Though friends Alisha Zaida Ali, 30, and leZlie lee kam, 73, have four decades between them, it rarely feels that way.
They text every day, talk on the phone at least once a week, and frequently go to screenings and events together. Whenever they have an intensely emotional debrief, Ali sets to cooking: “I’ll make her a batch of dal. I pay her back in food – that’s something we do.”
When they met a decade ago, it was as mentor and mentee. They grew closer and now consider each other chosen family.
“If I’m struggling with life choices or I need some guidance, I turn to leZlie and ask what she would do if she were in my place. leZlie, I think, does the same. She might need to vent or talk things through. I’m a listening ear,” said Ali, a sexual health co-ordinator for trans communities at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention in Toronto.
After Ali was diagnosed with a chronic illness, lee kam began accompanying them to medical appointments. And when lee kam underwent surgery in 2024, Ali and several more friends took care of the senior over many weeks, helping with transportation and cooking, and extending “love, caring, kindness, patience and so many hugs,” lee kam remembers.
Paige Taylor White/The Globe and Mail
In 2017, lee kam, a veteran community activist, began co-facilitating the Youth/Elders program at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, helping lead it for about seven years. LGBTQ seniors and young people met monthly to talk about issues affecting them: family and relationships, moving to the city from rural areas where it wasn’t safe to be out, the impact of the HIV-AIDS epidemic, a crisis of elders suffering discrimination in long-term care. The idea was to build mutual respect and understanding between generations and improve each other’s lives.
In the LGBTQ community, interest is building in networks of intergenerational connection, elders and youth exchanging stories, knowledge and care. From cross-generational mentorships, dialogue groups and storytelling workshops to a groundswell of art introducing youth to historic queer and trans icons, there is growing appreciation for paying attention to others of a different age.
“It’s my hope that more rainbow seniors will open their hearts to intergenerational relationships,” lee kam said, “and that more queer young folx will have the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences with us.”
Patricia Wilson, centre, a legendary Toronto bartender who made many young queer people feel welcome in the city, features in a new documentary on LGBTQ elders, executive produced by Michelle Mama, right.Supplied
Toronto writer and director Michelle Mama remembers a day back in the 1990s when Patricia Wilson, a legendary bartender at Buddies in Bad Times, invited her to do a shot. For a particular generation of queer young people in the city, taking a shot from Wilson was a rite of passage.
“It was a small gesture but it was her way of saying, ‘You belong here. I see you,’” Mama recalled.
The bartender became something of a matriarch in the community, welcoming queer youth this way, especially when they were new to the city, and newly out. Now, Wilson features in a forthcoming documentary Mama is executive producing, which follows four queer elders over the course of four seasons.
“These people are sometimes unheralded heroes of the community. They make people feel like they’ve got someone to talk to when family doesn’t want to talk to them, when they don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Mama, who founded GAY AGENDA, a production company.
Another of the four stories follows Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Indigenous author, artist and pioneering activist who encountered profound abuse when she came out in the 1970s in Thunder Bay. Now, Chacaby is aging but resists going into an elder-care facility, fearful after experiencing racism in other institutions.
“She’s truly an elder,” Mama said. “There are young people flitting and flocking around her taking care of her.”
Carole Pope in Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions, directed by Michelle Mama.Supplied
Lately, the Gen X filmmaker is engrossed in the stories of past generations. Her most recent documentary, Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions, follows the life of Canadian rock icon and queer elder Carole Pope, who turns 80 in August.
But she’s also troubled thinking about LGBTQ baby boomers aging in isolation. Many, she said, grew up at a time when being gay was met with estrangement from relatives. After coming of age and finding chosen family, many then lost close people during the AIDS crisis in the eighties and early nineties. As adults living before the legalization of gay marriage, many also didn’t have children. A good number who moved away from small towns to more liberal cities now find themselves financially strained.
