Elderly pink living society (radionetherlands.nl, April 19, 2005)

Many gay people feel like outsiders most of their lives; when growing old, this feeling only increases. Elderly gays who don't have children or other relatives are often quite lonely. All this has prompted Jan Lutje Schipholt and Jos Boël to try to set up a so-called 'pink living society', to enable gay people to grow old together in a shared apartment building.

"It would involve a group of people who have their own lives behind their own front door with their own circle of acquaintances, but who have chosen to do several things together," explains Jan Lutje Schipholt. "The bare minimum is having coffee together once a week, but it can be extended towards regular meetings, like going to the cinema together or going for walks together."

Police station

Mr Lutje Schipholt and Mr Boël believe to have found the perfect spot for their future community home in the Hague. Currently in use as a police station, the L-shaped building could be divided up into 15 to 20 living quarters.

Originally built as a school in 1905, the building has wide corridors, broad staircases and spacious rooms. It still possesses some distinct art deco features, such as yellow and green tiles. In fact, the building is a protected monument, which means that these details are not to be tampered with during a renovation. But Mr Boël does not mind, "It's a beautiful building with a lot of beautiful details. I'm not much of a changer. Let's keep it this way."

Isolation

Having a place where elderly homosexuals can live together would be quite unique in Europe. Mr Lutje Schipholt and Mr Boël feel it's necessary to create such an environment. "In gay circles, there are no children or grandchildren who will visit you," says Mr Lutje Schipholt.

        "You are not invited to family festivities anymore. You stand alone. If you have never been able to fill in that gap with other acquaintances, then life becomes quite hard, especially when you get older."

An outsider

Finding the peace one needs at an older age is not as easily found among heterosexuals says Mr Lutje Schipholt:

        "It probably has to do with the fact that you have grown up in partial isolation and that during you whole life you have the feeling that you don't completely belong in whatever situation. Not in your work situation, in your private situation or in your family situation. You are a outsider. Most people will never say that to you in your face because that's not polite, but it's there."

He adds:

        "Perhaps in future when society is completely integrated - but this may never happen - the problem will dissolve. But in the current situation, homosexuals are still outsiders, even if they have completely equal rights."

Call for gay sheltered housing (icwales.icnetwork.co.uk, May 11, 2005)

Equality Minister Jane Hutt faced calls today for separate accommodation for elderly gay people living in sheltered housing.

North Wales AM Mark Isherwood asked Ms Hutt: "What action do you propose to tackle social isolation within this community and how will you consider proposals for qualified counsellors and separate sheltered housing schemes?"

Ms Hutt told AMs: "The Welsh Assembly Government funded the first ever survey of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Wales and particularly looked at the issue of older people."

She said the provision of sheltered accommodation and counselling were some of the issues being looked at as a consequence of that survey.

Older gay housing needs "must be tackled" (uk.gay.com, May 12, 2005)

The issue of housing for lesbian and gay people - particularly isolated elderly people - has been raised in Wales once again.

How elderly gay people are protected and supported should be outlined in an Assembly strategy, one Assembly member told Equality Minister Jan Hutt.

Welsh Conservative Social Justice spokesperson called on Ms Hutt to propose action that would "tackle social isolation within this community", asking whether the Assembly intended to provide better training for counsellors and carers, as well as sheltered housing schemes that were only open to lesbian and gay elderly people.

Ms Hutt said the government was committed to providing specific support for older people in minority communities. She said a survey previously conducted was now being researched, with retirement homes for lesbian and gay people still being looked at.

It is not the first time the issue of housing has arisen in Wales.

Conwy councillor and campaigner Andrew Hinchliff previously published a report distributed to Assembly Members calling for more action.

"It has been increasingly obvious to many LGBT organisations that many older LGBT people are looking at ageing and future care provision with concern," he wrote in the report.

Speaking to Gay.com UK today, he said issues facing older lesbian and gay people included problems with carers and family isolation.

"I'm very very happy that this issue is gaining more recognition," he said today.

"But I have to stress that this Assembly is very supportive of diversity; we are not doing this in the dark."

Although the UK is yet to establish gay-only retirement homes, the US already has housing for lesbian and gay older people.

Supports say lesbian and gay people are offered more protection and face less isolation by such projects.

The Welsh Assembly is now expected to continue addressing the problem, with a view to establishing more care and support to lesbian and gay people.

Older gays facing new challenges (thestar.com, June 16, 2005)

Aging issues go far beyond loneliness Many are afraid to seek assistance

They grew up in a time when being gay or lesbian was a criminal act and considered a perversion.

