🏳️‍🌈 But, Like, What's Your Gay Age? 🏳️‍🌈

QUEER WORD
GAY AGE

What it means:

A playful way of measuring how long you’ve been out.

For example, if you came out at 27 and you're now 33, you might say that you're only 6 in gay years.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Sure, I might have chronic back pain and a standing appointment with an osteopath, but my gay age is only 3 - so I WILL be at the club this weekend, covered in glitter and demanding the bartender top up my margarita.

A little bit of history:

When I was around 14 or 15 years old I discovered an old copy of Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin in my local library.

Now, if you haven’t heard of these books before here’s the gist:

• Originally published as a serialised newspaper column all the way back in 1978, ‘Tales of the City’ was a soap-opera-style set of novels centred on the lives of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco

• But it wasn’t just any old soap opera - it was revolutionary for including trans, gay, and lesbian characters at a time when queer representation in mainstream media was practically non-existent

• Even more importantly, those characters weren’t just there to be villains or victims. The were joyful, messy, and complicated people with real friendships, real sex and real love lives

• The series became a cultural touchstone for many queer readers (including my teenage self!).

Before long I had DEVOURED the entire series. Not since ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ had I been so obsessed with a series of books.

When I got to the end of the series I needed more. So I went hunting for all of Maupin’s other books - and when I stumbled upon this passage in The Night Listener I was stopped in my tracks:

This blew my teenage mind.

Suddenly, I had a new lens through which to view the queer people around me. I explained away certain behaviours - awkwardness, insecurity, the compulsion to overshare - as signs someone was still early in their gay age.

I loved it. It felt like a super-helpful framework for making sense of the world.

But, with time, I’ve started to question it. Or, at the very least, recognise its limitations.

Is it time to update ‘Gay Age’?

I still firmly believe that coming out can be a powerful and affirming experience.

But I also recognise that I say this from a position of relative privilege - after all, I live in a country and come from a background where my sexuality is only *sort of* a problem.

Though playful, the concept of gay age can quietly reinforce the idea that there’s a ‘right’ way to be queer - and that it starts with coming out early.

As if coming out is the only path to queer wisdom.

That doesn’t sit quite right with me anymore.

So maybe it’s time to rethink and reimagine it. And, whilst we’re at it, maybe we swap gay age for queer age?

But even then, I have questions about how we use it…. Namely:

1. What if you don't want to come out?

The idea of a queer age hinges on a visible declaration of identity. But not everyone wants to - or can - come out.

Activists in the past pushed ‘visibility’ as the route to liberation. But today, we’re more aware of cultural, familial, and safety considerations that complicate that idea.

So what happens to your queer age if you never come out? Are you ageless?

2. What if you come out more than once?

Let's say that you come out as a lesbian when you are 21, and then again as a trans man when you are 27. Which age counts? Do you reset? Do you average it out?

Should we be creating some kind of unnecessarily convoluted queer age calculator involving dates, decimal points, and maybe a bit of astrology (cause queers do love a bit of astrology!)?

3. What about people who never ‘officially’ come out?

Some folks just are. They never have a big coming-out moment - they just live their lives and let everyone else figure it out. Does that mean their queer age is a mystery? Do they exist in a sort of ageless queer limbo?

4. What if you come out later in life?

If someone comes out at 60, are they a baby gay? Or does a lifetime of experience give them an honorary fast pass through queer adolescence? Is there a way to balance lived experience with queer cultural know-how?

5. Can you have a ‘queer rebirth’?

Let’s say you came out young but then had to go back in to the closet - because of family pressure, safety concerns, or internalised queerphobia. Then, years later, you step back into queer spaces and begin embracing your identity again.

Do you start back at square one? Do you get to celebrate two birthdays? Or does your original queer age still count?

6. And what about the fact that we’re always coming out?

Not in any grand, sit-down-I-need-to-tell-you-something kind of ways, but in everyday moments: correcting pronouns, mentioning a partner, navigating assumptions.

Is queer age just an ever-repeating cycle? Do we start back at square one whenever we have to explain ourselves?

Questions, questions, questions…

And not much in the way of answers.

But maybe that’s the beauty of it?

Queerness has never been about fitting neatly into boxes, so why should a queer age be any different?

Maybe instead of counting the years since we came out, we should be paying attention to what we’ve learned along the way. The wisdom. The joy. The mess.

I mean, sure, there’s no easy way to measure that and quietly use it to feel superior to the queers around us… but maybe that’s a good thing? 🤷 

But now I want to hear from you…

Do you buy in to this queer age nonsense? And, if so, what’s your queer age?

Answer the poll below and let me know your thoughts.