While we as a community celebrate advances in marriage equality, domestic partnership recognitions and more out elected officials, there are some who are facing less main-stream challenges that fall away from the media spotlight.
As generations of LGBTs grow older and find themselves transitioning into living in retirement communities and homes, their sexuality often isn’t accepted with the openness and freedom they once had.
“When seniors are entering nursing homes, senior centers for activities, any kind of senior-related service or program, there’s an automatic assumption that they are straight,” says Metro Wellness and Community Centers volunteer Joe Smith, 66, who lives in Pinellas County. “The truth is, many seniors in general feel a sense of loneliness, and all the things aging people tend to feel. But it’s made more intense because we [the LGBT community] don’t have the same types of family connections that straight people do.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, many older LGBTs experience discrimination in long-term healthcare facilities by caregivers, nurses, and other patients.
This discrimination can take many forms including bullying and harassment, as well as failure to provide necessary daily care like bathing. Some long-term care facilities have failed to recognize transgender residents’ gender identity, often refusing to use a correct name or respect a resident’s gender expression through clothing or grooming. This harassment and discrimination too often leads to depression, failure to thrive, and suicide among LGBT older adults in long-term care facilities.
“A lot of seniors are entering these retirement homes and having to go back in the closet after having been out for decades,” says Adam Jahr, LGBT Program manager of Tampa Bay’s Metro Wellness and Community Center. “One of the main issues of aging LGBTs is the feeling of loneliness and isolation because people within their age group aren’t by nature – based on the society they grew up in – as understanding or accepting of the LGBT lifestyle because they weren’t exposed to it. So we’re trying to offer that open and affirming space for people of all ages. What we offer here at the Metro Center is a sense of validation, understanding, and support.”
And that understanding and support is exactly what one Orlando resident says his late partner never had.
“When my partner’s health started to fade, we had difficulty finding programs that could assist him without prejudice,” says “Ralph,” who asked that his real name not be used. “Once any nursing homes learned that he was partnered with a man, you could see the administrator’s face change. It was a horrible feeling.”
Unfortunately, that kind of reaction is more common than not, even within the LGBT community.
“The community is uneducated until they have a personal stake in it,” says Smith. “All of a sudden, they’re at the mercy of the experience, and then they become aware and committed.”
These challenges aren’t anything new, Jahr adds.
“These issues were always there, but we weren’t as conscious of it,” says Jahr. “So now there are these people who need specific healthcare services, and since we’ve been unconscious of it, we aren’t quite prepared for it.”
Jahr also feels that the changing archetype of the aging generations plays a role.
“There is a paradigm shift, the number of LGBTs who are out and who have come out in the last few decades has exponentially increased,” says Jahr. “And so we’re seeing for the first time an elder population of LGBTs.”
Lack of an LGBT perspective
According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the number of challenges LGBT seniors face are directly related to the lack of specific programs on the federal level.
“They often do not access adequate healthcare, affordable housing or other social services that they need due to institutionalized heterosexism,” says Inga Sarda-Sorensen, communications director with the Task Force. “Existing regulations and proposed policy changes in programs like Social Security or Medicare, which impact millions of LGBT elders, are discussed without a LGBT perspective engaging the debate.”
Federal programs designed to assist elderly Americans can be ineffective or even irrelevant for LGBT elders. Several studies cited by The Task Force document widespread homophobia among those entrusted with the care of America’s seniors. Most LGBT elders do not avail themselves of services on which other seniors thrive. Many retreat back into the closet, reinforcing isolation. Several federal programs and laws blatantly treat same-sex couples differently from married heterosexual couples. For example, Social Security pays survivor benefits to widows and widowers but not to the surviving same-sex life partner of someone who dies. This may cost LGBT elders $124 million a year in un-accessed benefits.
“When my partner died, I didn’t receive anything at all [financially],” Ralph recalls. “Fortunately, though, he was able to die at peace with the help of Hospice. He got sick and passed away quickly. We never had a plan in place.”
