I’m a Queer Boomer and I’m OK
This is what I want you to know about ageism and exclusion
Anybody else sick of “OK, Boomer?”
I’m a member of the Baby Boom generation. Granted, I’m one of the last of my age peers to fall within Boomer ranks, but I do. I’m a Boomer, OK? Know what that means to me? It means I grew up watching my peers mock, diss, and start to dismantle strict conservative values. It means I helped dream up and fight for a radically better world.
For me, being a Boomer meant cheering on environmentalism and thrilling to Green ideology and practices.
Being a Boomer meant watching feminism march into action as Boomer women burned their bras and demanded equality in the work force, on the public stage, and at home. I watched my mom insist that my dad help her with cooking, cleaning, and childcare. I listened as she lectured me that I’d better NEVER presume women are supposed to do chores while men sit in front of the TV.
Being a Boomer meant cheering on anti-war Boomer protesters as they burned their draft cards, took to the streets, and risked prison and sometimes even death in a successful effort to end America’s imperial military foray into Vietnam. That’s right, Boomers were responsible, for the first and only time in American history, for forcing our government to end an unjust war.
Being a Boomer meant meeting Bernie Sanders grocery shopping in Burlington, Vermont where he was brave enough to espouse socialism and worker rights from his mayoral office. I watched Boomer Vermonters love and embrace him for that.
Being a Boomer meant thrilling to tales of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, adoring my fellow Boomers for kicking cop ass rather than going quietly off to jail like good little oppressed queers.
Being a Boomer meant marching with Queer Nation. “Whose streets? Our streets!” we Boomers screamed as we demanded the New York City Police Department stop tolerating queer bashers coming into our safe spaces to beat us down.
Being a Boomer meant getting queer bashed in Greenwich Village with my Boomer partner, then taking to the streets to chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”
Being a Boomer meant fighting Ronald Reagan and his depraved Republican administration as I took to the streets with my Boomer Act Up friends screaming, “Stop killing us!” Being a Boomer meant successfully galvanizing the nation into giving a shit about the HIV/AIDS epidemic striking us down in horrific numbers.
Being a Boomer meant embracing Boomer queer theorists and progressives creating the alphabet soup of LGBTQ, in embracing diversity and inclusiveness simultaneously, radically, and joyfully.
Being a Boomer meant (means) embracing younger generations and sharing stories about progress of the past as we strategize about progress necessary for the future. It means rejecting racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and all sorts of other exclusionary isms like ageism.
Being a Boomer to me means being a member of a pioneering generation that dared to call for and fight for revolutionary societal change. It means daring to tell religious and cultural behemoths that their centuries of dominance and oppression are over, at least if we have anything to say about it.
Being a Boomer means having been among the first to dare to dream of a radically better world.
Know what else being a Boomer means to me? It means hearing people constantly disparage older folks with the insult, “OK, Boomer,” as if condescending to somebody because of their age is or ought to be a virtue, as if membership in a named generation implies that I hold values I have always abhorred.
Being a Boomer means listening to fellow radical queers, with beliefs and practices remarkably similar to my own, slinging ageist insults as if the diversity/inclusion we’ve been fighting for doesn’t count. Not if you’re old like me.
Not if you’re a Boomer.
OK?
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James Finn is a former Air Force intelligence analyst, long-time LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, a regular columnist for queer news outlets, and an “agented” but unpublished novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, I’m The Excluded LGBTQ Person, THIS is What I Want You to Know.