#queer elder

[justinhubbell]

YA HEAR ME?

SOURCE: www.jthemthey.art PATREON: www.patreon.com/jhubbell

[bardic-tales]

Happy Pride Month, Everyone! 🏳️‍🌈✨

As we kick off Pride Month, I wanted to take a moment to wish every single one of you an incredible, safe, and joyful celebration.

This month always brings up a lot of reflection for me. I’ve been out here fighting for the LGBTQ+ community since the late 1990s. Looking back at where things stood then versus where we are now is a powerful reminder of how much history we’ve lived through, how hard we've fought, and how resilient our community truly is.

From the grassroots organizing of the 90s to the victories and ongoing battles of today, every step forward has been built on collective strength. Whether you are celebrating out and proud, or quietly discovering who you are, you belong here.

A Quick Personal Update: Stepping Away for a Bit

I’m going to be stepping away from the keyboard for a little while right now. You all made my notifications hop yesterday. lol. I have a few personal projects and things I need to focus on and work through.

DMs: If you've messaged me, don't worry. I'm not ignoring you.

Reblogs & Comments: I see the love on the dashboard, and I promise I'll catch up on everything I missed when I was reblogging / commenting on things as soon as I'm back. My brain is mush right now. lol

Take care of yourselves, celebrate your truth, and look out for one another. I'll be back later to finish responding to everyone. Happy Pride! 🏳️‍⚧️

[gwydionmisha]

Squirrel Needs Help with Bills

They've been running behind since last autumn because they got scammed, plus all the stuff with the Housing issues, plus the strike this Autumn. Now they had to quarantine for most of a week because of a dangerous exposure at work. They are fine, but it means they have a small paycheck right when all the things are due, including insurance and car payment to get to work, the Internet bill, etc..

They think they can negotiate partial payments with another $200ish to keep things going another month.

If you'd like to help them out and help keep us both online:

paypal.me/Squirrelmh

[gender-under-construction]

Me, a Queer Elder?

Chronologically speaking, sure, I'm going on fifty and I suppose that makes me an Elder in queer terms.

But here's the thing. I've only been in any kind of queer community for a few years now. While I've been out as an asexual since my mid-twenties, I never found community because I'm an introvert and I never cared much about going out.

Plus, finding community in the town I've lived in for nearly twenty-five years haven't had much of a queer community until recently.

Now, we have a queer book cafe that - aside from just being awesome - hosts different queer groups, one of which I love dearly and which meets every other Tuesday.

And then there's the community nearest and dearest to my heart: House of the Secret, our drag house. I joined that in 2023 and it was what helped me finally come to terms with my gender identity and where I've made some fabulous friends.

It's been a long journey for me, and it's far from over. Even so, I wouldn't call myself a queer Elder, because while I have the age, I don't have the years of experience that I might have had if I'd found community earlier.

[brinconvenient]

This is a long tale, but I appreciate you taking the time to meet my friend Chris and help her out if you can.

TL;DR: my friend, an elderly queer woman I met when she was homeless just lost everything she owns in a fire at her first permanent home she had after becoming unhoused. Luckily, she and her cat were not home at the time. Please help if you can by donating or boosting.

This is a queer elder who needs our help. I'm hoping tumblr can come through for her

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fire-took-chris-baileys-home-they-need-help

Here's the long tale:

A friend of mine just lost everything except herself, her cat and the clothes on her back to a fire at her apartment (her first after being homeless for years) on Friday. We learned yesterday that nothing from her apartment is recoverable. Please help!

(Long post with cute cat pictures behind the readmore)

I met Chris one Sunday afternoon after driving past her three times as she sat on a bench outside our local library after closing. I stopped to ask if she needed a ride, and found out that she was homeless, staying in motels when her SSI came in and on the street when it ran out.

As the years have passed, I've learned a lot about her. Despite her parents kicking her out at 17 when she was outed to them as gay, she went back to school and became a social worker, working in several Chicago hospitals through the 80s and 90s, and, like a lot of queer women in the caring fields at that time, tended to and provided comfort and care for (among others) so many gay men, young and old, living with and dying from AIDS, from the earliest days of the disease through the availability of the triple cocktail and to the brighter days of hope.

