Our Aging LGBT Parents

via BayWindow, by Dana Rudolph

How do we help our parents as they age? For adults with non-LGBT parents, there are plenty of resources on how to help parents through the various legal, financial, and emotional issues of growing old. Search the web or your favorite online bookstore for "aging parents," and you’ll be swamped with results.

For adults who wish to help their LGBT parents, however, the resources are far fewer. And while many of the issues older LGBT and non-LGBT people face are the same, some are not.

Let’s not forget: LGBT parents have been choosing to have children together for over 30 years. Those who had children in previous non-LGBT relationships may have had them even before that. Those "children" now in their 30s or older have parents who, if not in their "golden years," are at least starting to turn silver.

Scott French, program manager for the Caring and Preparing program of Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), said one of the most important things adults with LGBT parents can do is "to have conversations about making sure that your parents have a health-care proxy, a power of attorney, a living will," and a document (called by various names) about what they want done with their bodies after death.

"These are important for everyone, but they’re really important for LGBT older adults, especially if they’re partnered," he said. Unlike opposite-sex spouses, "there is no person who automatically gets to make those decisions" for LGBT older adults.

He also encourages people to talk with their parents about a will. Many people think they don’t need a will if they aren’t wealthy, French said, but noted, "Wills aren’t predicated on somebody who has wealth. They’re essential to be able to dictate what you want to happen to your possessions, whatever they may be."

And for people in same-sex couples, "you don’t always have the same protections, so it’s always better to have it in writing."


Read the rest

Just a phase!

Some gay seniors embrace a newfound openness, others face isolation

'Mr. Straight" out at 61 with no regrets
via Chicago Tribune, by Rex W. Huppke

Marvin Levin was speaking to his psychiatrist in November 2003. The conversation halted briefly as Levin looked away, collecting a thought that had waited decades to surface.

"You know what?" he said, looking up at his doctor. "I'm gay."

At age 61, married more than 30 years, this was an unlikely admission.

"It was the first time I'd ever put words to that," Levin said. "It was like an epiphany. And then I looked back on my life and said, 'You dummy, of course you are.' "

Read the rest.




Gay senior lives less openly in care facility
via Chicago Tribune, by Rex W. Huppke

The love of Victor Engandela's life was a Czech immigrant, an older, square-jawed man, olive-skinned and Hollywood handsome with a shock of white hair and an unfailingly gentlemanly manner.

Joseph was his name. There are pictures of him pressed in a yellowed photo album buried on a shelf in Engandela's room at an Evanston home for seniors.

"I was with him," Engandela said, "until he took his final breath."

He shares these photos, and stories of a rich life, with no one but the occasional visitor, spending most of his days isolated from his past, surrounded by contemporaries born in an age when homosexuality was taboo.

Read the rest.

"At this point in my life, I can't believe I have to feel this way," Engandela said. "I have a lot of memories I'd like to share, a lot I'd like to talk about. But I feel like I can't, and I shudder when I think I have to spend the remaining years of my life in this place."

The Gay Generation Gap

via New York Magazine, by Mark Harris

Forty years after Stonewall, the gay movement has never been more united. So why do older gay men and younger ones often seem so far apart?

This week, tens of thousands of gay people will converge on New York City for Pride Week, and tens of thousands of residents will come out to play as well. Some of us will indulge in clubbing and dancing, and some of us will bond over our ineptitude at both. Some of us will be in drag and some of us will roll our eyes at drag. We will rehash arguments so old that they’ve become a Pride Week staple; for instance, is the parade a joyous expression of liberation, or a counterproductive freak show dominated by needy exhibitionists and gawking news cameras? Other debates will be more freshly minted: Is President Obama’s procrastinatory approach to gay-rights issues an all-out betrayal, or just pragmatic incrementalism? We’ll have a good, long, energizing intra-family bull session about same-sex marriage and the New York State Senate, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Project Runway and Adam Lambert.

And at some point, a group of gay men in their forties or fifties will find themselves occupying the same bar or park or restaurant or subway car or patch of pavement as a group of gay men in their twenties. We will look at them. They will look at us. We will realize that we have absolutely nothing to say to one another.

And the gay generation gap will widen.

Read the rest.

Check out the LifeLube/Project CRYSP "Generation You" podcast forum on this very topic.

