By Terrance Tillman

When I turned 40, I thought I’d have more answers. About love. About community. About where I belonged in the world. But what I didn’t expect was how complicated it still feels to be a Black gay man navigating a world where even my own community sometimes doesn’t see me. Being Black in the gay world after 40 is a quiet balancing act—of visibility and invisibility, pride and exhaustion, hope and truth.

I walk into some gay spaces and still feel like I’m auditioning. Not just for attraction, but for inclusion. I’ve been to the parties. I’ve felt the eyes slide past me, the subtle way conversations close before they start. And when I speak up about race, about exclusion, about the coded preferences on dating apps—suddenly I’m “angry” or “too serious.” At this age, I’m too old to keep explaining why I matter. But I still do it. Because silence doesn’t serve me either.

“There’s this unspoken rule that Black men are either hypermasculine or invisible,” said Antoine, a friend of mine from Chicago. “After 40, it’s like people think you’ve expired if you don’t fit a certain mold.” We laughed when he said it, but only because we’ve both lived it. The irony is, we’ve spent our lives surviving in systems that weren’t built for us—only to find even in queer circles, we’re still pushing against ceilings.

And part of that ceiling? Is the way Black men are sexualized before we’re even seen. I can’t tell you how many times someone has reduced me to a body part—usually my penis—like I’m some kind of myth to be tested. It’s not flattering. It’s flattening. It strips away the complexity of who I am: thoughtful, creative, flawed, funny, tender. “I’ve had guys ask me about my size before they’ve asked my name,” said Jalen, 41. “It’s not desire—it’s erasure dressed up as interest.” And it’s a wound many of us carry quietly.

And yet, there’s power in being this age, too. There’s clarity. I know who I am. I don’t shrink myself for white comfort or gay trends anymore. “I show up in rooms as me now,” my friend Darnell, 46, told me recently. “I’m done editing myself.” That stuck with me. Because I’ve done enough editing in my life to write a novel. And at this stage? I want peace over performance. Depth over clout.

The truth is, I’ve also found beauty in the intersections of my identity. When I’m around other Black gay men—especially those my age—there’s a shared knowing. A shorthand. We’ve cried over the same losses. Danced to the same music. Survived the same erasures. It’s like soul recognition. “We’ve learned how to build joy in hard places,” said Kevin, a mentor of mine. And that joy is sacred.

Still, I want more spaces that see me fully. That celebrate my age, my Blackness, my queerness without asking me to choose between them. I want love that doesn’t need translation. Friendships that don’t flatten me. I want to be in a room and not feel like I’m the only one who made it through. And I know I’m not alone in wanting that.

So here I am. Black. Gay. Over 40. Still learning. Still showing up. Still holding space for others like me to be soft, angry, joyful, complicated—fully human. Because our stories don’t stop at 40. In many ways, they’re just getting good.