care. I want it to exist and I will thoroughly enjoy it.

I grew up hearing about all the friends my mom lost in the queer community. I grew up knowing that those people would never have a romance that aged with their bodies. That they’d never have these kinds of stories. That the people who did survive still face hatred and violence just for holding hands in public even after living through this shit for so many years. So, yeah. I want to see the older queer couples in love, ok? I don’t care if it’s not the Young People Aesthetic or ‘Good Representation’ or wtfever. I just don’t care. They deserve to age, and love, and be messy, and be real people, and have stories told about it.

[biceratops7]

Ugh just-

Ed and Stede being old. No really, the fact the middle aged characters are just allowed to… be. How they’re falling in love like teenagers but the narrative makes room for their age, shows how dissonant and emotionally confusing it is to navigate such a “young” milestone when you have decades of trauma and lived experience.

Ed’s measure of being young is his hair not being grey, and he still rushes excitedly into a first kiss and doesn’t know where to put his hands, cries for hours and eats things straight from the jar because he misses someone. Just the very human experience of putting your heart on your sleeve and being rejected… but you’ve lived with decades of trauma unimaginable. So how does some “little thing” like this still hurt so bad? That little voice echoing all the way from childhood saying to act your age:

“Shouldn’t I be beyond this?”

No. No you shouldn’t.

Their years add a different context to their humanity but doesn’t remove it. They don’t have things figured out with either nuclear families or grizzled loner attitudes, and the narrative doesn’t expect that of them. In queerness, we frequently have to dismantle the entire concept of age based milestones in the first place because we historically lacked that privilege. A true first kiss could occur at 40, many only got to marry long after their skin sagged and eyes didn’t work like they used to. So much queer media now a days is so quick to forget this history, to spotlight young doe eyed gays who hold their boys’ hands in the high school hallways and slot right into the rainbow shaped hole of heteronormativity. Leaving behind the old greying queers that either endured the hell of trying to fit in a world that hates them like Stede, or raged against the whole damn system with whatever loose material and cunning at hand like Ed.

This is a show about 50 year old men who’ve known the horrors of life being allowed to go back and do what normal 16 year olds got to years before, ugly parts and all. Trauma of those many years deprived accounted for.

[reasonsforhope]

"While mainstream media increasingly cover violence and legislative attacks against trans people, many scholars and activists worry that focusing just on violence and discrimination fails to capture the full experience of being trans.

Drawing on the success of movements like the Black Joy Project, which uses art to promote Black healing and community-building, trans activists are challenging one-dimensional depictions of their community by highlighting the unique joys of being transgender.

My research on trans parents affirms the reality of trans joy. From 2019 to 2021, I interviewed 54 transgender women — both current and prospective parents — from diverse racial and class backgrounds across the country.

I found that while many have navigated discrimination in their parenting journeys, they also have fulfilling parent-child relationships, often with the support of partners, families of origin and their communities.

Gender euphoria

Scholars and community members use the term gender euphoria to describe a “joyful feeling of rightness in one’s gender/sex.”

It diverges from the diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or a sense of conflict between assigned sex and gender identity typically associated with feelings of distress and discomfort.

Gender euphoria celebrates feeling comfortable with who you are and how you are perceived by the world.

Some people transition with a specific set of goals, while others discover new sources of joy and new facets of their identity over time.

Many of the trans women I interviewed expressed their gender euphoria in relation to their role as mothers. A Black trans woman in her 20s, whom I will call Gloria, experiences joy in being recognized as a mother.

“I love being called Mom. That’s the greatest thing,” she told me. “I love waking up every morning to see [my child’s] beautiful face. It keeps me motivated.” ...

For many trans people, transitioning opens up a new set of possibilities. When I asked Adriana, a trans Latina in her 30s, what it was like to come out as trans, she told me,

“I’ve never been happier. The happiest day of my life was when my daughter was born, and the second happiest day of my life was when I [started transitioning].”

Family and community connections

While some trans people do experience rejection from their families of origin, that is not true for the majority of the community.

In a 2015 national survey of over 27,700 trans adults, the U.S. Trans Survey, 60% of respondents reported having families who are supportive of their trans identity.

Trans women also form chosen families with friends, co-workers and other community members. Relationships with other trans people can have particularly positive effects on identity development and overall well-being, including emotional resilience, self-acceptance and a sense of connection.

Trans community care

In addition to caring for their biological and adopted children, the trans women I interviewed felt a responsibility to take care of their community.

Sometimes this care manifested as parent-child relationships, in which respondents provide financial or emotional support to LGBTQ+ youth.

Maggie, a white woman in her 50s, didn’t know she was a parental figure for her “queer kids” until they tagged her on Instagram to celebrate Mother’s Day.

“Someone might go, ‘Hey, can I stay on your sofa tonight? I’m having a hard time.’ Well, yeah, of course,” she said.

“Or they might hang around the shop [I work at], and only later it dawns on me, ‘Oh, this was the only place they could come and get affirmed and not feel weird.’” ...

Miriam, a white trans woman in her 60s, agreed that she has a lot to learn from younger trans people.

“A lot of my community today, people who I count as family and my beloveds, are not of my generation,” she said. ‘Beloveds’ is the term she uses to describe her platonic loved ones.

“I learn a lot from my beloveds in their 20s and 30s, who don’t have the same baggage I [dealt with] about how I could be and who I could be.”"

