As The World Turns We Get Older.

I set a milestone this month I turned 75 this month, as I like to say it sure beats the alternative.

But as I look around I see people starting to realize that the Stonewall generation are starting to need senior care, senior centers, long term healthcare, and home care.

Pride, Aging, and Reimagining Community Support for Our LGBTQ Elders
Georgia Voice
By Charles Stephens, with assistance from Hillary Williams Thomas Outspoken
October 13, 2023

Aging is an issue that no one has control over, yet touches all our lives. However, we do have the ability to imagine, develop, and implement policies that provide protections and support. This is urgently critical for LGBTQ older adults, who face unique challenges with regard to aging. To respond to the needs of our queer elders and ensure that our community is safe and affirming for all of us, we should consider prioritizing the following:

1.  Cultural competence training for staff and administrators of senior communities and nursing homes.
2.  Increased visibility of LGBTQ older adults, and
3.  Programs to help members of our community make the necessary plans for aging.

It is important when we invite healthcare persons into our house that we can talk freely and not worry about outing ourselves.

As an LGBTQ community, we cannot afford to be complicit in the erasure of our elders. The lack of visibility of older adults in our community contributes to social isolation and the internalized ageism that may plague members of our community. Queer organizations, like all organizations, must not only create and constantly review policies related to supporting and affirming older adults, but also actively work to promote an age-inclusive environment. Combating ageism is not a social justice elective for LGBTQ movement organizations, it’s a requirement. This means being intentional about including images of older adults in marketing materials and social media content. Telling the stories and elevating images of Black and other LGBTQ elders of color in particular is nothing less than revolutionary. Creating more images of older adults in our community does not only fight ageism; it also fights anti-LGBTQ stigma.

Sadly many of us are going back in the closet when we need senior care.

As we enter Atlanta’s Pride month and LGBTQ history month, it’s not enough that we count on the elders in our community to provide stories, oral histories, and institutional knowledge about the past. We must include our elders in addressing the present and building our community’s future. To only see the value of the older adults in our community in the context of past experiences, and not the potential for present and future contributions, is a form of dehumanization and further robs them of their humanity and robs us of their wisdom. Our progress as a community should not be measured by the inclusion and representation of the most privileged among us, but the quality of life and sustained dignity of all of us, especially the older adults in our community.

When we see Pride parades look for a senior bus. Look to see if there is anyway for the disabled and seniors to be in the parade and it not ask why! Why they don’t include everyone?