Preparing for the future
Preparation is key, and as the issues facing the retirement-age LGBT community begin to garner more attention, steps need to be considered and taken to ensure legalities are in order for the future.
“There’s a lot of legalities that go along with getting sick, having surgeries, things you may come across as you’re getting older,” says Jahr, “and a lot of people don’t have the knowledge about what is involved, they don’t know that they have to have this paperwork, or this document.”
In addition to the health issues, Jahr says there are other areas to consider, such as property rights and estate planning, that are specific to the LGBT community.
“There are so many unanswered questions, I believe our main issue at this point is how to answer these questions in a proactive rather than reactive way,” says Jahr. “With anyone who is facing a special need who falls outside of the hegemonic majority that society is set up for, I think it’s very wise to plan ahead and for you as a person to prepare yourself for the issues you might face to help ease things when the issues occur.”
The invisibility problem
LGBT elders are among the most invisible of all Americans. Little is known about LGBT elders because of the widespread failure of governmental and academic researchers to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in their studies of the aged, according to Sarda-Sorenson. Legal and policy frameworks which have traditionally excluded LGBT people engender social and economic consequences which deny LGBT elders access to financial resources and community support networks.
Fortunately, there are some local resources for Florida’s aging LGBTs.
In Tampa Bay, Metro Wellness and Community Centers, which has locations in St. Petersburg, Ybor City and New Port Richey, is actively reaching out to the older population.
The organization began 20 years ago as an HIV service provider, and has steadily built its programming in the way of prevention, testing, case management, and counseling. Jahr says in the last two years, the center has really started developing more programs for the LGBT senior community.
“In the center’s previous location, (next door to Georgie’s Alibi in St. Petersburg) they would do things like a movie night, dance nights, smaller programs once in a while,” says Jahr. “The programs were few and far between, and there wasn’t really the space there to do it because the more case management and HIV services that were expanded upon, the space was literally just eaten up as we had to build more offices.”
In September 2011, the Metro Center moved to its current location on 3rd Avenue North – across the street from its old office into a space that allowed the organization to further expand.
“Essentially, as we built and grew and we were able to move into the space to provide programming, we’ve really hit the ground running,” says Jahr. “We are reaching out to the community to let them know that we’re here, we have this space, we have the will power and resources to help them, and at this point we’re in a phase where we need them to tell us what they need so we can provide accordingly.”
Hopefully more communities will reach out to the elderly LGBT population.
“We’re going to be doing surveys,” says Metro Center volunteer Eunice Fisher, 76. “To find out, ‘Ok would you like this, this, or this.’ It’s important to know what the community wants.”
And it’s important for seniors to have places to socialize and stay connected with other LGBTs, Fisher adds.
“When my partner died I wanted to remain connected to the community, so I started volunteering and attending events,” Fisher says. “Fortunately I’m in a location that has access to socialization.”
The Metro Center is already offering a weekly Brown Bag Lunch program where seniors can come, have lunch together as a group, and socialize. More programs are being developed for the near future including fitness programs, LBGT life-planning, depression workshops, and bereavement groups.
“I’d like to see this place expand to a point of having a committee of senior LGBTs,” says Jahr. “Being self-functioning and having the community active in creating what they need to help not only themselves but others. I see potential for programs from everything from fitness to social groups to workshops on specific healthcare needs, aging with HIV, maybe even elder speed dating.”
Another potential program could include networking among LGBT elderly, to provide an outlet for socialization and a chance to share experiences.
“I think a great addition would be discussion groups – talk about your coming out, talk about intellectual issues,” says Smith. “And have these groups be open to outings like going to a museum, out to brunch, guest speakers, things of that nature.”
Fisher agrees with Smith.
“I think we can contribute to each other, we can learn from each other,” says Fisher. “I think it’s fun and important to share perspectives, because then we are a whole community; we’re not divided.”
Steve Blanchard contributed to this article.
