Queer elders have a lot of advice for LGBTQ youth. They're all ears. -

When I think back to coming of age as a queer man, I most remember the lack of “possibility models.” I had no idea what my life could look like.

I had never seen — in real life or media — positive reflections of what it meant to grow old as a member of the LGBT+ community. Growing up in the shadow of a generation of gay men who were lost to the AIDS epidemic, I longed for something that said: You can grow old. Life will be okay.

The challenge of generational isolation is common in today’s queer youth. Young queer people without positive role models are at much higher risk for “psychological distress” in their adolescence and depression in adulthood.

When the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides information and crisis support to LGBTQ youth, asked young people what brings them joy, respondents consistently pointed toward examples of the future. They cited things such as, “Happy LGBT Elders,” “Queer role models” and “Learning I’m not alone and that there are more people like me” as sources of hope.

This exchange of hope goes both ways: Many older queer adults enjoy sharing their stories with younger people.

“When I talk to older people, they often feel forgotten, invisible,” says Michael Adams, chief executive of SAGE, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ aging organization. “A large part of that is because they often have no connections to young people. They have no sense that younger generations care about what they have to say and what they’ve done.”

A wide array of research suggests that finding ways to transfer wisdom from generation to generation is vital to improving the overall health of the LGBTQ community. This summer, I visited with five queer seniors across New York City to hear their stories.

Here’s what they had to say.

Bernie Brandáll, 86

Brandáll beams with pride as he shows me a photo from his early days as a traveling performer, taken sometime in the 1950s.

“I used to be gorgeous,” he says, laughing. “Now I look in the mirror, I look at my wrinkles, my skin sagging, and I don’t mind it. Do you want to know why I don’t mind it? Because I have lived a life. I can settle into this age knowing I didn’t miss a thing.”

“We are a strong people. But you have to remember that being strong is a choice.”

— Bernie Brandáll, 86

Brandáll immigrated from Cuba to Miami with this family at age 10. He wanted to be a dancer, but faced pushback from family — particularly his older brothers, who ridiculed his “feminine tendencies,” a remnant of the homophobia rampant in both the cultures of Cuba and Miami at the time.

At 17, he moved to New York City to find work as a performer, quickly snagging a job dancing in a nightclub/cabaret show, but the dream didn’t last long — after two weeks of not being paid, the proprietor of the show “disappeared,” leaving him alone, broke and aimless.

He eventually found a day job as an elevator operator and tried performing again, but this time with a twist — instead of being a dancer, he would make his mark as a magician and female impersonator. A prolific scrapbooker, he takes me through decades worth of photos from his act. Looking back on images from one of his last shows, he says, gently: “I was a pretty woman.”

This work took him across the country and the world — from Las Vegas to Rio de Janeiro to Paris — and he recalls the long list of friends and lovers who instilled in him a deep sense of contentment. “I had to be strong to build the life I wanted to live. But I’m so glad I had that strength, because I can be happy now. I did everything on this earth that I wanted to do.”

His advice for the next generation: “We are a strong people. But you have to remember that being strong is a choice.”

Guy Lawrence, 70

Lawrence feels that his whole life has been one big learning experience. “My youth was like the hippie days,” he says. “We didn’t have to think of the things that came on later, like you guys.”

“Everything is changing day by day. Never be afraid to ask a question.”

— Guy Lawrence, 70

“The whole world is different now,” he says with a sweeping gesture. “You didn’t have to worry about HIV, you didn’t have to worry about terrorism, you had spaces where you could go and meet other gay people — even if they were owned by the mafia. But we had them! And I feel like I spent every day discovering new things.”

He enjoys speaking to young people in the LGBT community, because he’s afraid that they are losing a sense of connection to the older people who made their current freedom possible.

Recalling, for example, the bittersweet feelings he experiences each year during Pride, he says, “I always tell young people: ‘Learn your history! And continue to create a new history so no one else can dictate what you can and cannot do.’ ”

His advice for lifelong learning: “Everything is changing day by day. Never be afraid to ask a question.”

Barbara Adams, 78

Adams learned to shoot a gun as a 4-year-old in Jacksonville, Fla. “Even then, I never wanted anyone to think of me as small,” she recounts, as we listened to smooth jazz in her home. “I always wanted to be a woman who took care of herself.”

Growing up poor and around women who suffered from loneliness, low-self worth and constant workplace sexual harassment, she knew that she had to escape. In her teen years, she saved all of her extra money in hopes of leaving. She stashed coins and occasional dollar bills in a Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee container that she kept hidden.

She arrived in New York City in 1969 with $600, five new articles of clothing and a yellow steamer trunk. “I’m always so amazed that I did that,” she says. “I’d never seen anything other than the neighborhood where I grew up. But I knew I wanted to do something other than what my family was doing.”

You get to create a life for yourself.

— Barbara Adams, 78

So, steamer trunk in tow, and no real plan, she asked strangers to help guide her to Harlem, where she eventually found a place to stay — a tiny room in a less-than-savory boardinghouse near Central Park. “When you opened the window, there was a brick wall there — just like the movies,” she remembers, fondly.

The following decades were filled with the normal challenges — and triumphs — of adulthood: Buying her co-op, getting her heart broken, finding a stable job, making and losing friends.

“It’s hard for me to look back and remember any low moments because I always did my best to make everything fun,” she says. “I’m just so glad I wasn’t afraid to venture out to find my life, because I would’ve missed out on everything.”

Her advice for adulthood: “You get to create a life for yourself.”

Vernon and Robert Waldron, both 83

When I asked Robert and Vernon to share their most important lessons about love, their memories led to the beach in Aruba.

During the ‘80s, in the very early stages of their courtship, Robert was diagnosed with HIV. Leaving the doctor’s office in a haze, he decided to put on a strong face and immediately went home and informed Vernon. They were in the midst of preparing for their first trip together — but how could he travel like this? He felt that his life was falling apart and didn’t know what to do.

Unable to cancel plans or get refunds, they decided to go on their trip anyway. As soon as he set foot on the beach, Robert recalls, he began to sob uncontrollably as his mind filled with questions. How am I going to do this? How am I going to tell my sister? How am I going to tell my family? Am I going to survive this?

“I was sitting on the grounds of the most beautiful resort hotel,” Robert recalls. “And there were the most beautiful birds.” Finding one of his first moments of serenity since his diagnosis, he poured his heart out to Vernon — honest, for the first time, about the depths of his fears — and they cried, together.

Returning to America, Robert felt able to “face reality.” He told his family and friends, began treatment and started his path to a healthy life.

But four years later, he was diagnosed with colon cancer — and then, later, prostate cancer.

“I love him. And that’s when I learned that love, at the end of the day, is just always being there.”

— Vernon and Robert Waldron, 83

Vernon, who doesn’t speak much, finally pipes up when he recalls Robert’s hospitalization during his first cancer treatment. For weeks on end, he would stay in the hospital for the duration of visiting hours — he even bathed Robert twice a day. Doctors gave him a 50/50 chance of survival. And if he survived, he would also have to learn to walk again.

“Vernon had never seen me like this before,” Robert says, expressing his guilt. “I told him to go out, see his friends, and try to enjoy himself.”

“And I said no,” Vernon tells me, haltingly. “Because there was nowhere else I wanted to be but with him.”

Their advice for relationships: “Love, at the end of the day, is just always being there.”

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