The world is a dark place right now, but elder queers are the first generation to age while out of the closet, to enjoy equal societal benefits and not have a plague decimating their community. One thing Pete Crighton says his cohort can offer is friendship to younger generations.Andrew Lahodynskyj/The Canadian Press
Pete Crighton is the author of The Vinyl Diaries: Sex, Deep Cuts, and My Soundtrack to Queer Joy.
As we stare down another summer of Pride festivals across the country, I keep thinking about what it all means to me. It’s not about parties, floats, drag queens or glitter (though those things are important). For me, Pride is all about community and friendship.
When I turned 45, I had very few queer friends. For a man born in 1969, and who had been out of the closet for two decades, I was a bit of an anomaly in this regard. I came of age at a strange time: post-Stonewall gay liberation and smack dab in the middle of the HIV/AIDS crisis. While I should have benefited from the work of my elder-queers, the terror of that pandemic shut me down sexually and emotionally for many, many years. Gay male mentors felt completely lacking in my life when I was in my teens and 20s.
Instead, I spent most of my 20s and 30s with people who were around my age. We shared the same perspectives and experiences. I didn’t know what I was missing. It wasn’t until my mid-40s when I finally recognized the benefits, and beauty, of intergenerational queer friendships.
I‘d suddenly found myself single for the first time in 15 years after two back-to-back monogamous relationships. When I entered the dating pool again, I was surprised at how many young men were interested in connecting with me. At first, I was full of misguided bravado: I was sure that I would be mentoring these guys, leaning on my experience and self-perceived wisdom. What I never imagined was how much each of those men, some decades younger, would teach me.
While sex came easily, the conversations that followed were often tough. We chatted about HIV/AIDS, stigma in the LGBTQ+ community, ageism, money, fear of getting older and more. These younger men relished the opportunity to open up and talk about their deepest fears and most fervent desires with someone who had already walked a life path they might one day follow themselves.
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And I learned so much from them, too. Their bravery and life choices – often coming out in their early teens and challenging institutions and systems they didn’t agree with or fit into – inspired me. They taught me how to live with less fear. They also showed me that age doesn’t matter in queer relationships and opened up my own ideas on how old an appropriate partner could be – I’m now in a partnership with a man 14 years my senior.
These discussions also made me realize that people are hungry for real intimacy and connection. I broadened my scope of conversational partners and talked with a myriad of folks across generations and genders; older queer women who shared stories of communal housing on Toronto’s Spadina Avenue in the seventies and early eighties; young trans folks making sense of their identities and their bodies; straight folks navigating careers and relationships in a city that makes home ownership a distant, and oftentimes unattainable, dream; an out gay Episcopalian priest in his 80s who was married and lived in New York most of his adult life. I learned so much from them. The upside of all these new connections and conversations is that it deepened my friendships with people my own age, too.
I can’t tell you when a person officially becomes a queer elder but all signs point to me being one. Is it 45? Fifty? The qualifications here are murky but I’ve definitely crossed that bridge. I’m no role model and don’t aspire to be one, but what I can offer is an example of one possibility for a queer life. And that’s something.
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Not long ago I had a conversation with a similar aged friend who made me realize that we’re the first generation of gay men (and queers more broadly) to age while out of the closet, to enjoy (for now) equal societal benefits (marriage, shared pensions, etc.) and not have a plague decimating our community. The world is a dark place right now, especially for queer and trans people, and I recognize the sense of hopelessness I feel in my heart right now. Still, we’re the luckiest aging gay population yet. What we do with that privilege remains to be seen. One thing we can offer is friendship to our younger friends. The more we reach across generational boundaries, the more we learn from each other and understand the changing perspectives of the time we’re living in. The more we find common ground.