Today, that's changed. Now, when Pride banners hang throughout the Gay Village, the last thing they want to do is hide.

But they suffer a new feeling just as dreadful as the fear of losing their jobs, being shunned by family and suffering physical harm for being who they are.

"I'm invisible," says Michael, 55, who is still not comfortable enough to give his full name. "I'm over the hill."

He feels too old to be thought of as a romantic interest. Especially when he lives in a society where the emphasis is on the body beautiful and some men feel past their prime when they hit 40.

"I'm invisible in the community and feel lots of isolation," Michael adds. "That's the reason for a program like this. It creates a space for me."

Michael is referring to a weekday drop-in program at the 519 Community Centre for older gays, where they can spend time with people in their age range.

It's one of many programs the centre offers for elder gays and lesbians, says Dick Moore, older programs co-ordinator for the centre.

"Until recently, being gay or lesbian was considered a mental disorder, and being transsexual is still listed that way," he says. "So they were told they were sick, perverted, criminals and sinners."

Some have watched their partners die, only to then be ostracized by the man's family. The mourning partner is not only shut out of the bereavement process but often isn't even allowed to return to the house to collect his belongings, including pets.

"It's been known to happen," Moore says. "If you dwell on how other people think of you, then you begin to think that way, too."

Anna Travers, the program manager of LGBTT Services at Sherbourne Health Centre, agrees and says aging issues for seniors go well beyond just a feeling of loneliness.

Many older gays and lesbians have had less family support than heterosexuals.

Some also have less financial security because they kept a low profile at work and didn't seek career advancement.

Until recently, they didn't have the same legal protections as married couples, and they feel the legal and health care systems at times have failed them.

The rates of smoking and alcohol abuse are also higher in these communities.

The Sherbourne centre provides therapy, counselling and support for all members of its downtown neighbourhood, with special emphasis on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual communities.

With the greying of society, the centre's staff realizes there isn't much support for aging gays and lesbians when they require home care or a nursing home.

"They've grown up in a very closeted and homophobic world, so, in relation to issues like health care and other services, they've not been able to disclose their identify to providers," Travers says.

As they get older and more dependent, this can be more troublesome, she says.

"It manifests on a number of levels. One could be that they've never had a real relationship with their health provider, because they've never really been able to talk about life. They've not been able to discuss things when a partner died, or identify the type of relationship they had."

When older gays require a nursing home, it means leaving their community of friends and going to a place where they don't feel safe.

"Now you're going into a home and you need someone to lift you out of bed and take you to the toilet," Travers says.

"If you're gay, you're afraid that if you tell them, they may be mean or rough to you. They may say disparaging things or call you a faggot. Are you having a problem with being gay or are you just rightly cautious?"

Travers and Moore are members of the Seniors Pride Network, a group comprising people involved in gay issues and mainstream services like home and nursing care. Its mandate is to work with service providers to raise awareness of the issues and respond to them.

"We heard more and more that as (gay) people age, the community wasn't as reflective of what they were," explains Kaarina Luoma, executive-director of Mid-Toronto Community Services.

"As they became frailer, they didn't know where to go," adds Luoma, who estimates that 10 to 15 per cent of her agency's clients are gay.

"They felt that mainstream agencies just wouldn't get it, and as soon as someone found they were gay, they would be discriminated against and receive prejudicial care."

The group is trying to get mainstream agencies to become more sensitive to issues involving aging gays, and help make them comfortable enough to ask for such programs as Meals On Wheels, homemaking and Alzheimer's support.

Fudger House and Kipling Acres, two City of Toronto homes for the aged, are trying to promote a more welcoming environment for gays and have opened 10-bed, gay-friendly units, as well as providing trained staff.

"There are no other homes like this in the world," Moore says. "Ten beds each isn't a big deal. When I made a presentation, I said there could be a 250-bed facility. But I'm delighted."

SAGE helps seniors of color celebrate amid support (thevillager.com, Volume 75, Number 4 | June 15- 21, 2005)

Growing older in a youth-oriented society can be a difficult process. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people of color, however, face discrimination on multiple levels and aging brings with it complicated — and often painful — challenges.

“Take someone who has lived for 40 years as a woman who suspects she has colon cancer. She might be seen as suspect if she goes as a woman to a clinic that treats male issues,” explained Eshey Scarborough, a community organizer for Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders, or SAGE.

