“You’re Not Too Old ’Til You’re Dead” — How Older Lesbians Can Find Support, Community and Even Love

“Eighty is the new forty,” some people say. Like many sayings, it’s both true and not true.

On the one hand, if you make it to 80, you’ve undoubtedly faced more deaths in people you love, and more changes in your own physical capacity, than most people have faced at 40.

But it’s also true that for many older lesbians, the desire to have more of what matters most in life — emotional connection, meaning, intimacy, affection, and, yes, sensuality and sex — is still as present at 80 as it ever was.

The Perspectives of Age

Often, the years past age 60 or 65 are incredibly rich in self-awareness. Many old lesbians (some of whom are reclaiming the term, “old,” while others prefer the softer-sounding “older”) know ourselves better than ever before.

As we age, we have more skills with which to navigate our emotional landscapes, and more perspective and wisdom, too. That’s why one vibrant 75-year-old lesbian I know calls herself an elder, rather than older.

Another older lesbian told me frankly, “I’m so glad I made it to this point. A good friend of mine died at 48. She never got to know herself as well as I know myself now.”

At the same time, the knowledge that life is short and fleeting, that there are many more years behind than ahead of us, fills many of us with a sense of urgency. Older single lesbians I know often feel like they can’t “waste any time” with dating that doesn’t go anywhere, for instance.

For this reason, some old lesbians decide not to date at all, and to focus attention on other parts of life. But others feel a deep yearning for a last love.

How Cultural Changes Impact Us

Some older lesbians I work with have been out for decades, and have witnessed incredible changes in the landscape of LGBTQ rights, visibility and acceptance.

For instance, one woman I know who came out in the late 1960s remembers the times when police would raid lesbian bars and put the patrons in jail if they weren’t wearing at least three articles of women’s clothing. She remembers relaxing in gay bars most of the night, dancing and socializing and even kissing in a corner, while knowing she’d probably be beaten up when she left the bar and walked to her car.

Now that gay marriage is legal, there are prominent gay politicians, and gay policemen and policewomen march in Pride parades each year, she has a Rip Van Winkle sense of unreality. Few lesbians around remember the times she remembers, which makes it even stranger.

Another woman I know talked about her decision to go to her first lesbian dance in a rural town in the early 1970s. “I thought to myself, was I willing to die for this?” she recalled. “And then I decided the answer was Yes. I was willing to die for it. And I walked into the dance.”

For those who lived through hard times and made it onto a different shore, there can be a pervasive sense of unreality. Where there are scars, there is scar tissue. If you spent your teen or early adult years having to hide who you were, that fear and constriction still lives in your body somewhere.

This means that even though it’s now safe in most parts of the U.S. to go on a dating app and tell the whole world that you’re lesbian, single and looking, you are a survivor.

Having a partner lean close to you in a restaurant or public place might trigger a trauma response. You may not be out to your family, or in your neighborhood. Or perhaps you do choose to take a girlfriend’s hand when you walk, but inside, a part of you shuts down in terror.

But, scars can also create wisdom. They mark the place where great injury happened, and healed. Your dating and love life can feel richer and more meaningful because you don’t take your freedom as a lesbian for granted.

As one woman said to me, “It was never my birthright to get to have this freedom.” Then she told me about how people have thrown things at her — “eggs, coke cans” — just for walking down the street in her butch body.

Another older lesbian told me passionately, “The young queers these days think our lesbian life in the 60s and 70s was conservative and backward. They have no idea! Butches and femmes loved each other in radical ways back then!”

As in any community, sometimes there are divisions between older and younger lesbians and queer women. At other times, the intergenerational friendships that form can be powerfully healing for both older and younger.

Coming Out Later In Life

Although the wars around LGBTQ rights are still being fought — and anyone who doubts that only needs to look at the new legislation and even laws in states like Florida and Missouri — there is no question that many LGBTQ battles have been won.

This means that many more women are realizing their attractions to other women, and finding the courage to act on them. Huge numbers of women are now coming out in their 60s, 70s, or 80s.

For those coming out later in life, the challenges are different. How do you create a whole new identity when everyone has always known you as heterosexual? How can you get comfortable dating women, after decades of dating men? How do you even know which women might be open to dating you? How and with whom can you have your first lesbian experience?

And, how do you find lesbian community? Will the lesbian community accept you as a new lesbian or bisexual woman?

Many older women new to lesbian life attended the recent Lesbian Erotic Liberation class held in the Conscious Girlfriend Academy, an international resource providing lesbian dating, relationship and sexuality classes to lesbians, queer women and all women who love women, or want to.

One of these women recounted the time when, in her 50s, she first had sex with another woman. “I was very nervous,” she said. “But when we actually went to bed, it felt like coming home.”

Her words inspired the name of a new Conscious Girlfriend Academy class: Coming Out and Coming Home.

The Challenges of Lesbian Dating at 60+

Whether you’ve been out for a long time or are just coming out now, there are challenges in seeking love at this age. One woman — I’ll call her Louise — said poignantly, “I nursed my partner until her death. I don’t know if I can ever do that again. And I don’t want to put anyone else through that, either.”

Having been a caregiver to a chronically ill partner myself, I get it. At 61, I’ve had my own chronic illness challenges, too, and when I’ve dated women in their 70s, I’ve certainly been aware of both their human fragility and mine.

So I respect older single lesbians, “solos,” who choose to focus on their family, their art, their friends and community, rather than on dating and romance. Sometimes lesbian community is harder to come by for older lesbians, who are often estranged from our birth families, and whose chosen families may have died.

At the same time, I also have great respect for older lesbians whose hearts and bodies are still alive to the call of romantic love. Many of us have done a great deal of psychological healing and overcome a lot of trauma, and are better-equipped for love now than we were in the past.

Both groups of lesbians can find support in Conscious Girlfriend Academy programs.

“You’re Not Too Old ’Til You’re Dead”

“But am I too old for love?” some women ask. “Who’d want me now, with this aging body? With all the losses I’ve endured?”

Yet many of those same older lesbians have no trouble seeing the beauty, vitality and, yes, sexiness of the other women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who attend Conscious Girlfriend Academy classes and gatherings.

In one exercise I teach, women pair up with the assignment to See each other as masterpieces. Even in just a few minutes, even on Zoom, their eyes soften as they see, really see each other — and their hearts soften as they really let themselves be seen.

In another exercise, I invite participants to get in contact with their radiant infant self, still alive inside them, and their wisest, most resourced ancient self. Some women identify with the word crone — reclaiming that slur used against old women, and imbuing it with its rightful power. For other older lesbians, our wisest self feels ageless and timeless, perhaps even genderless, or beyond gender.

Either way, allowing ourselves to contact these parts of ourselves can be transformative — and connecting with those parts of other old lesbians can create deep bonds of respect and appreciation.

After one such exercise in the Conscious Girlfriend Academy, a participant exclaimed, “I get it now! I’m not too old ’til I’m dead!” And everyone else applauded.