Dressed in a glittery rainbow caftan and knee-high boots, Darcel Stevens strutted across the dance floor at Silver Pride this month in downtown Sarasota, lip-syncing to Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman” while a crowd of seniors swayed along.
But as the music faded, the 64-year-old drag queen turned solemn.
“Nothing was given to us in our generation,” Stevens said, addressing the crowd. “We had to fight our way through.”
That fight, Stevens warned, isn’t over.
“We all got a story, but this generation needs to hear these stories,” Stevens said, “because if they know it or not, they’re going to have to get off their asses — it’s time for them to fight.”
The message struck a deeper chord this year.
Across Florida and much of the country, Pride Month has unfolded under a growing shadow. For older LGBTQ+ residents — many of whom lived through the AIDS crisis, the criminalization of their identities and decades of political hostility — the political tide of the past few years has brought a disquieting sense of déjà vu.
The landmark gains of the 2010s, once seen as permanent milestones, now feel increasingly precarious. In their place: a new wave of legislation targeting trans rights, LGBTQ+ education, and healthcare access — and a creeping fear that hard-won progress could slip away.
In Florida, that fear has taken on a sharp, personal edge.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state has become a national testing ground for policies that roll back LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools, public health and civil discourse. New laws have banned gender-affirming care for minors and sought to ban Medicaid coverage for trans adults.
Teachers have been told to avoid discussions of gender and sexuality. Book bans, curriculum fights and escalating rhetoric have reshaped daily life — not only for gay and trans youth, but for the elders who remember when silence, shame and fear were the norm.
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This turn has left many LGBTQ+ seniors grappling with a question they thought they’d already answered: how much of themselves to risk in public and how far to go — again — to defend their rights.
In conversations with Suncoast Searchlight during Pride Month, many elders across the region reflected on that tension, describing a moment that feels both painfully familiar and newly urgent.
“When gay marriage became legal, a lot of our allies said, ‘OK, problem solved,’” said Susan, a 71-year-old Sarasotan who has organized efforts to help connect trans community members with resources like housing and therapy. She requested Suncoast Searchlight withhold her last name out of concern that being publicly associated with her activism could expose her to harassment or threats.
Watershed events like the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which enshrined the right for same-sex couples to marry, signified meaningful progress — progress that Susan, a 50-year veteran of the movement, worries could be faltering.
She pointed to churches that do not affirm LGBTQ+ identities, countries where homosexuality remains criminalized and states that allow conversion therapy, adding that full inclusion is “just not there yet.”
That unfinished struggle has taken on new urgency in Florida. Civil rights groups have mounted a series of legal challenges in response to recent state laws, including securing a settlement last year that clarified the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation does not require teachers to hide their identities or scrub books featuring LGBTQ+ characters from classrooms.
The battles have been felt acutely on the Suncoast, where activists have clashed over LGBTQ+ programming and trans-inclusive policies in local schools — with some community members working to restrict them, and others organizing in response.
Faced with a shifting political climate and rising hostility, many LGBTQ+ seniors said they have been forced to weigh their continued activism with the need to stay safe — a familiar calculus for those who lived through the gay rights movement of the 1980s and ‘90s.
“In the two years that I’ve lived (in Sarasota) — two and a half, now — maybe 60% of the trans people I knew have left,” said India Miller, describing the growing hostility toward trans people in the Suncoast region and across Florida. The wave of anti-trans legislation and activism has been felt so acutely here that the Human Rights Campaign issued a travel advisory in 2023 — the first of its kind in the civil rights organization’s history — warning people about the risks of visiting or moving to the state.
Miller, who described herself as a trans elder, has dedicated herself full time to activism on behalf of LGBTQ+ Floridians, criss-crossing the state to attend school board meetings and chatting with strangers at Sarasota’s Farmers Market about trans issues.
“Right now,” Miller said, “just being who you are is so very, very difficult.”
The Rev. Lillie Brock, who leads a predominantly LGBTQ+ congregation at Church of the Trinity MCC, said she has seen three reactions among older folks to the current political and societal moment.