For L.G.B.T. people of color, these challenges are often exacerbated by isolation. About seven years ago, the staff at SAGE, a West Village-based organization, noticed that there were very few people of color in attendance at their events.

Last Friday’s Celebrando Diversidad en SAGE at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on W. 13th St. was the result of SAGE’s ongoing efforts to bring L.G.B.T. seniors of color into their community. Billed as SAGE’s “first-ever People of Color Pride celebration,” the evening was a mixture of speeches, songs, spoken word performances — and good, old-fashioned socializing.

“Our organization has traditionally served people in the southern part of Manhattan and that traditionally means white L.G.B.T. people,” said Terry Kaelber, executive director of SAGE. “But older L.G.B.T. people are everywhere and we want our organization to reflect the diversity of everybody. One way to do that is to celebrate diversity during Pride Week.”

Emceed by Betty Weems, a former SAGE board member, the performers at the event included Donna Redd, a singer and the executive director of Sistahs in Search of Truth; Alliance and Harmony, a lesbian support organization; drag queen Kitt Holiday; poet Yoseli Castillo Fuertes; playwright Ira Jeffries and the Jazzy Randolph Dancers.

Fuertes, a young activist who was born in the Dominican Republic, wrote about finding acceptance from her mother and her community. She read from one of her poems, which used her hair as an allegory. “Since I was born my mom wanted me to be straight. But I was curly,” Fuertes recited.

Describing the regimen of chemical relaxers and straightening irons she was subjected to, Fuertes declared “to be straight was not worth all this pain” to cheers from an audience of approximately 200 people.

There is still a significant level of discrimination against L.G.B.T. people in many communities of color, said Kaelber. “One of the great challenges is that family and churches are centers of support for many communities of color,” he explained. “They can be supportive places, but they can also be very unwelcoming to an L.G.B.T. person in the mix.”

Donna Redd, 43, an African-American singer, agreed, but said L.G.B.T. people of color should reach out to one another across generational lines.

“Now young people see us as old, but we can be mentors,” Redd said. “We can be companions who tell our history. Young lesbian women need mentors, and we need each other to know that we are not alone.”

Many L.G.B.T. seniors, regardless of their race or ethnicity, suffer from loneliness and depression. Furthermore, many L.G.B.T. seniors are so wary of discrimination that they refuse to get medical treatment until their health reaches a crisis stage, Kaelber said.

Many of their fears are well founded. A survey conducted in 1994 of New York State’s Area Agencies on Aging (the regional centers that distribute federal funds for senior services) found 46 percent reported that openly gay and lesbian seniors would not be welcome at senior centers in their area. Kaelber said these statistics continue to hold true 10 years later.

Without spouses or children, many seniors also lack built-in support systems that can advocate for their rights and help them make important life decisions.

As part of their ongoing outreach efforts to L.G.B.T. seniors of color, SAGE created Harlem Elders Advocating for Themselves (Harlem HEAT) a year ago. The group, whose office at 125th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. is due to open next week, is meant to extend SAGE’s services and build community among L.G.B.T. seniors in Harlem, East Harlem and the Bronx.

Scarborough — SAGE and Harlem HEAT’s community organizer — said the group would help L.G.B.T. seniors help themselves by “teaching seniors how to advocate for themselves with social work agencies, medical care providers — in general, how to speak up for themselves.”

The name Harlem HEAT was chosen, Scarborough explained, as she busily collected phone numbers and business cards for the group’s roster, because it did not mark them as a specifically gay group.

“SAGE is already well known in the city. Harlem HEAT gives seniors a chance to be known as seniors first, and then as gay seniors,” Scarborough said.

The group, however, has already received an enthusiastic response from within their new community. Though not an L.G.B.T.-oriented group, the Jazzy Randolph Dancers, a senior dance troupe based at the Beatrice Lewis Senior Center in Harlem, eagerly signed up with Harlem HEAT.

“I think there is a need for Harlem HEAT,” said Catherine Robinson, 74, a member of the Jazzy Randolph Dancers. “Gay people are people, too, and as they get older they, like anyone else, need their issues to be addressed.”

At the beginning of the evening, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields presented a proclamation to Kaelber commending SAGE for its services to the gay community. In his speech, Kaelber reminded the audience that the battle for L.G.B.T. senior rights is ongoing.

“Our community should step up. We want to make this issue our issue,” he said, “Hopefully, we’ll all get older, and if we don’t work hard then we’ll all be facing the same issues.”

