‘Everyone in Poland invents their own way of being gay’: ageing, ageism, and body image among gay men aged 50 and older

Research on gay ageing focuses primarily on Western contexts, largely overlooking older sexual minority individuals in Central and Eastern Europe. In Poland, older gay men remain a socially marginalised and largely invisible group, and dominant models of ageing and sexuality fail to capture the specificity of their experiences. This study explored the experiences of ageing with a gay identity at age 50 and older in Poland, focusing on body image, ageism, and functioning within the LGBTQ+ community. Ten cisgender gay men aged 50–74 participated in this qualitative study. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and subjected to thematic analysis within an interpretive-constructivist paradigm. The analysis revealed three interrelated themes: (1) the non-schematic nature of experiencing gay identity, (2) negotiating visibility and ageism, (3) the struggle to maintain a functional and healthy body. The themes indicate a lack of shared cultural scripts for ageing and the individual construction of ways of functioning in later life. The results show that ageing gay men in Poland function amid limited institutional support, a lack of positive ageing role models, and overlapping forms of marginalisation. Simultaneously, the absence of developmental scripts opens space for diverse trajectories of experiencing old age in a postsocialist context.