Through it all, she had relationships with women in a time where that was something that wasn't always safe to do. Some were good, some bad, and some resulting in her losing nearly everything, but she struggled through. She quit social work in 99 or 2000 when her mom got sick and passed away, and then stayed out of the workforce to care for her dad until he passed in 2006. Those experiences impacted her deeply, and she became permanently disabled during that period, leaving her living on SSI, and struggling with her own mental health. She eventually lost her condo, and bounced in and out of apartments and motels.

When I met her in Sept 2019, I helped her get back into the motel she'd been staying at and bridging her to her next check and then making sure that she could stay there, and reliably get her maintenance meds and start rebuilding her life and credit.

This is her and everything she owned as we left her hotel room for the final time on Valentine's Day 2022.

The cat there is Bailey, her constant companion since they adopted each other in September 2021. They've both been through a lot and are absolutely the picture of "Who rescued whom?"

We started having biweekly dinners and I worked with her creditors and tried to get her credit score back into a good place, and helped her get banked and fixed up with access to the Internet and just help her feel more solid and stable in her life.

Just over 2 years later, in February 2022, we were finally able to get her into a senior independent living apartment, her first permanent home since about 2017. She had no furniture, but with some secondhand pickups and occasional pickups, we got her something resembling a home.

It wasn't perfect, and she had her grumbles, certainly, but it was her home. It was a place that she could launch from to recover and consider moving some place even better, if she chose.

However, Friday, July 14, Bailey had an afternoon vet appointment. Everything was fine when we left, but when we got home, with Bailey in a carrier in the backseat, we were shocked to see what looked like a million emergency vehicles & a whole lot of seniors sitting on the grass.

Chris and Bailey came with me to take my daughter into the city that evening, giving the situation 2 hours to develop and for us to get more information. We heard a few newsradio updates and saw this story on abc7, getting the sinking feeling that that balcony looked too familiar.

When we got back from the city, we were able to drive around the back of the building and confirm that this was her apartment.

We were able to get back to the building on Tuesday and get into the apartment to get her medications, but everything is water damaged from the sprinkler system (with all of its stagnant water) and the firehoses. All her furniture. All her clothes. Her bed. Her degrees. Gone.

Everything she owned is gone. She literally owns less now than when she was homeless. She's despairing and trying her best to keep it together, but she's lost so many homes in her life, going back to when she was 17 and her parents found out she is gay and kicked her out.

This all feels like too much. Please help. Please donate what you can, and share where you're able.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fire-took-chris-baileys-home-they-need-help

[respirelejasmin]

The erotica of us is not the same - there is no longer the unknown. There is safety and pleasure in the knowing. The unexpected does not yield its edge - the expected is wanted and desired. The excitement of discovery is replaced by the excitement of long loving and everlasting desire. I still warm at the unevenness of your walk, the melody of your laugh, the fire breath you exude when you are crossed.

Rosemary Hathaway, Anniversary, from Sinister Wisdom 53: Old Lesbians/Dykes, 1994

[catastrfy]

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY, STORMÉ DELARVERIÉ!! I hope you're having fabulous adventures on the other side. This image comprises two photos of Stormé that I edited, cleaned up, and colourised. I was given scans of the originals, (which are now part of the part of the Stormé DeLarverié collection at the @schomburgcenter ) The first photo is from 1946 (her family received at least one of the photos in this set for Christmas that year). It was taken by Bloom Chicago. The 2nd is by an unknown photographer and appears to be from the 1980s or 1990s It *delights* me how decades later, Stormé chose to place her hand in such a similar position for the later photo. Yes, Stormé's actual birth year was 1923; she was 6 years old on the 1930 census and 16 on the 1940 census. To all of us, happy 100 years of Stormé DeLarverié!! To quote Stormé, "it ain't easy being green"! Let's all honour Stormé by always supporting the lgbtq+ community and shutting down what she called "ugliness", ie homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc.

[edgrab]

My partner just used/coined the term “century egg” for an elder queer who never transitioned but probably would have these days.