In Wilton Manors, gays honor the past, celebrate the present (sun-sentinel.com, June 20, 2005)

U.S. Army veterans Dick Rogers and Bill Mullins are proud to have served their country, proud to be gay and proud to be partners of 42 years.

Before thousands of people who lined Wilton Drive on Sunday morning, the two retirees marched together -- Rogers holding a rainbow flag and Mullins carrying the state flag of Florida -- as part of the city's sixth annual gay and lesbian pride parade. The two men belong to American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group of gay veterans that served as this year's grand marshal at the Stonewall Street Festival and Parade.

"We want to see an end to the government's `don't ask, don't tell' policy," said Rogers, 68, of Fort Lauderdale.

The parade highlighted a day of festivities commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event considered by many to be a turning point in the gay rights movement. What began as a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, turned into a series of violent confrontations between police and homosexuals.

People from across South Florida flocked to the 1 1/4-mile stretch of Wilton Drive shut off to traffic, milling between the 115 local businesses, nonprofit organizations, political groups and food vendors with tents. About 17,000 people had been expected to attend the free event sponsored by Pride of Greater Fort Lauderdale, said Greg Phelps, the group's chairman.

"This helps us show our diversity and we can enjoy ourselves in the open in the community that we have chosen as our community -- Wilton Manors," Phelps said. In recent years, Wilton Manors has become a gay destination and is the second city in the United States to elect a gay majority government. The first was West Hollywood, Calif.

While the tents were being set up early Sunday and people filtered in for the parade, music echoed down the street as members of the Church of the Holy SpiritSong held an outdoor service on Wilton Drive. Pastor Deanna Jaworski and about 40 members of the predominantly gay congregation belted out songs praising God, some raising their hands to the sky.

"A lot of television media when they cover these events they always focus on the stereotypical absurd," said congregation member Art Comeau. "There are a lot of different facets to gay society. There are people who go to church and have families and live lives like everyone. A lot of the mainstream churches through their doctrine are exclusive and we want to be inclusive."

After the service, the church congregation marched as one of the parade's 52 entries, including the Flamingo Freedom Band, the Stonewall Knights Motorcycle Club and the American Veterans for Equal Rights.

"We want to show everybody we are just as American as the next person, whether gay, straight, black, white or otherwise," said Mark LaFontaine, an American Veterans for Equal Rights member who was thrown out of the Coast Guard because of his sexuality. "We are here in support of veterans who served, whether they are gay, straight or otherwise. We want equal protection under the law and equal opportunity to serve our country without fear of discrimination or reprisal."

Worry grows about seniors and HIV/AIDS (post-gazette.com, June 28, 2005)

In an age of wonder drugs for erectile dysfunction, it might be no surprise that people are sexually active well into their 80s. Outreach worker Sharri Thompson says she is reminded about that almost every day.

Yesterday, Thompson was outside the senior-focused Eleanor Roosevelt Apartments in Aliquippa as part of National HIV Testing Day, giving out free hot dogs and hamburgers and trying to recruit seniors in the building to get tested for HIV.

As a coordinator for Life and Liberty Inc., an Ambridge faith-based organization that conducts HIV-prevention campaigns, Thompson is concerned that the incidence of HIV and AIDS is increasing in southwestern Pennsylvania's senior population.

She's not alone.

Locally and nationally, experts are increasingly concerned about anecdotal and statistical evidence that a growing population of older Americans are living with HIV and AIDS. They say the widespread availability of drugs like Viagra allows men to be more sexually active than in the past, and that many older Americans do not use protection because they're not worried about pregnancy, or don't know that their behaviors put them at risk for an illness they once thought could only affect gay men and drug users.

Nationally, the number of AIDS cases among Americans older than 50 increased fivefold between 1995 and 2003, said Gina Focareta, communications director for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.

In Pennsylvania, the number of people living with AIDS who are older than 65 increased from 71 to 133 between 1998 and 2002, and the number of people over the age of 55 living with AIDS increased from 283 to 487 in that same period, according to data from the state Department of Health.

Although some of the increase can be explained by the expanding length of time that people can live with AIDS and HIV because of better treatment, the number of new cases also is rising.

In Pittsburgh, people 50 and older have accounted for around 12 percent of all AIDS cases since 1981, according to the county Health Department. But some advocates are guessing the number will rise because of the size of Allegheny County's senior population, which is the second-largest in the country outside of Palm Beach County, Fla.

