Seniors

Many of us in our 60’s or older are feeling that our community has moved on without us.  While we were stuck with having to choose between “lesbian” or “gay,” “butch” or“femme, a whole new vocabulary is evolving (and our acronym expanding!)  to describe an ever-expanding range of sexual preferences and gender identities.   Many LGBT youth have also reclaimed the umbrella term “queer” that we who lived in less-accepting times grew to hate.   Also meet-ups, websites, and on-line social media options catering to a wide range of LGBT interests have replaced the smoke-filled bars that were often our […]

The word “radical” is often used to mean “extreme” but it also means “root”.  Being gay is the root of who I am.  All the other aspects of my personality including my elder journey revolve around that core of my being. Some of us may remember the Radical Faeries who surfaced in the 1970’s.  This counter-culture movement emphasized the unique capacity of LGBT individuals to challenge cultural norms including traditional gender roles and definitions of relationships.  The Radical Faeries affirmed our differences and were in sharp contrast to those who sought assimilation into the mainstream culture by focusing more on […]

  In my blog on resilience, I mentioned that one of the qualities that contributes to being able to adapt to unexpected change is interdependence.  Many of us who are older, and perhaps especially those of us who were raised male, have internalized our culture’s emphasis on self-reliance and competitiveness.  At an early age, we may have developed strengths that would contribute to our self-sufficiency.  We learned to hide our fears and to live silently with unmet needs in order to protect our vulnerability. There are two reasons why it is important to examine those old habits.  First with age […]

    As mentioned in an earlier blog, recent studies are showing that we LGBT seniors tend to be more resilient than our non-LGBT peers.  In learning to live with the stress of being a stigmatized minority we have increased our capacity for handling the difficult challenges of aging.  As the saying goes, our wounds have made us stronger.  That resilience may also come in handy as we prepare to face the unknowns of the recent election.  What are the qualities of that resilience?  Here are some of my ideas: Humor:  One of the first qualities that pops up is […]

  Seniors who do not have supportive family connections are frequently referred to as “orphan seniors.”  Many of us who are LGBT have never had children and we may be alienated from other family members.   While there are many supportive services provided by government and non-profit agencies, they cannot fulfill all the needs that can arise when a health-related crisis occurs. Our past efforts to create non-traditional family ties are more difficult now as our peers develop their own age-related challenges.  Many of us also lost many friends during the AIDS pandemic and now we are losing friends to age-related […]