LGBTQ seniors truly are our most undervalued resource, but luckily Vice took the time out to speak with a few and, we’ll tell you, it’s stuff you really need to hear.
It’s a long read but definitely more worthwhile than whatever cat video is trending right now, and we’ve got a few highlights:
79-year-old Maurice has a lot to say about technology and modern romance:
With all the technology going on, I find that people hardly speak to one another. There’s no romance involved in living today. I guess if you like technology, you’re in heaven. Unfortunately, I don’t. It’s easier today, of course, if you’re gay, or lesbian, or what have you. But being in the profession that I was in, [being queer] was almost expected of you in fashion.
I had lots of gay friends and I still do today, and I have lots of straight friends, so you are what you are. I don’t judge people for what they are. Love is just caring. Of course sex is always important, but that sort of [goes away] eventually. But the important thing about love is sharing a life. That’s the most important thing to me.
69-year-old Andrea didn’t realize she was attracted to women until she was 28:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
It doesn’t make any sense to me, but one day I was getting on a bus in San Francisco. I was living there with my son’s dad, who I was married to at the time. I saw this woman on the bus and I just felt attracted to her, and I thought, “that’s weird.” It set off this whole chain of events. I was 28. Before that—nothing. Not even an inkling. I was always with men. It was so bizarre.
And, 67 or 68-year old Margueritte (she stopped counting) highlights the need for real change post-Orlando:
People still have hatred in their heart. They will realize that it’s really them [that’s the issue]. We have to look at ourselves. I look in the mirror all the time. People believe they want to be good or different, and they know within their heart that that’s not true. They are ugly inside and they have no respect for their fellow man. Treat me like you want to be treated. We are still second class citizens, and I don’t think that’s changed at all.
Head on over to Vice to read the interviews.
Related: This Heartfelt Video Of Gay Seniors Giving Advice Will Make Your Monday
galatians328
Oh this seniors! Aren’t they cute offering opinions, insights and wisdom. And riding on a float for the people to cheer?
Dear Millennials: lgbtq seniors have suffered burdens you’ll never know: being ‘illegal’ just for being gay (subject to jail, prison, mental hospitalization and forced ‘treatment’, etc); forced out of jobs and professions; never being able to marry their life partner who is now long ago dead (many dead from AIDS); and speaking of AIDS, countless friends falling around them and many treated as social trash.
Of course you are now enduring your own suffering: being called the wrong ‘pronoun’; being denied access to the restroom of your choice; not have as many bars to twit around to because so many are going out of business; being consider ‘old’ and ‘ugly’ once you get to be 30 by the even younger Generation Z (or whatever they call themselves).
Here’s something YOU – MILLENIALS can do as a breakthrough – that will benefit the lgbtq seniors, may of whom are poor, without adequate housing, and living with abuse in assisted living/nursing homes, etc: REFORM long term care so that is it affordable, inclusive, and fair. Seniors can’t really do it: after all, we’ve already fought all those other battles and won some big victories for you, Millennials, and we’re too old to do a lot more now. If you, Millennials, can reform long term care – for aging and disabled (of all ages) – you will have done something GREAT for the generations after you, AND for yourselves.
Can you?
mdbuck67
THANK YOU, Queerty for finally posting a story that involves gay people who are not under 30 and with 3% bodyfat. There’s actually quite a bit that the younger generations could learn from these people.
ralphb
As a senior, I believe that the following generation is caught up in celebrating all the results of the work the previous generations have done for them, and don’t, at the moment, realize that there is still much work to do. I’m not slighting them for it, because I believe my generation was pretty much caught up in enjoying the limited freedom achieved in the 60’s. I know I didn’t realize at first that there was much, much more to do, but when I did I jumped in with both feet to work for ever expanding equality. Each generation has to come to realize that we cannot rest on our laurels, but work ever harder to preserve what has come before, and try to improve on the current situation. Hopefully the young will pick up the mantel, and look for opportunities to make this a better world for all who suffer discrimination. I wish them good luck, and hope they can experience the elation I have felt over the last few years.
Sammy Schlipshit
Each generation stands on the shoulders of their elders.
Most of me think the kids today(under 40)are doing a decent job of carrying the torch.
Gotta tell ya….I really enjoyed being an outlaw back in the day.
The 70’s/80’s were such a mixed bag.
We were all just banging our brains out any way, any where, any time.
Then, HIV hit big time.
We lived through the horror of watching damn near everyone we knew getting sicker and sicker resulting in death.
Younger folks will never fully understand that time period just as we elders could never fully appreciate what our elders went through…war and depression(money not emotional).
Good time to be old and closer each day to death.
Cheers!
GayEGO
Back in the day when we dished each other with “Well Mary Doogan, you are such a queen!” and we shrieked to illustrate what the straights were saying about us, calling us nellie faggots etc., we had a lot of laughs. But as we moved on to have relationships, homes, family, etc, we helped educate the straights that we live like they do and now they have learned and are supporting us. My lifetime partner of 54 years is 85 and I am 75. We have been married 12 years in Massachusetts and are both retired and living the American dream. We will continue to move forward toward equality, as America supports us. But there will be those, especially religious extremists, who will oppose us as they oppose races different than them.
Hopefully the younger generation will continue to move love and inclusiveness for all Americans.