"We just know it's going to hit us because of the demographics," said Doyin Desalu, executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania AIDS Planning Commission. "With Viagra and with the population that really didn't need to practice safe sex when they were younger, they don't realize the impact of risky sexual behavior."

The organization runs outreach and prevention initiatives in some senior high-rise apartment complexes in the area, and speaks to a number of older residents who might be putting themselves at risk for HIV.

In particular, residents talk about seeing younger women -- few call them prostitutes -- around the developments and in the apartments of older single men around the same time that Social Security checks come in.

But married men also are practicing unsafe sex, said the Rev. Kenneth G. Crumb Sr., who founded Life and Liberty Inc., the organization giving HIV tests to seniors in Aliquippa yesterday. He hears talk in barbershops of men in their 70s and 80s who don't leave home without their Viagra, and who visit street women and then go home and sleep with their wives.

Few programs target older people when talking about prevention.

There are almost no age-specific HIV education programs regionally, and prevention messages don't depict older adults as people at risk for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, said Grace Kizzie, a research specialist at the Pennsylvania Prevention Project, an HIV-prevention program based out of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

There are few prevention initiatives because most people don't like to think that people older than 50 are sexually active, Kizzie said.

Kizzie and colleague Emilia Lombardi conducted a series of focus groups for women 50 and older about HIV and AIDS. The women in the focus groups were, for the most part, shocked to hear that they could be at risk for HIV, Kizzie said.

There also is likely a population of older people who are HIV-positive and don't know it. HIV in older people is often misdiagnosed as just aging because many of the symptoms are the same, said Focareta of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.

Jane P. Fowler, 69, of North Kansas City, Mo., was shocked when she found out that she was HIV-positive in 1991. She only had one sexual partner -- her husband -- until she was 50, when she started dating again after getting divorced.

She had heard about HIV but thought it was a disease only for gay men. She didn't use protection because she wasn't worried about getting pregnant, and never suspected that her new partner could be HIV-positive.

The former journalist founded HIV Wisdom for Older Women, a Kansas City-area outreach program, and is trying to educate older women about the importance of protection if they start dating again either as widows or after a divorce.

"These people just don't understand the sexual realities of today," she said. "You think you know so and so for years, you might think you know him, but maybe he's sowing his oats, maybe he's seeing men on the side, maybe he's visiting a prostitute."

Openly gay retirement communities growing (journal-news.com, June 28, 2005)

Tucked into the forests of the North Carolina mountains is a gated community designed by developers for people like them.

Lesbians and gay men.

At Carefree Cove near Boone, Cathy Groene and Gina Razete are selling more than wooded lots with views of Snake Mountain. They're marketing the freedom to walk down the road hand-in-hand, dance together at community socials, and talk unself-consciously about a same-sex partner.

Atlantan Jeanne Dolan, 53, an online college instructor, bought the concept.

"I liked the idea of living in a community where I could be open and accepted, even embraced for who I am," she says.

Razete, 50, and Groene, 57, are pioneers in the growing business of second-home and retirement developments for lesbians and gays. Others are going up in California, New Mexico and downtown Boston.

The women are also part of a graying gay population estimated at 2 million. The number of gays and lesbians in their 50s or older is expected to swell to 5.7 million by 2020, according to a 2004 study by the Maryland-based market research publisher Packaged Facts.

Some live openly and don't want to spend their leisure time or retirement years struggling for acceptance. Others, who have kept their sexual orientation hidden, would like to come out of the closet.

Gay and lesbian developers understand that.

"We really think of ourselves as a lifestyle company," says Amy Errett, CEO of Olivia, a San Francisco-based travel company for lesbians that is planning a $300,000-up townhouse community in Palm Springs, Calif.

Gay and lesbian developers say they will sell to anyone who is gay-friendly, but most say no nongays have inquired. Laws about housing discrimination vary from state to state.

Massachusetts prohibits discrimination in housing based on sexual orientation, says David Aronstein, 52. As president of the not-for-profit Stonewall Communities, he is planning a community of $400,000 to $600,000 apartments in Boston.

One potential buyer said: "It doesn't have to be exclusively gay and lesbian. I just want to be in the majority for once in my life," Aronstein recalls.

In North Carolina, Groene and Razete say, they could legally sell only to gays because the state doesn't include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination housing laws.

"No one who is straight has tried to move in," Razete says. "I would guess if it happens it's going to be somebody's good friend or family member."

They're advertising the $40,000-and-up lots at their mountain getaway through gay publications and at events such as this week's Atlanta Pride festival.

