A friend once told me, half in jest, that being gay is a young man's game. We laughed, because there was enough truth in it to make it sting. Youth has long been prized in gay male culture, sometimes to the point of becoming its false god. Many LGBTQI+ people have also lived with the unspoken fear that the passing of youth means the passing of visibility, desirability, and even belonging.
But what if that fear rests on too narrow an understanding of life?
The French novelist Victor Hugo famously described "the youth of old age." At first glance, the phrase seems paradoxical. Yet Hugo understood something profound: every stage of life possesses its own beginning. Growing older is not merely a process of losing what once was. It is also an invitation to discover what could not have existed before.
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung expressed a similar insight when he wrote of the "afternoon of life." Morning, he argued, is devoted to building a self—establishing careers, identities, relationships, and ambitions. But the afternoon asks different questions: Who am I when achievement is no longer my only measure? What wisdom have suffering, and joy, quietly cultivated within me? What parts of myself have waited patiently for decades to emerge?
For many LGBTQI+ people, these questions carry particular weight. Some spent years concealing who they were. Others came out only later in life, while many lived through epidemics, rejection, discrimination, or profound loss. These experiences leave scars, but they can also produce remarkable reserves of empathy, resilience, and gratitude. The second half of life offers something that the first could not: the freedom to stop performing and simply be.
Research on well-being suggests that happiness is less dependent on excitement than on meaning, connection, and purpose. While youthful pleasures inevitably fade, deeper satisfactions often grow stronger. Friendship becomes richer than popularity. Authenticity outshines approval. Service replaces status as the measure of a life well-lived.
This is not to romanticize ageing. Bodies weaken. Loved ones die. Loneliness is a genuine challenge, especially for older LGBTQI+ adults whose family structures may differ from those of their peers. These realities deserve compassion, not sentimentality. Yet they are not the whole story.
The youth of old age lies in its unexpected freedoms. There is the freedom to release impossible expectations, to forgive oneself for youthful mistakes, to cherish ordinary mornings, and to love without as much fear. There is the freedom to mentor those who come behind us, offering not perfection but perspective.
Being gay may sometimes seem like a young person's game. But becoming fully, joyfully, unapologetically oneself—that is a lifelong vocation.
A writer and media strategist, and lifelong resident of South Florida, Cliff Dunn is the former Executive Editor of the Florida Agenda newspaper, Mark magazine, and Guy Magazine.
