When I'm Sixty-Four

When I get older losing my hair, 
Many years from now. 
Will you still be sending me a Valentine 
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.
Beatles

We are all getting older (Thankfully, because I don’t like the alternative) and we will be needing long term healthcare.

The reality of transgender agingThe Philadelphia Gay News
By Dawn Munro
November 29, -0001

What does aging mean to you? It probably means something very different to a trans person.

We see a barrage of TV commercials for retirement communities with happy people playing bridge or Mahjong. There are also endless ads for electronic equipment that will automatically call for help if you slip and fall. Other ads feature youthful-looking elders enjoying beach resort vacations in the Caribbean sunshine.

All of this is very nice, but these are alien pictures to the vast majority of older trans people for whom the prospect of aging is a daunting one. Those who have survived to what others in the cis-gender community think of as “retirement age” grew up at a time when discrimination was the rule. Due to bullying, harassment, neglect and violence, many trans people fled the school system in their teens and, unable to find any kind of employment, were driven by poverty into survival sex, substance abuse and, almost inevitably, HIV infection.

Here in Connecticut there are organizations that are working to make the lives of senior LGBT people better. One of the initiatives is with town senior centers to make them more LGBT friendly and to hold LGBT days. Another project is training the staff of service providers that deliver home health care. Residential care and skilled nursing facilities are starting to realize that they need to train their staff to our needs. They are realizing that they woefully under prepared to care for transgender clients and are starting to take steps to develop policies and staff training.