-via GoodGoodGood via The Conversation, July 14, 2023

[gnometa233]

I haven't seen anyone talk about this from the whole James Somerton Fiasco but I hope this teaches us not to put so called "queer elders" up on a pedestal. That just because some lgbtq+ people are older doesn't mean they are automatically Arbiters Of Truth and Goodness that we should all aspire to be. LGBTQ+ people of all ages and genders and orientations can be bigoted, regressive, and perpetuate false information. Yes, we should listen to older lgbtq+ people just because we should listen to old people in general to expand our viewpoints and LEARN. That doesn't mean we should have to agree with or even listen to everything they say. And that doesn't mean they're always telling the truth.

[marzipanandminutiae]

the serotonin of a Queer Elder calling you “family” is unmatched in this world

[cleo-procter-stan]

i love this photo of Waris Hussein & Russell T Davies released by the Radio Times from their Doctor Who 60th anniversary photoshoot both of them are gay men who have had a huge part in dr who history, one as a director in 1963-1964 and one as a writer from 2005 to the present day 🏳️‍🌈

source: https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-60th-anniversary-shoot-behind-scenes-comment/

[genderoutlaws]

I just saw on Minnie Bruce Pratt’s website there’s an update that she’s in palliative care currently, her sons set up a google doc for people to send her words of encouragement and I think this is a great opportunity to send love to our queer elders! Her website is her name .net

thank you for letting me know ♥️

here’s the link

[emma-dennehy-presents]

Celebrating Black Queer Icons:

Lucy Hicks Anderson

Lucy Hicks Anderson was born in 1886 in Waddy, Kentucky. Anderson is known as a socialite and chef that became well known in Oxnard, California from 1920 to 1946. She became the first black trans woman to defend her identity in a US courts. From an early age Anderson identified as a girl. On advice from doctors, Anderson's parents accepted and supported this. Anderson would attend school in gender affirming clothing, such as dresses, under a name of her own choosing, Lucy. At the age of 15 Anderson left school and began supporting herself through domestic work. At 20 Anderson moved to Pecos, Texas where she worked in a hotel. Anderson next moved to New Mexico, where she met her first husband, Clarence Hicks, in 1920. At age 34 Anderson, and her then husband, moved to Oxnard, California. Anderson proved herself a skilled chef and baker, winning some contests. Anderson's marriage to Hicks eventually ended in divorce. After which Anderson used money she had saved during the marriage to purchase a boarding house. The boarding house served as a front for a brothel, and the sale of alcohol during prohibition. Outside her time as a Madame and managing a boarding house, Anderson also became a well known socialite and hostess. Connections made during this time would prove fruitful during Anderson's subsequent legal troubles. It is said that Charles Donlon, a prominent banker, helped get her out of jail, after her initial arrest, on the grounds that he was hosting a significant dinner party that would have fallen apart without Anderson's involvement. In 1944 Anderson married her second husband, Reuben Anderson. About a year later, in 1945, a sailor claimed to have received a sexually transmitted infection from one of the women working in Anderson's brothel. This led to all women working there being subject to medical examination, including Anderson. When the Ventura County DA was informed that Anderson was assigned male at birth he chose to charge her with perjury on her marriage license. During this trial Anderson would utter the famous lines "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman." and "I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman". Anderson was ultimately convicted of perjury and sentenced to 10 years probation and her marriage license was deemed invalid. This also led to the Federal Government to charge Anderson with fraud, based on her receiving spousal rights from the GI Bill. Lucy and Reuben Anderson where both found guilty and sentenced to a men's prison. Anderson was forbidden by the court to wear women's clothing during this time. After their release Lucy and Reuben Anderson moved to Los Angeles, California where they lived quietly until her death in 1954, at the age of 68. Debra A Harley and Pamela B Teaster's (editors) Handbook of LGBT Elders (link to Archive.org copy of text) notes Anderson as "one of the earliest documented cases of an African-American transgender person". Anderson is the subject of the 2nd episode of HBO's Equal, where she is portrayed by actress Alexandra Grey.

This was definitely one of the more informative of these write ups, for me. I was familiar with both the quotes Anderson made during her trial, but didnt know anything about the woman. Wilmer "Little Axe" Broadnax has been mentioned in several of these end notes, so he is definitely next. I think i pretty much have the rest of these planned out, but as always, corrections and suggestions are welcome and desired.

[useless-catalanfacts]

They knew it since the moment they met. It was in Barcelona. Ramon had moved there after finishing the mandatory military service and he saw Jordi for the first time in a restaurant, having dinner. “I took him home on the first date because I saw he would be a good person”, explains Jordi.

They fell in love during Franco’s dictatorship, when being homosexual was persecuted. They always had to take care with what they did and didn’t do in order to avoid being pointed at. Now, 56 years later, Jordi and Ramon think of a whole life together. They went often to Horta de Sant Joan, Ramon’s town. There, they slept together in a double bed at his parents’ house. The family always respected their decisions, though they never openly talked about their relation with them.

I’ve added subtitles to this story posted by 3/24. It wasn’t so long ago that the situation was this.

[criminal-worms]

how the fuck do y'all build community? I've never been that good at making friends but this... I'm not even sure where to begin. how do I build the mutual aid utopia of my dreams if I'm a queer immigrant stranded in the middle of nowhere?

help and advice would be really appreciated! where are the leftist queer elders when you need them?