For people who have been in the queer movement for decades, she said, one reaction is a weary sense of familiarity — that they’re fighting the same battles all over again. Brock, 68, counts herself among them.
“I find myself at rallies,” she said, “and when I talk about it, saying the same things I was saying 40 years ago.”
Others, sensing the ground shifting beneath them, are taking protective steps — rushing to secure legal rights or quietly changing their routines. Longtime couples are getting married, Brock said, just as much for the celebration as for a safeguard, to enshrine their legal rights.
And some, she added, are retreating entirely. Those who were already closeted have “just gone further into the closet.”
Brock’s reflections captured a truth echoed by others: For many, being visible still carries risk.
At Senior Friendship Centers, a nonprofit that serves older adults across the Suncoast, Michael Cochrane leads grief counseling groups for LGBTQ+ seniors. Even without discussing politics, the 73-year-old said, anxiety about backlash and lost rights often surfaces in conversation.
“The members of the group,” he said, “have experienced discrimination in all the years we were growing up.”
That same sense of caution has shaped the day-to-day decisions of people like Allison, a 54-year-old who jokingly calls herself an “AARP lesbian.” She asked Suncoast Searchlight to withhold her last name, citing fear of being harassed in an increasingly hostile climate.
“I am out, but now I probably dress a little more feminine,” she said, adding that she used to prefer masculine clothing but now wears makeup. “I stay relatively cautious.”
The question of how — and where — to age safely is just as fraught as the political climate itself.
While not everyone will choose to enter a retirement community or nursing home, those who do face an added layer of uncertainty. Concerns about bias, isolation and mistreatment can make an already complex decision even more difficult.
“There are not a lot of places where queer couples or just queer people can go and feel safe and accepted in a senior living facility,” Brock said. “There’s a larger concern about whether people will be mean to them.”
An AARP survey conducted in 2024 found that roughly 4 in 5 LGBTQ+ people ages 45 and up in the United States are concerned about not having community support as they grow old. In Florida, where 5.4% of the population identifies as LGBTQ+ and in Sarasota County where the median age tops 57, those concerns take on particular urgency.
In response, Senior Friendship Centers expanded its offerings for LGBTQ+ seniors.
One example is Silver Pride, an annual gathering co-hosted by Senior Friendship Centers, Project Pride SRQ and Golden Girls Solutions for LGBTQ+ seniors to celebrate their community, share resources and enjoy live music.
Community hubs like this one – and like Brock’s church – form important spaces for people to be themselves.
Ricki Bellamy, who attended Silver Pride this year for the first time, described the event, which offered a glimpse of thriving LGBTQ+ people not much older than herself, as inspiring.
Bellamy came out to her family and friends as trans earlier this year at 50 years old, despite knowing that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments were on the rise and hearing violently anti-gay rhetoric among members of her former Baptist church.
“I knew who I was inside, and it just was a struggle for me,” said Bellamy, who began the process of coming out at the same time that she began reconsidering her own understanding of Christian teachings.
“How am I going to approach these passages?” she said, describing the challenging intellectual process of re-reading biblical scripture with fresh eyes.
Her faith, she concluded, should make room for people like herself.
She now jumps at the chance to stand in solidarity with gay and trans community members, flying a pride flag outside her condo and representing her new place of worship, Church of the Trinity MCC, at Silver Pride.
The first time she attended church this January in clothing that aligned with her gender — in black mini boots, black slacks and a formal blouse — Bellamy said, “I was able to worship as my true self.”
The experience was so moving, she added, “I cried most of the time.”
For years, Bellamy said she hid who she was from everyone, including her closest friends and family. She’s not hiding anymore.
Just six months after telling her sister and mother she was trans, Bellamy attended the No Kings protest in Sarasota and helped carry a 700-foot pride flag across the Ringling Bridge.
All the rainbows and music and festivities have Bellamy feeling like a kid again, she said, experiencing holidays as though for the first time.
Yet Bellamy knows there are struggles ahead.
“It’s like Christmas Day, but it’s also like D-Day because this is a battle,” she said of Pride. “We’re continuing to fight for recognition.”
Alice Herman and Derek Gilliam are an investigative/watchdog reporters and Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter for Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