“Who’s looking after our queer elders when they can’t look after themselves?” Mama asked. “Pride parades and everything are great. But we hope to have long lives – what happens when we get to this stage?”
The filmmaker frequently mentors queer youth and hopes they’ll look back to their predecessors: “I want them to hang out with some older people, even if it’s for 90 minutes in a film, to really soak in the difference and what that generation has been through – the history and the grit – and get inspired.”
At the same time, she senses intergenerational tension in this community. She described some older queer people using vernacular that younger ones disapprove of. She talked about some elders who had to hide who they were for decades, feeling “borderline jealous” of gay teens expressing themselves more freely now.
‘It’s a huge shift for older generations to see these kids so obviously queer. A lot of the elder folks feel satisfaction seeing that evolution in their lifetime,’ film producer Michelle Mama says.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
“Like in every family, we fight and have disagreements,” she said. “But we’re all we’ve got, so we have to look after each other.”
Today, she also worries about gentrification and skyrocketing rents displacing the queer bookstores and bars where different generations used to mingle: “We don’t gather the same ways any more. It’s all very fractured.”
These issues are top of mind for Kavya Chandra, a University of Saskatchewan MA candidate doing her master’s thesis on bridging intergenerational gaps in the LGBTQ community. In a survey conducted online in April, Chandra asked 491 LGBTQ people from all 13 provinces and territories how often they have cross-generational conversations, where those exchanges happen, and what gets in the way.
“There are a lot of younger queer folks who are lost, isolated and siloed. I wanted to know if the physical space disappearing is having an effect,” Chandra said from Saskatoon.
Although 80 per cent reported at least one meaningful intergenerational conversation in the past six months, 75 per cent found there weren’t enough in-person opportunities or spaces to connect with a different generation.
“It seems that people want this and they’re finding ways to make it happen, but it’s precarious and depends on luck,” Chandra said.
In the same survey, 366 respondents described the impact of their age-gap connections: 80 per cent found a stronger sense of belonging, 77 per cent felt more hopeful about the future, and 71 per cent felt they could better cope with stress and discrimination.
Revellers young and old celebrate at Pride parades, like this one in Vancouver. But as queer bars and bookstores shutter, the community is losing places where elders and youth used to connect.Brett Beadle/The Globe and Mail
Chandra wants to see more mentorship pairings, storytelling projects and dialogue groups designed for “transmission” between various generations. She stressed the importance of programs that work across differences in age, race, sexuality and gender identity.
“There’s this identity-matching logic in younger queer communities where you only trust someone who checks all the same boxes as you. I understand that, but there’s real reason to be cautious about it because it’s costing us something,” Chandra said.
“I think people are siloed because there’s no one to tell them, ‘It’s okay that you don’t agree with someone else – they’re still your community.’ There’s a lot of what I call purity politics coming in between what we could be learning.”
On a balmy June Sunday, in the leafy courtyard at Rekai Centre at Wellesley Central Place, LGBTQ elders from long-term care homes across the Greater Toronto Area gathered for Rainbow Seniors Pride. Many came by bus – a delicate, hours-long operation to ferry them to the fun.
Colourful balloons bobbed in the courtyard, where seniors were treated to a barbecue, ice cream and cake. Decked out like Doris Day, drag queen Hillary Yaas performed a sweet sing-a-long to Que Sera Sera, seniors in wheelchairs mouthing familiar lyrics. During a high-energy mashup of Cher, Madonna and Whitney Houston, two stylish elders – one with lavender hair, the other with teal tresses – danced on the lawn. All around, seniors smiled in the sunshine and hugged their caregivers.
Icarus Rideout with partner Jade Showers at the 2023 Toronto Pride Parade. Rideout, a social worker, wants to bridge generation gaps in the LGBTQ community.Icarus Rideout/Supplied
The event’s organizers were deliberate about bringing in younger volunteers: “social butterflies” who mingled with seniors, and “active listeners” fielding any concerns.
Icarus Rideout, a 21-year-old volunteer, was moved by the scene.
