LGBTQIA+ Pride Month celebrates resilience of aging

“There are four who lived with me, whom I guided. With Diego [a son by choice], that makes five. And there are people out there who, if you ask, will say, ‘I’m Yone’s child in activism’—both boys and girls, cis and trans.”

At 69, Yone Lindgren has not only children, but also grandchildren and a great-grandchild. A longtime activist and contributor to public policies such as the pioneering Brasil Sem Homofobia (Brazil Without Homophobia) program launched in 2004, the photographer came out as a lesbian at 15, during a Sunday family lunch in 1971—promptly met with stunned silence. Her godmother, Ascendina, quickly came to her defense, silencing anyone who might discriminate against her. Among the more than 50 tattoos that cover her body are her own face, tributes to her foster children, and symbols of her activism.Since coming out as a lesbian, she has faced repression under the military dictatorship, which ended in 1985; the pathologization of homosexuality, overturned by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1990; the stigma and grief of the HIV/AIDS crisis at its peak in the 1980s and 1990s; and the long fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the decades that followed.

“I have a friend who puts it perfectly: ‘We are the VW Beetles of the LGBTQIA+ movement—the older we get, the more beautiful we become,’” jokes Yone Lindgren.

Biographies like hers—of people who survived the most brutal periods of violence and invisibility while paving the way for sexual and gender freedoms—gained visibility during LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in 2025, when a series of initiatives placed aging at the center of the debate. The São Paulo LGBT+ Pride Parade, for example, embraced this theme to mobilize the crowd that has made it the largest civil rights march for the community in the world.

“If we don’t work hard on the issue of aging, we’ll end up back in the drawers—isolated and achieving very little,” warns Lindgren. “I think it took a while for people to wake up to this. The black movement and the Afro-Brazilian religious movement already carry this in their blood—it’s rooted in their ancestry. The Indigenous movement as well. Meanwhile, let’s be honest, gay men, transvestites, and trans people have long struggled with ageism,” she says.

The activist rejects any pressure to conform to stereotypes about how an elderly woman should behave but laments that many of her peers are forced back into the closet—either because they rely on the care of unaccepting families or because they face loneliness and isolation.

“I knew a trans person who died alone in her apartment and wasn’t found until a week later. That, to me, is unbearably cruel. She was a performer, someone well known, but her family never accepted her. Then she grew old—and what happens then? That really shook me. Every now and then, I open WhatsApp and message all the older people I know: ‘Why did you disappear? Where are you?’ In that moment, I don’t care about who you are—I care about how you are,” Yone Lindgren added.

Yone Lindgren, 69, lesbian activist and photographer - Photo: Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil

Memory and future

The event on Paulista Avenue on June 22 will celebrate stories like Yone Lindgren’s. Nelson Matias Pereira, president of the São Paulo LGBT Pride Parade Association, emphasizes that the fight for aging with dignity is a fight to ensure that no one is left behind.

“Aging is an achievement, but for many LGBT+ people, it remains a challenge marked by abandonment, silence, and a lack of public policies. In 2025, the São Paulo LGBT+ Pride Parade raises its voice for those who have resisted, built, and continue to embody courage,” Pereira emphasizes.

As part of this initiative to celebrate aging, the Museum of Sexual Diversity opened the photographic exhibition O Mais Profundo É a Pele (The Deepest Is the Skin) last Friday (May 30). Featured in the Parada SP event program, the exhibition honors the bodies of 25 individuals representing every letter of the LGBT acronym—including lesbians, gays, and transsexuals—as well as a diverse range of body types and skin tones. Among them is Yone Lindgren.

Rafael Medina, the photographer behind the exhibition, said at the opening that in his 20s he had few references for what an older gay man in his 50s, 60s, or 70s looked like.

“I began researching this issue and realized that the HIV/AIDS crisis and the violent environment within the community made it difficult for many to reach older ages,” Medina explained. “Today, I believe we are in a different moment—one that calls for sharing these stories and celebrating these bodies. It’s also a chance to rethink aging beyond the notion that life is over, or that dreaming and loving are no longer possible.”

The journey to bring aging to the forefront—achieving significant momentum in 2025—has been long and involved numerous projects. One such initiative is journalist Yuri Alves Fernandes’s LGBT+60: Corpos que Resistem (LGBT+60: Bodies that Resist) project, launched on the independent journalism platform #Colabora. Now in its third season, the project has already amassed over 10 million views across digital platforms.

The Deepest Is the Skin exhibition, at the Museum of Sexual Diversity, in São Paulo - Photo: Cadu Pinotti/Agência Brasil

“The issue of aging needs to be emphasized more and more because it’s about the future—and the future is tomorrow, just around the corner. It’s not only about our future, but also about the present of those already in their senior years who often need more attention and ,” he says, hoping his work inspires empathy.

“I would like us to be able to take a closer look at our own prejudices and actively work to overcome them, so they don’t harm people within our own community. We have faced so much marginalization since childhood that, at the very least, we should show empathy toward one another,” adds Fernandes.

