Books About Queer Elders Give Me Hope for the Future

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CJ Connor is simply a cozy enigma and romance writer whose main extremity successful beingness is to marque their canine proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut enigma caller BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

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Through my teen and assemblage years, I work a batch of LGBTQ YA books. Any I could find astatine the room (there weren’t galore astatine the clip but determination were some, similar Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan). I was closeted done precocious schoolhouse and due to the fact that the gay-straight confederation required a parent’s support slip, I didn’t join. Books were, for me, a portal into a satellite wherever I could find queer friends and anticipation to unrecorded openly arsenic myself someday. They made maine consciousness little alone.

Then, aft graduating college, I started speechmaking queer big romance books. I’m the oldest successful my family, the archetypal to permission location and fig retired however to physique my ain life. I yet had capable spending wealth to bargain my ain books, and I gravitated to ones similar Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue oregon Annabeth Albert’s Conventionally Yours. The characters successful these stories were successful their aboriginal 20s similar me, grappling with akin questions astir their futures. They reminded maine of my friends, my partner, and myself.

Interestingly, portion I inactive work a batch of books with characters astir the aforesaid property arsenic I am, I work and look for considerably much books astir queer characters who are older than me. It started, I think, with Matt Cain’s The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle publication cover

Albert and I are astatine precise antithetic points successful our lives. He’s a retiring mailman seeking to reconnect with his mislaid emotion and coming retired to others for the archetypal time. I’m successful my mid-20s, a fewer years into a vocation that I’m inactive deciding what precisely I privation to bash with, and conscionable starting a aboriginal with my husband. So wherefore bash I find truthful overmuch comfortableness successful and question retired books starring older queer characters?

Which isn’t to accidental that I lone work books whose characters reflector the nonstop experiences of my own. But erstwhile I work books astir older queer people, it feels similar I’m looking into a model of possibilities for my beingness adjacent though I won’t get determination for different 20, 30, oregon much years.

In Albert’s case, it was reassuring for maine to work astir an aged cheery quality who inactive struggled with societal anxiousness and didn’t person everything figured out. In my mid-20s, I faced a precise circumstantial unit to scope an unattainable level of perfection successful each areas of my beingness earlier I crook 30 lest I ne'er found it. But erstwhile Albert turned 65, helium was conscionable starting to enactment done decades of trauma and physique a beingness that brought him happiness. It helped maine spot beingness arsenic little of a checklist and much of an acquisition allowing for continual maturation and change.

A queer romance starring an older mates — A Tale of Two Florists by Brenna Bailey — led maine to ideate what my hubby and my narration mightiness look similar erstwhile we scope our 70s. In it, 2 women surviving successful a tiny Canadian municipality — 1 a lifelong resident, 1 a caller shopkeeper — forge an instant rivalry arsenic the town’s lone florists earlier unexpectedly falling successful love.

It’s hard sometimes to ideate my hubby and maine reaching assorted mates milestones — settling down, buying a location together, retiring — due to the fact that I don’t cognize arsenic galore older queer couples successful existent life. Sometimes, that’s lonely, and — adjacent though I cognize it’s not the lawsuit — it makes maine consciousness similar we’re successful uncharted territory. Books astir older queer couples reassure maine that is acold from the lawsuit and that, similar them, we’ll beryllium capable to physique a beingness of our ain together.

I didn’t cognize immoderate queer, fto unsocial transgender radical similar maine increasing up. It wasn’t until assemblage that I met others, mostly students similar myself. I was and inactive americium grateful to person known them, but I wished I had idiosyncratic older to look up to. When things got hard successful my beingness aft transitioning, I longed for idiosyncratic who would reassure maine that I could get done it due to the fact that they had.

Later, astatine a section Pride center, I met a trans pistillate successful her 60s who became a bully person and mentor to me. I don’t cognize if adjacent present she knows however overmuch her relationship meant to me. She was precocious retired and retired to her woman who, portion adjusting, loved and supported her done transition. She ever gave thoughtful advice, with a longer-term position that I often lacked.

More than that, she helped maine spot for the archetypal clip what a aboriginal for myself mightiness look like. She was facing her ain uncertainties but she’d had a afloat career, recovered meaning successful her hobbies, and shared a beingness with a spouse who loved her. On immoderate subconscious level, I didn’t judge until past that I could person that, too. She gave maine hope.

I deliberation I’m searching for thing akin erstwhile I work books astir older queer characters. I privation to cognize what beingness mightiness beryllium similar for my hubby and maine 10, 20, 30 years from present — and I privation to beryllium reassured that immoderate challenges that travel to us, we’ll beryllium capable to look them and that things volition beryllium okay.

For my birthday, I picked retired a graphic caller starring a radical of queer friends successful their 30s and 40s — Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni. Unable to find LGBTQ spaces for post-twentysomethings, they commencement a queer lawsuit of their ain for the 30+ crowd. Having met astir of my trans friends successful college, I interest arsenic we get older and determination to antithetic cities that I won’t beryllium capable to marque much queer friends successful person. This communicative gave maine anticipation that, nary substance wherever beingness takes me, I’ll beryllium capable to stock it with the radical I attraction astir — and that it’s ne'er excessively precocious to marque much queer friends, too.

Most queer narratives prima characters successful their teens and 20s, and I’m not saying those books aren’t important. Of people they are. But I deliberation it’s important for queer folks of each ages to person books that bespeak their existent stages of beingness and assistance them ideate what their futures mightiness look similar — particularly if they don’t person arsenic galore mentors successful their ain lives.

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