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.
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.
Reviews
This book could so easily have been written as a museum piece, preserving and archiving dusty antiquities from the past. Instead, Juno rewrites the rules on what it means to be a Queer Elder, spotlighting these stories as vital works of art. The pages are heavy with love, legacy and lessons we can all learn from. This work is a huge explosion of life, curated by an artist who knows first hand the power of passion and what it feels like to exceed everyone's expectations. Queer Elders is not a graveyard, it's a glorious garden inviting us to stop and admire the beauty of living.