I am a 77-year old gay man

There is help for older gays but few know where to go for it and if they do, are embarrassed to ask for it. It is important to let it be known that help is available, where it can be found and that it will be offered with dignity.

by Leon Liberman
(pictured above, with Fausto Fernos, at the Generation You forum)

I speak from my conditioning and experience only. I don’t claim to represent those of other aging gay men and most certainly not those of lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders about whom I know little and with whom I don’t relate.

Words such as gay, dating partner and community are not comfortably used by me. I didn’t grow up with them as young gays have. I use them but prefer companion to partner which to me smacks of a business relationship, society to community and resent the assumption that because I am gay, I should automatically accept to be included in some kind of fraternal-like brotherhood that represents me socially and legally.

My conditioning and experience is far different than that of younger gay men. My spheres of awareness and reference are also different. When I grew up, being gay was thought of as a shameful illness and something dirty. It was kept secret from family and friends for fear of punishment and ridicule. If confronted with it, it was vehemently denied. My father once asked me if I was a pervert. Of course, I told him that I was not and it was never mentioned again. My parents were not sophisticated people. Had they known and admitted that I was gay, they would have thought that they were responsible for me having been that way and would have been shamed by it. That was the prevailing attitude of the times.

I did everything possible to avoid suspicion or confirmation. I lied more times than not about how I met the people I knew and where I was going or had been.

Now, of course, things are different. Parents can be told and are supportive, families watch gay pride parades together, television programs have brought non-threatening gay relationships into homes where the subject had never been brought up, celebrities and elected officials admit to being gay without their careers being affected and schools and religious, government and privately funded programs offer counseling, opportunities and defense. I recently saw a cartoon of a five- or six-year old who had just come home from school that day. The caption was “Today I learned that gay also means happy.”

How old is older within the gay community? SAGE is a national organization meaning Senior Action in a Gay Environment yet SAGE as it is used at the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s new gay community center, stands for Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders. Elder is a word that should only be used with statesman. You have to be 62 to collect Social Security, 65 to qualify for Medicare and 65 to get a discounted RTA pass. The Center on Halsted considers 45 the starting age for participation in its senior programs. Elder at 45!

There are those who need support from families and friends more than others, especially those with few friends or who have outlived friends and companions and those without families or good family relations. If you are dependent upon such support, there is the tendency to respond to it as you are expected to so as not to jeopardize the needed support and provision and seem ungrateful. There is the danger of losing the support.

Financial stability is a major concern of most aging gays as it is of non-gays. Not everyone saved their money and bought a condo. There are those who end up being dependent on Social Security, SSI and Medicaid cash benefits and health care and food stamps. Some with low incomes are eligible for VA pensions, health care and other benefits. A friend in Florida found such dependency so humiliating that he ended his life. Sometimes there is a problem in coordinating benefits and help in finding out about entitlements is not easy to find.

Some if not many older gays are HIV Positive or have AIDS and when they were diagnosed were convinced that death was imminent. They used savings, maxed out credit cards, quit jobs, sold life insurance policies and withdrew retirement benefits to live well until they died. New treatments prolonged lives and now they find that they have no means, no nest egg, are plagued by creditors, are unemployable and forced to throw themselves on the mercy of SSI, Medicaid and charitable institutions.

How are older gays thought of by other gays and straights? More times than not, straights think of them as predators and even pedophiles. Younger gays think of them as lecherous old men who make unwanted advances.

All older men whether gay or straight still have sexual fantasies and desires and they’re not about men or women their age. For older gay men, meeting someone in a gay bar seldom if ever happens. Most bar clientele is very young and not interested. Options are few. Men of means can pay for sex and considering the number of ads for services or escorts in gay publications, many do. Others forcibly resort to dangerous behavior in public places and darkened porno shops and theatres. The risk of catching venereal diseases and worse is high. Health conditions are never revealed. Chances are taken out of necessity and not by choice.

There is help for older gays but few know where to go for it and if they do, are embarrassed to ask for it. It is important to let it be known that help is available, where it can be found and that it will be offered with dignity. Those who are HIV positive or have AIDS should choose treatment from doctors or facilities that are familiar with problems peculiar to older gay patients and can accommodate their needs by directing them to the services that they require if they’re not provided in-house.