Frank Bytautas, 47, a real estate agent, and his partner Bill Sevigny, 62, a grocery chain executive, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., plan to begin building soon at Carefree Cove. They'll move there full time when Sevigny retires sometime in the next three years.

"We don't go to all gay restaurants or on all gay vacations," says Bytautas, "but I think growing old and being with people who have the same lifestyle is a great thing."

Because they are less likely than heterosexuals to have children, gays and lesbians are more likely to depend on friends for care, said Jason Cianciotto, research director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute.

"There's a need for safe places for our elders to go where they can rely on others in their community as they age," he says.

Fifty-five-year-old Bonnie McGowan, a former Minneapolis investment banker, says she and her lesbian friends used to "joke about buying a mansion on a hill and having young lesbians push us around in our wheelchairs." The humor was tinged with fear, she says.

McGowan is developing Birds of a Feather, an environmentally conscious gay and lesbian community in Pecos, N.M. Lots there sell from $53,000 to $125,000.

Originally she marketed it for retirees, but — as in Carefree Cove — she's finding that most interest is coming from baby boomers who want a vacation home to which they can later retire.

McGowan's New Mexico neighbors fought her tooth-and-nail over water rights and other issues.

"I don't believe it was a gay-lesbian thing," she says. "They just didn't want development."

Groene and Razete have had no such obstacles in North Carolina. Although all but three of the first phase of 54 lots have been sold and several houses have been built, neither the head of the local chamber of commerce nor the missions director of the local Southern Baptist association even knew of Carefee Cove's existence.

"I haven't heard a word about it," said Barry Nealy of the Three Forks Baptist Association. "They say it's a free country, and people can buy and sell and put things anywhere they want to pretty much."

Carefree Cove is Groene and Razete's second development. The first, begun in 1994 in Fort Myers, Fla., is a community for women who were promised confidentiality.

Two years later, the late Bill Laing of Sarasota bought land in Palmetto, Fla., for the more public development the Palms of Manasota, billed as "America's First Gay & Lesbian Retirement Community."

Groene, who owned a photography studio, and Razete, who worked in various facets of real estate, were living in Cincinnati when they met through mutual friends. They retired in the early 1990s, bought a big recreational vehicle and hit the road for two years.

In their travels, they ran across a women's RV community in Arizona.

Photographer Groene, not builder Razete, first thought of translating the concept to permanent housing.

Their South Florida property sold out largely by word of mouth. Its clubhouse is a private women's club.

Both women admit that they have changed their minds about inclusivity/exclusivity over the years.

"We went through the '70s, the whole feminist thing, asking 'Why should these men have private clubs?' " Groene says. "Now, we're older. We're wiser. We understand that people want to get together."

Men and women, single and partnered, are building houses at Carefree Cove.

Groene and Razete live in their three-bedroom elegantly rustic mountain house in the summer and spend the winter at the Florida community.

This fall, they plan to put more Carefree Cove lots on the market and hope to begin construction of the community house there.

Razete's speech accelerates with enthusiasm when she talks about the future — urban and suburban developments, assisted living, commercial elements.

Groene, on the other hand, talks about retiring.

She knows just the place.

Age Concern Comes Out at Pride London to Support Elderly Gays (ukgaynews.org.uk, July 5, 2005)

Age Concern made a colourful appearance at this year’s London Pride parade in an effort to highlight the needs of the often hidden population of older lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGB).

Encouraged by the success of the charity’s involvement in previous Pride events, Age Concern England, Age Concern Enterprises and Local London Age Concern groups teamed up to submit a parade stopping entry into this year’s procession.

The theme of the entry was Partnerships, to highlight the legalisation of same sex couples later on this year. A vintage car carrying two same sex “weddings” was the centrepiece of the entry, surrounded by over 20 volunteers. The float, which aimed to raise awareness of the support available to older LGB people, was flamboyantly decorated in the magenta and blue hues of the charity’s logo.

“Involvement in public events such as this is important as it challenges misconceptions, removes taboos and demonstrates to older people that there are support networks out there,” said Tony Page, Managing Director of the trading arm of Age Concern, who attended Saturday’s event.

Commenting on the issues involved, he added, “The situation for most lesbian, gay and bisexual people at the beginning of the 21st century is more positive, secure and affirming than ever before. However, the majority of older people have lived a large part of their lives in less liberal times and their experience has made them understandably wary and cautious,” he added, commenting on the issue of the older members of the LGB community.

