Linda Ellis, executive director of the Atlanta Lesbian Health Initiative, served as a moderator for the Feb. 25 LGBT Elder Town Hall Meeting. ALHI was one of several gay community groups that helped organize the meeting.
When we grow old Atlanta’s gay seniors discuss hopes, fears of twilight years
Their voices would have to be heard. Some, though, had an easier time than others saying exactly what was on their minds.
“I don’t want to grow old next to a farmer from Gay, Ga. I want to grow old next to a drag queen,” popped a woman’s voice from the crowd.
The speaker was one of about 120 people who filled the Decatur Public Library auditorium to capacity Feb. 25 for a Sunday afternoon rap session to answer an old question, and, hopefully, start a new conversation.
Where do gay men and lesbians go when they reach retirement age?
It’s a question gerontologists and sociologists have been pondering for some time. But for those who attended the LGBT Elder Town Hall meeting, sponsored by a consortium of community organizations, the answer is plain: They’re staying right here.
“When we get in our fifties, people think we die, and we’re not dead,” said another woman from the town hall crowd.
And they won’t be silenced — not by a long shot. The very first “Baby Boomers,” the approximately 76 million people born in the U.S. in the 20-plus years following World War II, began turning 60 in 2006. According to a 2000 study by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the Boomers include between 2 and 3 million gay men and lesbians, a sub-generation who turned out to be activists whether they wanted to or not.
“This is a pioneering population in that we’re about to witness the first group of out older lesbians and gay men,” said Brian deVries, a professor of gerontology at San Francisco State University.
Most have lived their lives differently than their heterosexual peers, which presented challenges of identity and respect during their working years. As the gay Boomers move forward into standard retirement age, deVries, who is gay, fears that their differences could pose more immediate problems for their survival.
“I always imagined I’d end up living with my friends,” a 64-year-old woman who introduced herself as Liz told the town hall crowd.
Reminiscent of “The Golden Girls” though it may be, deVries explained that Liz’s twilight years scenario reflects research which finds aging gay men and lesbians lack the built-in caregiver structure of most of their heterosexual peers who married and raised children.
Entering retirement alone
A 2006 Zogby survey sponsored by the Lesbian & Gay Aging Issues Network of the American Society on Aging asked 1,000 gay men and lesbians between ages 40 and 61 from across the U.S. about their lifestyles and plans for retirement. Concerns over housing, finances and health — which mirror their heterosexual counterparts — took the forefront. But as deVries explained, gay and lesbian Boomers will enter mid-life and retirement largely on their own.
More than half of the lesbians who answered the survey reported not having children, and about three-fourths of the gay men reported being childless. Two-thirds of the surveyed gay men did not have long-term partners at the time of the survey, compared to about half of the lesbian respondents.
“Both of those groups, partners and children, are the ones most frequently called upon as caregivers,” deVries said.
Gay men and lesbians often configure their own system of care with networks of friends, deVries added, but a lack of recognition of those relationships in society complicates delicate issues like end-of-life care, and legal and financial decisions.
“Social systems for older adults are not really well set up to support and work around friends as caregivers. They’re well set up to work around spouses and children. Once you’re outside of that legal, legitimate social structure, social systems don’t know quite how to deal with that,” he said.
Senior communities on rise
Groups in Atlanta and other urban centers across the country are directly addressing the discrepancy in the aging industry — healthcare providers, long-term care facilities, community organizations, housing providers and funeral homes — by working to implement standards of care and service to older gay men and lesbians.
In Atlanta, one of the goals of the LGBT Elder Town Hall meeting, which was organized by multiple gay organizations, was to create a style sheet of ways to address and treat gay men and lesbians whose lives and situations most often will not mirror their straight contemporaries.
More importantly, the group is working, with its senior clients largely at the helm, to create a community of living options for gay men and lesbians, including a gay senior community center, and the possibility of a retirement communities for gay men and lesbians.
“At my age, I’m as interested in not aging. I’m here to find out how we can care for each other. I don’t want to end up in the care of my right-wing Republican nephew,” a woman who identified herself as Susan said at the town hall meeting.
One answer to Susan’s problem could be retirement communities, often conceived as resort villages.
Construction on the first exclusively gay retirement community, The Palms of Manasota, in Palmetto, Fla., began in 1997. Since that time, the first 20 home sites have expanded into over 300 units, helping to spark a burgeoning industry along the way. Now, the landscape is dotted with a few, but thriving, retirement communities for gay men and lesbians in scenic locales throughout the U.S.
However, affording a spot in a retirement community will likely be a challenge for most gay men and lesbians.
“They’re nice if you have a lot of money, but there are a lot of people in our community who’ve worked in restaurants for years, and other jobs like that, who aren’t prepared for retirement,” said John Speaks, a community activist and town hall speaker.
More elder meetings slated
Housing issues took the vocal forefront of the Atlanta meeting. But fears of discrimination — from a community that triumphed after Stonewall, lived with the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness until 1973, and accurately coins itself a generation of survivors of the AIDS epidemic — took a close second.
A woman who said she lived in a retirement home in Griffin, Ga., said she routinely faces anti-gay discrimination, and considers, but refuses, to re-enter the closet.
“I’m to the point of being desperate. I need someplace to go, and I need some place I can afford. There has got to be something out there,” she said, half pleading with the audience.
Among a crowd empowered by its own experience and accomplishment, the atmosphere was charged with energy, but also the clear understanding that they have precious little time remaining to prepare themselves and their communities for getting older.
A subsequent town hall meeting will be set, and organizers promised attendees that future meetings would move toward more decisive action.
In the meantime, deVries maintains that older gay men and lesbians have their own best weapons in the fight to improve their lives at their disposal.
“I think it would be a huge contribution to our communities if we could find some way to encourage more inter-generational contact,” he said. “For us younger people to learn from and benefit from the amazing experience of our elders who lived through Stonewall, and the living history of the LGBT movement.”
Zack Hudson can be reached at zhudson@sovo.com.
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