[Read Leon's answer to "how are you healthy?"]

Generation You Podcast is now LIVE

On this special edition, Project CRYSP, LifeLube and Feast of Fun bring you a podcast forum taped in front of a live audience at the Center on Halsted in Chicago, Illinois last Wednesday, May 20.

Click here for the podcast.

We have a THINK PINK TANK- a multi-generational panel of experts on how to break down the barriers when it comes to age differences: Bill Rydwels, a founder of TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network) and a member of SAGE, the Center on Halsted’s Advocate and Service group for GLBT Seniors; Tony Alvarado-Rivera, a coordinator at the Broadway Youth Center’s LGBT Mentor Program, which aims to build healthy relationships between generations in our community; and Chris Bartlett, the director of the Greater Philadelphia LGBT Leadership Initiative.

Listen as we take you on a deep discussion on what it means to age as a gay man and how we can bridge the gap to become a happier, healthier and more connected society.

Plus questions from the audience live! You don’t want to miss it.

SAVE THE DATE - The next live podcast forum will be held on August 17 at the Center on Halsted, in conjunction with the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit. Stay tuned for details and RSVP info.

Mind that Gap!

Mind that gap and break the age barrier.

Come and share your vision and make new friends of all ages.

Wednesday, May 20, beginning at 6:00 p.m. (with light snacks) at the Center on Halsted.

Sponsored by LifeLube, Broadway Youth Center, AGING AS WE ARE: It's Our Time, Project CRYSP, Center on Halsted's Youth and SAGE Programs, the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging, and FeastofFun.com.

Click here to see the flyer.

Click here to RSVP.

The event is free, but RSVP is required.

Please arrive early. Blog about it. Everybody welcome.

How we are healthy depends on intergenerational support.

Quigley asks for hefty earmark for LGBT seniors

New Congressman Quigley Requests Millions In Earmarks -via HuffPo

Here is one of 'em (he is trying to hook up our friends Vida/SIDA also)

Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders (SAGE)

Recipient: Center on Halsted, located at 3656 N. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60613

Request: $475,000 through the Health and Humans Service's HRSA account.

Description: This century has seen a growing number of seniors dealing with not only the challenges of becoming older, but also with challenges unique to being LGBT seniors. These challenges include dealing with the consequences of financial inequities directed toward LGBT community as well as lingering stigmatization, particularly among providers of senior services. This funding will be used to improve the quality of life for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors through a well-established model of wellness care.

Read the rest of the article, including a list of ALL the earmarks.

Join Us! Chicago Organizing Meeting for the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit and Bi Health Summit

Join Chicago area members of the LGBTI and ally community and Summit collaborators as we discuss current and future progress in our preparation for the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit, August 14-18. The Bi Health Summit kicks the events off with a day-long series of activities on August 14.

Who: Chicago area planners, collaborators, volunteers, and participants interested in helping to organize the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit here in our city.

When: Thursday, April 23, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m.

Where: Center on Halsted, 3656 North Halsted Street, Room 200

What: Discuss ways Chicago LGBTI folks and allies can volunteer during the Summit, organize social activities for participants, spread the word, and encourage individuals and organizations around Chicago to jump on board and partner in our efforts.

There is a lot to do, this is YOUR Summit and we need YOUR help.

Hope to see you there! Bring your energy, good ideas and a friend!

In the meantime, join the Summit group on Facebook.

Report Explains Isolation of LGBT Seniors

via Eight Forty-Eight
originally broadcast March 24, 2009

Later this spring, the Illinois House is expected to vote on a measure that would grant both same-sex and opposite-sex couples many of the same legal protections that come with marriage. If the Civil Unions Act passes, it would give partners in a civil union a number of rights, including the ability to make medical decisions for their partner in an emergency. A report from the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago says it will help many senior citizens in same-sex relationships who are feeling the effects of not having these rights. Howard Brown’s Hope Barrett says it’s tough to be older and gay, bisexual or transgender.

Listen.

And in a related story:

"I keep on track, or the train will stop." - Terry Powell

Midlife Patients With HIV or AIDS Require Care for Chronic Conditions

Individuals older than 50 who have HIV or AIDS confront a daily dilemma. How do they keep the disease under control while treating other health issues common in middle age and as seniors? It’s a juggling act that challenges healthcare providers as much as patients.