However, the support network for the older LGB community is steadily growing. Age Concern Camden for example has recently began investing in and developing services for older gay men in the borough, while Age Concern Enfield is looking at developing a monthly drop-in for older gay men.

“Work is only just beginning” explains Page, “but in the future we hope to be able to develop significant support services and, more generally, to network with other groups across England in order to increase awareness and to provide much needed contact and support for the older lesbian, gay men and bisexual community. This would not be possible however if it was not for the income generated by insurance products like Travel, Motoring and Home & Contents and other Age Concern products such as Energy and Funeral Plans – all of which have always been available for same sex partners.”

There are estimated to be around three million LGB people in the UK, around 33% of which are over 50. “Unfortunately older people are often treated as if they are all part of the same homogeneous group,” explained Page. “Age Concern recognises the challenges facing the older LGB community and other hopes – through the participation in public awareness events like London Pride and local support initiatives – that these challenges can gradually be overcome,” he added.

Further information about Age Concern’s work with older LGB people in London can be obtained by visiting

http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/openingdoors

Ground broken for nonprofit gay retirement home in Hollywood (tuscaloosanews.com, July 14, 2005)

Calling it an overdue "environment of tolerance," officials broke ground Thursday for what they called the nation's first nonprofit senior housing facility designed for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults.

The $20 million Encore House in Hollywood will accommodate low-income seniors in 104 rental units and feature a swimming pool and 3,000 square feet of public space.

Expected to open in 2006, it's part of a burgeoning number of retirement communities for older gay Americans. Others, however, are for-profit developments generally for more affluent retirees.

Jack Reauley, 82, and his partner, Bob Claunsh, 80, said they would consider living in the facility as a way to be around people who understand their lifestyles and because of the location.

"It's just a matter of living with other people that you know and live like," said Claunsh, who has been with Reauly since they met in the Army 54 years ago.

Older people are often more discriminatory toward homosexuals than the younger generation, he said.

Gerard Koskovich, an outreach liaison for the American Society on Aging's Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network, said Encore House will be the first nonprofit facility of its kind in the nation.

As far back as 1956, there were articles in gay magazines about the need for nonprofit housing for gay seniors, said Koskovich, a historian.

"It's taken 50 years for the social mores to changes and for the community to reach a critical mass to start such projects," he said.

Brian Neimark, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing, which is building the apartment complex, said the residence will allow gay seniors to live in a safe environment as they increasingly depend on outside care.

"What has had to happen for many older adults is that they've had to go back into the closet to get the care they need," he said. "This would be an environment of tolerance and acceptance."

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's policy institute estimates there are at least 1 million gays 65 and older living in the United States.

Neimark said Encore House will not discriminate against heterosexuals.

"We will not turn someone away," he said. "All that will happen is that we have a policy of tolerance, so at our dances you're going to see same sex couples dancing together."

Rent will be charged on a sliding scale. The residence will be built with a combination of public and private funds, including a grant from the Annenberg Foundation.

In San Francisco, the nonprofit Open House is looking to build a similar affordable housing project.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to work for similar projects. He noted the meaning of the facilities name, Encore House.

"That means, 'we want more,'" he said.

Contact Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing at (323) 954-3900 or go to http://www.gleh.org/ .

Gays seek an old folks home of their own (theaustralian.news.com.au, July 24, 2005)

GAY couple Damian and Graham Douglas-Meyer are both healthy and in their 40s, but are already planning to grow old together in Australia's first same-sex retirement home.

The couple have joined forces with other members of Perth's gay community to plan and build Australia's first gay old people's home as part of a newly formed Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Retirement Association, or GRAI.

"A lot of gay couples would be happier in a facility with other same-sex couples," said Damian Douglas-Meyer, who married his long-term partner overseas last year in a ceremony recognised by Canadian law.

He said the plight of gay and lesbian baby-boomers had spawned the new group. Many were still happily living together in their own homes but were approaching retirement age.

Mr Douglas-Meyer said he knew of a gay man living in a Perth retirement village where other residents were openly hostile to his homosexuality. Other problems related to church-operated aged care homes that disapproved of same-sex couples.

"Legally they can't discriminate, but practically, it's more difficult," he said. "You want to retire somewhere where you know you'll be accepted."

GRAI chairman Graham Lovelock, who works in the aged care sector, said the group hoped to build a same-sex retirement home within five years, but still had to raise the money.

Mr Lovelock said the aged care sector suffered from a one-size-fits-all approach.

"It's a multi-billion-dollar industry with serious gaps not being addressed," Mr Lovelock said.

