It Is A Spectrum!

We tend to forget that age is spectrum at one end are our youth, but at the other end there are the seniors. The Stonewall generation is once again fighting for their recognition, they are the forgotten generation.

LGBTQ+ Older Adults Find Safe Spaces at Senior Centers
Centers provide social services and programs in welcoming places
AARP
By Susan Moeller,  
November 25, 2024

LGBTQ+ older adults are finding new support in a traditional place: the senior center.

Theresa Latham of Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and her wife, Cheryll Scarangella, attend monthly meetings of an LGBTQ+ social group at the Yarmouth Senior Center that attracts people from several towns.

“They understand what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling,” says Latham, 65. “And I do think that there are a lot of older gay people who maybe they’re not out to people, or they still don’t feel comfortable. But I think that having a place like that, that’s a safe space, that you can talk and meet people who are like you, I think that’s great.”

I want to add a qualifier… Gays and Lesbians are finding new support. Not so much for trans people.

Some LGBTQ+ programs are offered through centers and organizations that specifically focus on LGBTQ+ older adults, such as SAGE, based in New York City. SAGE not only runs its own centers and support programs for housing, meals, legal and financial issues, health and wellness, but also offers training and help with LGBTQ+ programming to senior centers around the country. Some LGBTQ+ programs are initiated by centers, while others are organized by community members but based at the senior center. Some states are experimenting with different models of how to provide programs. In Connecticut, for example, the LGBTQ+ Moveable Senior Center offers training, programs and activities at 25 centers throughout the state.

As one of the founders of the Connecticut LGBTQ+ Moveable Senior Center the program works but more on that later.

Here are five examples of how older adult organizations are integrating LGBTQ+ activities into their programs.
Yarmouth LGBTQ Older Adult Social Group

Marie Seufert, 76, had been involved with LGBTQ+ groups at other centers when she started the Yarmouth social group in 2023. It meets monthly for meals and programs at the Yarmouth center and draws 15 to 30 people a month, she says. Seufert, a Yarmouth resident, says the social group gets space and support from the center for publicity, but has its own board and raises its own funding for activities and food through donations and grants. The group is a place where Seufert feels she can be her real self. “When you’re just with each other, socializing, and being together, and going on trips together, and doing those things, you’re totally free,” she says.

LGBTQ+ Moveable Senior Center
St. Louis Area Agency on Aging
Center in the Park’s Pride in the Park

This nonprofit center in northwest Philadelphia serves people 55-plus with programs ranging from diabetes management to pottery and Spanish language classes, says director Cleo Smalls. Center in the Park’s staff has gone through SAGE training. A collaboration with the local LGBT Elder Initiative has morphed into other events, including the annual Pride in the Park fair and connecting LGBTQ+ residents with local resources. Last summer, the center ran an LGBTQ+ book club and hosts a film series – Fifth Friday Films With Pride. Smalls has some advice for other senior centers that want to welcome a diverse clientele: “I would say, also, just outreach for any diversity, just making sure your staff and your board represents the population that you’re trying to attract.”

Outstanding Life

This online resource for LGBTQ+ older adults grew out of efforts in Boston during the pandemic to lessen isolation in the community, says David Aronstein, a board member and founder. “Elders have always been at risk for feeling lonely and being isolated. That’s particularly more prevalent I think in LGBTQ older folks because not everybody has children or they may be estranged from their family,” he says.  Outstandinglife.org offers virtual programming such as legal seminars, caregiver support and monthly game and social nights. Membership and events are free, says Aronstein. “There’s no one size fits all,” Aronstein says, noting some people don’t have a computer. “We’re working to expand our reach and to reach more elders and to kind of … make LGBT programming a regular part of senior centers’ activities.”

More on the LGBTQ+ Moveable Senior Center, it works. Area seniors centers have a LGBTQ event at their centers on a rotating schedule, I been to many of them and like them it was a trip to miniature golf place, played Boccie, and became an official senior by playing Bingo.

But what I have found is that that the town’s senior center is affirming, the staff are wonderful and welcoming, when I attended the photo club they were all so friendly… but. Regular events like a talk on the history of the town… it was like I had the plague. Everyone avoided me.

One Pride center (New Haven) has a program for seniors, all the other Pride centers have programs for youth but nothing for seniors.

So I have been pushing for Pride centers to have a senior drop-in centers for seniors during the day.

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