Read the rest.

On gaze, acceptance, history and connection

Black Gay Men and Aging

by Charles Stephens

Read more from Charles here on LifeLube.

Usually it’s at a conference or a workshop or a meeting. I will come across another black gay man 55, 60, 65 or so. Most of the attendees will greet him politely but cautiously. Watch him from afar, without trying to look at him, not wanting to stare. Avoiding gaze. The gaze symbolizes desire and we are careful how that message is sent, economical. Curious but guarded. Awkward. As gay men, far too often our social interactions are mediated by desire or shade.

If the facilitator knows him, or is familiar with him, he will give him attention, reference his age. The audience will respond. Maybe through applause, or through nodding their head, or the “mmm hmm,” affirming that the brother is still here with us. But then do any of us really wanted to be affirmed? Wouldn’t we rather be accepted? Fit-in? Be in the in-crowd? Among the beautiful?

He might speak-up. Even outspoken. I find that often, when a black gay man of a certain age, especially an elder, crosses my path, he is hungry to share his story, to share his experiences. Even entitled, especially in groups. But then, why wouldn’t he be? Any survivor — and if a black gay man is 50 or more he is a survivor in more ways than one baby — would feel compelled to share his story. However, we have failed to erect the appropriate monuments. We have failed to carve out those spaces for that sharing, at least outside of pathology, support groups, and clinical settings. Our stories have to exist outside of mental health settings.

It’s unfortunate how we banish our elders to the forests. Send them away. That is our challenge, to figure out how to honor them, retrieve them, and give them space to share themselves.

Sometimes, in a group setting it can be awkward. Sometimes, the brother of a certain age, can take up lots of space. Too much space. There is an eagerness to be acknowledged, to be recognized, an urgency. An eagerness to be heard. In conference settings, unlike club settings, we are forced to listen to each other. Listen to him. And if he goes on and on, we might look at our watch, or stare at our phone, or look outside, or cough, flip through conference books, or ramble through our bags.

In club settings, and more explicitly sexualized environments, the young, the beautiful, the selfish, have the ability to ignore. It’s even encouraged. Rewarded. What’s more desirable than a beautiful asshole? Or online, especially online, we can filter out who we want to talk to, filter out the undesirable. In conference settings, we are polite, we know we have to be polite, so we listen, we acknowledge, at least most of us try to. Or fake it.

He will sometimes talk about Stonewall. Often Stonewall. “Outside of New York, it wasn’t a big deal,” he might say. Or those 80s, “I went to funerals every week for years. I got so tired of wearing that damn suite.” They were in New York and DC and Philadelphia and knew Marlon and Joseph and Essex. Remember Charles Angel, the founding of GMAD, Other Countries, and so forth. I try to see myself in him, I try to imagine myself as I grow older.

I try not to be vain about aging. I barely made it out of my quarter-life crisis in one piece and now I occupy that bizarre space between young adulthood and middle-age. Of my quarter-life crisis, it was less about fading beauty and more an anxiety around not feeling like l have accomplished enough, achieved enough, done enough.

Maybe it’s because I never valued youth, that I refuse to be vain about aging. Not really. I would never be 20 again. I swear to God. And I have always been more sexually attracted to older men. Always. As a youth, an identity that was always ill-fitting, I never much cared about advocating for youth or youth issues, even as I was frequently tokenized as “youth,” or “queer youth,” the spokesperson for this youth or that youth. Don’t get me wrong, I chose to be that, to do that, who wouldn’t like being invited to things, to feel special, but it always awkward since I never saw myself as youth or young.

Now that I’m no longer considered youth, and I creep up on 30, I want to look forward to the time when I will be some old man sitting in a conference, and people having to listen to me. Or I could start doing DILF-oriented porn. I also look forward to a culture where aging isn’t seen as a burden.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and activist. Check out his blog.

Find your Center

They're THERE for you

Gay elders' distinctive challenges get closer look

NEW YORK (AP) — Frank Carter (pictured above left) was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment.

As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he'd seem a likely prospect for isolation.

Instead, he has kindled a deep, five-year friendship with Gigi Stoll, a fashion model-turned-photographer half his age. Stoll helps Carter with medical arrangements, writes to him when she travels overseas, and sat with him for six hours during his most recent hospitalization.