Since its debut in 2018, the series has received over ten national and international awards, including the most recent—the Creator of Excellence in Independent Video Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), one of the world’s leading organizations for journalists.

“It moves me deeply when trans people, especially, share that—for the first time—they’ve seen an elderly trans man or woman and can now envision themselves growing old too. These stories encourage people to think about the future and believe they will reach it, coming from a place where there has been very little representation of aging within the community,” Fernandes noted.

Journalist Yuri Alves Fernandes with Seu Franco, one of the characters in the series “LGBT+60: Bodies that Resist” LGBT+60

Generational encounter

Gerontology expert Diego Felix Miguel, president of the Gerontology Department of the Brazilian Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology in São Paulo and a specialist in diversity and longevity, emphasizes that the significance of the São Paulo LGBT Parade’s theme goes beyond simply highlighting older adults—it addresses aging as a universal process experienced by all living people.

“We need to focus on strengthening intergenerational bonds within the community by creating spaces that celebrate, listen to, and empower LGBT older adults. Through their stories, words, and experiences, they can the baton to new generations, helping us understand that this process of resistance came at the cost of many lives—lives of those who, sadly, are no longer with us,” the expert explains.

“It is crucial that we stay vigilant about how our rights are being addressed—who is advocating for our demands, and how these demands are being heard and acted upon. This vigilance must extend to the implementation of public policies essential for ing our community and its needs—not just for older individuals, but for everyone who is aging,” adds Miguel.

Collectivity against loneliness

Often estranged from family ties and lacking traditional family structures, many in the LGBTQIA+ community face loneliness and limited networks as they age. Jorge Caê Rodrigues, 70, a retired university professor and activist who helped found some of Brazil’s leading organizations advocating for gay rights, views community and collective solidarity as essential tools for aging with greater happiness.

“Turning to collective struggle, ing groups, and coming together are crucial for us to fully experience aging. We need to see old age as a positive outcome—proof that we are alive. Society often imposes an ideal of perpetual youth, but gathering and engaging in conversations with those who have reached 60, 70, and beyond, embracing the reality of growing old, is itself a powerful form of resistance,” says Rodrigues, who was widowed in 2019 after a 39-year partnership with fellow activist John McCarthy.

Retired professor and activist Jorge Caê Rodrigues highlights the importance of community in achieving happy aging - Photo: Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil

About ten months ago, Jorge Caê Rodrigues began meeting with other gay men over 50 through the Arco-Íris Group, which he co-founded with his ex-husband and other companions. As the gatherings grew, the group started hosting dinners at ’ homes—an intentional, collective effort to combat loneliness.

“Suddenly, I found myself turning 60, and with old age approaching, new concerns arise. Health becomes a priority, as does social connection. Loneliness is a deeply personal challenge for me—one that has long been overlooked and neglected,” says Rodrigues.

Among the topics discussed at the meetings, sexuality and love life are never overlooked. “Everyone agrees on sharing their desires and how they maintain them, while those who are alone speak openly about loneliness. Desire doesn’t disappear with age, but finding a partner can be challenging. Many assume desire fades as we get older, but that’s not true—I can speak from experience. I still feel desire and ire the male body,” he says. Now dating again, he has been in a relationship for four years. “I’m approaching 71, and I look up to singer Ney Matogrosso, who is 80. I want to age as gracefully as he has.”

Ancestors of the future

Among the letters in the LGBTQIA+ acronym, the "T" faces the most severe challenges of aging. For years, the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (Antra) has highlighted that reaching the age of 35 is already a milestone that marks a trans woman or man as a survivor. According to Antra’s president, Bruna Benevides, elderly transvestites and trans people are living monuments of resistance in a society that often seeks to erase them.

Bruna Benevides says that transvestites and elderly trans people are living monuments of resistance - Photo: Bruna Benevides/Personal archive

“Every transvestite or trans woman who reaches old age cracks the system of death that seeks to destroy us. They are living archives of a history society tries to erase. Their bodies bear the marks of struggle and marginalization, but also of wisdom, collective resilience, and reinvention. They are true ancestors of the future, many having actively contributed to the fight for rights and the foundations we rely on today,” says Benevides.

Antra is among the organizations committed to honoring the pioneers of the LGBTQIA+ community. This year, it launched the Traviarcas project, which examines the living conditions, health, and aging of trans women and transvestites over 45. The data collected will the creation of the Traviarcas report: Diagnosis of the Challenges for the Aging of Brazilian Transvestites and Transsexual Women.

“Celebrating them means breaking the logic of discard—it means giving a name and a face to the future that Brazil so often denies us. They should not be ed only during specific events but included in policymaking, academic spaces, and decisions shaping the direction of our struggle. Trans old age is not the end of a cycle; it is the crowning of a stubborn and profoundly dignified existence,” concludes Bruna Benevides.