Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Thankfully We Are All Getting Old

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Thankfully We Are All Getting Old

With more LGBT getting to retirement age we are facing new problems as we look at senior retirement communities we have to wonder if we will be welcome there. Laws don’t mean anything if the people shun us.

Elderly gay and transgender being forced 'back into the closet' in retirement homes
Stuff
By Emily Spink
March 12 2017

Elderly people who identify as gay and transgender are hiding their true identities in aged care facilities due to fears of being outed.

Transwoman Diane Sparkes, 76, says she is among a growing number of aging LGBTI people who face having to go "back into the closet" when they enter retirement homes for fear of being stigmatised.

Sparkes spent 55 years struggling with her identity. At 67 years old and after gender reassignment surgery, her transition from male to female was complete.

The retiree doesn't want to risk having her identity compromised again by being put in a rest home that is not rainbow-friendly.
[…]
"Gay people particularly, they've had to go back into the closet. It's still happening here."

And trans people!

I don’t intend to go back into the closet.

I hope that the retirement community is accepting on me and other trans people and lesbians, bi and gays people. Right now I don’t want to go a LGBT senior community; I want to be in an integrated senior community.

Then there is the question are LGBT senior community centers ghettoizing us? Are they isolating us from the general population? I am in favor of LGBT living centers but only on a voluntary basis, it should not be forced on us.

A nursing home or a long term care facilities might be LGBT friendly but what about the other residents? Will they be open and accepting? Or will be shunned?

If we are in a long term care facility will we be allowed in the women's ward or would be isolated in a single room?

One of the things that I tell healthcare providers when I do training is that their staff could be in violation of HIPPA if they divulge our gender dysphoria.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Thankfully We Are All Getting Old

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