There is no future without memory. Despite significant advancements regarding gender and sexual diversity across Southern Europe, such change does not embrace the life course, often leaving older generations in a situation of extended and cumulative vulnerability. In addition, the complexity of queer ageing is increasingly enhanced by the current climate of populism and anti-gender backlash.

My keynote address draws on experiences of ageing as LGBTQI+ people with a sense of survival, pride and joy. In recent years, we have gathered over 100 biographic narrative accounts of 60+ people in Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia. A selection of these conversations constitutes the backbone of the documentary OUTlasting – Living Archives of Older Queers (forthcoming in late 2025), produced by TRACE – Tracing Queer Citizenship Over Time, a 5-year interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Research Council focused on queer ageing and memory.

Learning from the intersections of ageing, gender and sexual diversity is a theoretical and political gesture of the utmost importance. Today, perhaps more than ever, ageing societies require an age-sensitive queer theoretical lens to design and implement adequate policies, encouraging innovative knowledge production and strengthening democracy in turbulent times. In the last part of this plenary session, we will watch the trailer of the documentary OUTlasting, as part of an ongoing conversation that, for reasons that will become evident during the talk, cannot be postponed.