Still Here, Still Proud: Realities of LGBTQ+ Older People Navigating through Intersectionality, Visibility and Belonging (Panel Event)

The recording for this event has been made available on our YouTube channel. Alternatively, you can view it above.

What does it mean to grow older as an LGBTQ+ person? For many, later life brings new and compounding challenges: the creep of invisibility, the risk of isolation, the complexities of accessing care from systems that may not recognise or affirm who you are. When disability, age, and LGBTQ+ identity intersect, the experience can be one of profound marginalisation – but also of extraordinary resilience, community, and pride hard-won over a lifetime.

This panel, hosted by ParaPride ambassador Kim Tatum and co-founder Daniele Lul, brings together voices from across decades of LGBTQ+ history and activism to reflect honestly on what it means to age within our communities. How do our identities shift and evolve across a lifespan? What happens when the body changes and the systems meant to support us fail to keep pace with who we are? And in the face of all of this, how do older LGBTQ+ people continue to find community, assert their rights, and live with pride?

Our panelists will explore the realities of isolation and the importance of community connection; the experience of holding a queer or trans identity across decades of social change; and the ongoing fight for legal rights, recognition, and dignified care. Speaking with us are Ted Brown, a founding figure of the Gay Liberation Front UK with decades of frontline activism behind him; Sue Sanders of LGBT History Month UK and Schools OUT, whose work has helped embed LGBTQ+ lives into the historical record; and Crissie from Women of Colour in Global Women’s Strike, whose perspective foregrounds race, gender, and class alongside age and identity. This is a conversation about the past, present, and future of LGBTQ+ life – and a reminder that our elders are still here, and still proud.