If you're old and gay, is that an issue?

Because I have not seen discussion of issues particular to being old and gay, I get the idea that most Elderbloggers are women and men who are straight.  "Wrong," the little red hen voice yells, "shows how limited your worldview is!"

True.  Unlike my younger life with its activity in women's studies, feminist organizations, my personal life is spent in a heterosexual environment.  There are a few friends who are "other."  Narrowness happens.  Insularity in communities happens--often for reasons that make sense. Somethimes not.    We all seek comfort.

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight was a front page article in October 9, New York Times.  I had to go to south to the blog Birmingham Blues to see if there'd been conversation she knew about.  (We became acquainted through something this summer on my blog--not related to gender.)  My visit revealed that October 11 was "National Coming Out Day," something that may have prompted the Times story.  She also encouraged the rest of us to "come out" in support of our neighbors.

Life in a retirement community, a nursing home can be painful for elderly women and men who are gay.  "I felt like a pariah," the Times quotes one woman.  Those in my own age group have spent a lifetime negotiating where it is safe to be "in" or "out" with their sexual preference-- work, school.

On an Elderhostel trip 15 years ago, I remember a retired lesbian couple amongst the ten or so  straight couples.  What must it have been like to be in such a stark minority?  Does one have to restrict travel to tours designed for gays?

"What do you have to say that's new?" the little red hen voice asks with some exasperation.  Sometimes it's a beginning to raise the issue, to ask if Elderbloggers, a small group stretching assumed abilities of older folks, to consider how our comfortable boundaries might be stretched, be more inclusive.  Do you know Elderbloggers who talk about older life as a gay person, a person of color? 

Thanks to her post on Alternet about AIDS denial, I found Greta Christina's Blog  and read her powerful response to Coming Out Day, took the advice from Birmingham Blues that led to Pam's House Blend.  It's always the right day to come out, isn't it?

   

Comments

[Rhea]

This is a great post. Glad to see you open yourself up to this idea. The NY Times story was eye-opening, and I'm a lesbian! I'm not elder, but a boomer (as you know from my blog!). Once in a while I come across a blog by an elderly gay or lesbian person. I'll tell you one thing: I would be very nervous being the only lesbian in a nursing home, or anywhere I was supposed to live. I just can't imagine it would be a welcoming environment.

[vuee]

Nice post. I know prejudices seldom go away with time and even dig in. But not always. My great-aunt was from southern Virginia and at 93 she came to visit the family. As I drove her around Washington, DC (in the early 70s) she mentioned something innocuous about the n***ers and caught herself immediately, saying "They don't like that term".

Here's another article--

Mike pens gay romance at 93, By Chris Kearney

For more than nine decades gay pensioner Mike Soper hid his sexuality for fear of persecution.

Now, at the age of 93, he has become one of the country's oldest authors after publishing his first book, The Heart Entrapped - a gay romance. Mr Soper only decided to write the novel after 'coming out' at the age of 91 - and only told his fellow residents at the The Old Vicarage nursing home, in Moulsford, where he lives, after they asked to read his novel....

Speaking about his reasons for writing the novel, Mr Soper said: "I wanted to try and present a different view on gay life. There is this image of gay people that you see time and time again on the television, as a community that only thinks about sex. I'm seriously worried the younger generation have forgotten about AIDS.

"My novel looks at a different aspect, at gay men who are in loving, long term relationships."
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.1761875.0.mike_pens_gay_romance_at_93.php

[Kathy]

Thanks for the link! It seems that prejudices would fade with life experience, but sadly that doesn't always happen. Good grief, of all times in life that a person shouldn't have to worry about living authentically, the "twilight" years ought to be one. Good on you for speaking out.

[m.e.]

Being other is a crap shoot. When u tell someone, even someone u feel is "enlightened," about ur otherness, it's 50-50 how they'll react, plus or minus--even if they are members of one's own family. The answer for many is to find their own group. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES, has a great chapter on the ugly duckling. I picked up the book, then newly published, read it standing by the "recent" table in the bookstore, and laughed out loud when she talked about the puzzlement a family feels over the child who doesn't fit in--and how, even today, we others set them a-trembling when we come for a visit. "Not too shabby for innocent retribution," she wrote.

[dez]

Even though I am heterosexual, I have always been the odd duck in the lot. I only force myself into minimal makeup and dysfunctional shoes on the rarest occasions (weddings, funerals) and at 46 am still profoundly a "tomboy." Thank heavens my job interests match my androgymous comfort zone.

Among my older GLB friends, geography seems to play a big role in their comfort zones. In New Orleans, you can be a FLAMING old queen and most people either don't care or find it endearing, and if you have a good personality you get invited to all the best parties. It may be a hackneyed stereotype but at least it's not a negative one. My older lesbian friends also mesh nicely into the New orleans community.

Here in Baton Rouge, outside the university and arts community, the opposite is true. It both amazes and saddens me how two cities only 90 minutes apart can have such a vastly different degree of acceptance.

[m.e.]

Oh, too true. this comment made me think of the difference between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids!! Just 23 miles down the road but light years culturally. Unlike LA, however, the college town in Iowa is more accepting of otherness whereas the big city is not. (There's exceptions to that in both places, too. sigh)

[doulicia]

I also wonder what roll class plays in the issue. I tend to think of retirement communities and nursing homes being populated by people who can afford to be there. Is there more prejudice among the middle and upper class toward homosexuals, especially those who came of age 40-60 years ago?

My guess is gay men and lesbians who live independently or with family experience less overt harassment because they're in the same environments they've always been in. Their friends and family already "know" (if they're "out").

[ellen]

I'm a Boomer, and one thing I know is that if we want to be accepted and out at the end of our lives we'd better be out now. If we want society to see something other than the caricature presented in the media of young promiscuous bar people we are the ones who can dispell the stereotype.