“I just got hit with the fact that so many of these people, this may have been the first time they had this kind of space,” Rideout said.
“It inspires resilience to see people grow old and see yourself in them. And for elders who are facing an isolation crisis … this is so important.”
Freshly certified as a social worker, Rideout plans to work on programs that bridge generation gaps, so young and old queer people can see each other flourishing.
The Gen Zer said that while some queer youth wonder if elders will be sensitive to modern nuances, that feeling tends to ease once they sit down and talk.
“It’s possible you might face people not entirely understanding pronouns, or questioning why you identify as what you are. But especially with queer people, there is an openness to learn and have those conversations. There’s a respect there: ‘You are you, and I am me.’”
As part of a university placement in March, Rideout volunteered at Pride in Our Memories, a four-week series of arts workshops involving queer and trans youth, and LGBTQ elders with mild to moderate dementia. Participants talked, painted portraits of each other, and crafted collages, bracelets and paper flowers – tokens of appreciation for elders who did the work, so people like Rideout could live openly with less fear and hardship.
Members of the Vancouver Prime Timers organization danced their way down the street at the city’s Pride Parade in 2008.JENNIFER ROBERTS/The Globe and Mail
The feeling in the room – older people unabashed about who they are – countered a narrative of tragedy Rideout had come to expect.
“It was kind of a surreal experience. I realized I hadn’t ever interacted with a queer elder where they were very open about it,” they said.
“The stories we mainly hear are of struggle, of the woe and pain they’ve had to experience. We don’t really get to see the joy they have in their lives.”
No Ordinary Man tells the story of Billy Tipton, a transgender jazz musician and bandleader popular in the 1930s.Chase Joynt/Supplied
For trans youth inundated by daunting statistics about the risks their communities face – higher rates of discrimination, isolation, homelessness, depression and suicide – learning about others who came before can feel like a salve, according to filmmaker Chase Joynt.
Joynt’s documentaries explore trans histories. In 2020, he co-directed No Ordinary Man, which traced the life of Billy Tipton, a transgender jazz musician who rose to prominence in the 1930s. The filmmaker is now working on a project about transgender singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife and creative collaborator Elizabeth. Glenn, the name the artist goes by, is now 82 and living with dementia. His work has long resonated with younger generations of artists and fans.
Joynt feels that when transgender people can look back across time and “find multiples,” they get a more dynamic sense of trans life. Digging into past legacies this way counters mainstream messaging that continually frames transgender people as new – as non-existent before.
“When you understand that there were people who were living creatively, differently, on their own terms, you can turn towards yourself and your future in a way that might make a little more sense.”
‘We need to get better at meeting each other on common ground, having patience for each other – knowing that older people can also learn from us,’ Alisha Zaida Ali says.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
Over years speaking to queer youth, lee kam coined a clear-eyed catchphrase: “One day, if you are lucky, you too might be a rainbow senior.”
She pointed to young LGBTQ people struggling to find work and keep a roof over their heads, and the toll this takes on mental health.
“It’s easier to come out now but it’s a lot more difficult to live your life,” lee kam observed. “There’s no job stability. Housing is a problem. Because of what’s happening in the world, I have a lot of young friends who tell me they feel like they’re in a state of despair all the time.
“The struggle is real,” she continued. “It’s like being rainbow-identified is secondary sometimes.”
Queer elders are also strained: Approximately 50 per cent of older LGBTQ adults felt socially isolated, that number climbing to 63 per cent for transgender seniors, according to a 2024 survey from AARP.
In Toronto, lee kam has spent years agitating for more resources and program funding for this population, including projects that strengthen intergenerational ties.
Ali, lee kam’s millennial friend, has taken the torch, pushing for more opportunities for young and old to meet and relate.
“There are always people who existed and did this work before us. It is our responsibility as youth to do our research,” Ali said.
“Can we speak to them, bring those people into the conversation and make space for them at the table?”
