About

I’m Joe Clark, an eldergay in Toronto. I use this blog, which I started on 2014.07.13, to document older gay men who commit suicide.

“Eldergay”

The term eldergay is attributed to the scabrous discussion forum DataLounge; it has an elastic definition, but if you or your dad could have been present at Stonewall and you stayed in the closet through your 20s, you are probably an eldergay.

Why the rash of suicides?

  1. We survived three holocausts already – family rejection, AIDS, and now young queers, who want us dead

  2. Huge numbers of our gay-male friends, who would be eldergays in their own right, died of natural causes, suicide, AIDS, or other factors; many of us are alone

  3. A large percentage of us suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or other mental-health conditions with a predisposition to suicidal thoughts or actual suicide

There is also a standard narrative about how gay-male culture prizes the young and beautiful.