"The other guys in the hospital, no one was coming in to see them," Carter said. "To get that gift, you have to be lucky."

It's not just luck. Stoll came into his life though a program that matches infirm gays and lesbians with volunteers who commit to making weekly visits.

Long overlooked by society at large, and even by younger gays, elderly gays and lesbians are emerging as distinct community, getting more help and attention as they confront challenges that differ in many ways from their heterosexual counterparts.

Advocacy groups say the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America are twice as likely to live alone, four times less likely to have adult children to help them, and far more fearful of discrimination from health care workers.

Many fear anti-gay animosity or bias at senior centers, in nursing homes and from health care providers. Some gay elders even keep their sexual orientation secret from the home health aides who may provide their only sustained company.

A watershed moment comes this month, when the AARP — the largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 — for the first time sponsors a major national conference focused on gay and lesbian aging. It's being organized by SAGE (Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), the New York-based organization which counts Carter and Stoll among its thousands of clients and volunteers.

AARP's involvement is "a big breakthrough," SAGE executive director Michael Adams said. "To step forward and sponsor a conference of this high profile and splash your name all over, it's a quantum leap."

There will be workshops on a whole array of issues: mental health care and suicide prevention, transgender seniors, rising levels of HIV/AIDS among gay men over 50, and special challenges facing elderly gays in suburbs and small towns.

"There are very particular areas that make us a more vulnerable constituency of old people," said Amber Hollibaugh, 62, an expert on aging with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

"We tend to age alone, with no one to call on in times of need," she said. "We don't have a daughter to move in with us — we don't have a kid to call when we're admitted to the hospital because we fall and break a hip."

Yet some of the somber dynamics are beginning to change. Today's gay elderly do face unique problems — but they also remember the bad old days in the closet, and many celebrate the joys of gay life in the 21st century.

Read the rest.

Your Center

There for you...

...whoever you are

the Center on Halsted is here for you.

click to enlarge

Whoever you are...

the Center on Halsted is here for you.

click to enlarge

We miss you Larry...

On May 13, 2008, the community lost retired Illinois State Rep. Larry McKeon when he passed away from a stroke (pictured above with State Reps Sara Feigenholtz and Julie Hamos.)

Today would have been Larry’s 64th birthday.

Occasionally, Larry’s birthday fell on the same day as the Chicago Pride Parade, and Larry joked that 500,000 people would come to his birthday party. In honor of Larry, sing along to “When I’m 64”, and take a look at the book of memorial letters from national and local political figures.

PDF of the memorial book

Flash of the memorial book

When I’m 64 via You Tube

National LGBT Aging Project Receives $500,000 Grant

via The Advocate.com

Two groups -- the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders -- received a $500,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation's Gay and Lesbian Fund to support a joint national campaign dealing with LGBT aging. The project pushes public policies that address aging in the gay population as well as creating more support and resources, according to a press release.

SAGE executive director Michael Adams said in the statement that the number of LGBT people over the age of 56 will grow by 70% in the next two decades.

"This demographic tidal wave, combined with the endemic invisibility, marginalization, and discrimination faced by LGBT older people, lends an added urgency to this first-of-a-kind national advocacy effort," he added.

The SAGE–Task Force project has four main objectives: providing leadership to an action-oriented national LGBT aging network; winning strategic policy victories for LGBT older adults; building the capacity for LGBT aging policy advocacy in communities across the country; and ensuring that LGBT aging issues are a focus in broader aging policy discussions.

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight

[via the New York Times]

Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, “people were laughing and making certain kinds of comments, and I told them, ‘Please don’t do that, because I’m gay.’”

The result of her outspokenness, Ms. Donadello said, was swift and merciless. “Everyone looked horrified,” she said. No longer included in conversation or welcome at meals, she plunged into depression. Medication did not help. With her emotional health deteriorating, Ms. Donadello moved into an adult community nearby that caters to gay men and lesbians.

“I felt like I was a pariah,” she said, settled in her new home. “For me, it was a choice between life and death.”

Elderly gay people like Ms. Donadello, living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide.

Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.

The plight of the gay elderly has been taken up by a generation of gay men and lesbians, concerned about their own futures, who have begun a national drive to educate care providers about the social isolation, even outright discrimination, that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clients face.

Read the rest.