He said GRAI would lobby for improvements in existing aged care facilities, from the formal recognition of same-sex couples to greater expertise in handling the health needs of elderly HIV and AIDS sufferers, many more of whom were surviving into old age.

Mr Lovelock said he and his partner Steve Singer were among many gay couples in Australia's baby-boomer generation seeking better retirement living options.

"We are both in our mid-40s and we want to make sure things are right when we need it. There was genuine concern that we were going to be forced back into the closet," he said.

But another gay advocacy group warned that separate aged care facilities should not be the only option sought by gay retirees.

Ivan Skaines, the convenor of Newcastle-based gay action group Rainbow Visions Hunter, said attention should be directed to finding facilities that support gay residents and developing more community-based aged care.

"The building of separate retirement services for queer people is not the answer, and there's a multiplicity of organisations required," Mr Skaines said.

"I don't personally want to live in a gay retirement village any more than I want to live in an exclusively gay community now."

Planning for LGBT Aging (windycitymediagroup.com, July 27, 2005)

In preparation for the December 2005 White House Conference on Aging, the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging invited residents and organizations to present testimony on the topic at a town-hall meeting held July 21 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The event, “Elder Voices: Let Your Stories Be Heard,” was co-sponsored by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ( NGLTF ).

This was the first step in a process that will culminate in the creation of a five-page report to be submitted to the White House Policy Committee. The event was presided over by a panel made up of John Dinauer, Co-Chair of the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging; William Greaves of the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on LGBT Issues; and Amber Hollibaugh, NGLTF Senior Strategist. Approximately 50 people attended, over a dozen read prepared statements, and then most participated in the closing brainstorming session.

The first person to speak was Terri Worman, Co-Chair of the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging. She pointed out that because baby boomers are the first generation of LGBT people to live openly, new sets of dynamics will come into play when they access health services and enter care homes. While they will expect their sexual orientation to be respected, lack of understanding and discrimination from care givers risk making the last few years of life especially difficult for LGBT seniors. Sharing a room with a same-sex partner and end-of-life decisions were among the anticipated crisis areas. With 43,000 gay couples having one partner over 65 in Cook County alone, Worman said there is a pressing need to educate care providers about the concerns of LGBT elders. “Most agencies have no language to deal with LGBT issues,” she observed.

A representative of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine presented a pledge on behalf of the medical personnel stating that the institution assures compassionate and safe care from providers who have been trained to serve the LGBT community. A woman from the Center for Applied Gerontology of the Council for Jewish Elderly ( CJE ) followed and called for LGBT awareness training to become standard for all care givers. She spoke of the success of CJE’s Frontline Worker Sensitivity Training System. According to the center’s statistics, 62% of those who signed up had never thought before of working with LGBT seniors. As a result of the training, 89% believed they were able to offer better quality services to LGBTs.

A woman named Janet, who is a social-work intern at Rush Hospital and a master student at the University of Chicago, echoed Worman’s comments about the LGBT politics of the boomer generation, speaking of “a transformation from individual pathology to group identity.” Noting that the 2000 census contained no reference to sexual orientation, she stressed the need for data collection.

Denis Lau of Asian Pacific Islanders ( API ) raised the issue of diversity by relating that at a recent CDC conference on AIDS, Asians were not considered a large enough group to warrant specific attention. With the establishment of only Caucasian, Black, and Latino sub-groups, Lau said that Asians remain far behind the rest of the LGBT community when it comes to visibility, funds for research, and the allocation of healthcare resources.

Veronica Baté of the Medicare Rights Center mentioned the recent creation of Illinois Benefits, a Web-based tool designed to educate patients, care givers, and clergy about available public health benefits. Created in partnership with the Illinois Department on Aging, the service is free.

Attorney Ray J. Koenig of Peck, Bloom, Austriaco & Mitchell, LLC, an alternate delegate to the White House Conference on Aging, identified three categories of legal problems faced by LGBT seniors. ( See his testimony elsewhere this issue. )

Vernita Gray of the State’s Attorney’s Office talked about hate crimes against the elderly. She said the increase of such offenses had been “overwhelming” over the last 12 years. Top of the list are financial fraud, nursing home abuses, family exploitation, and physical violence. Gray added that, contrary to popular belief, Chicago Housing Authority ( CHA ) and the suburbs are not immune to this disturbing trend. According to her, transgenders are often victims of the worst cases.

Pamala, a M2F member of the Chicago Task Force on Aging, presented the results of a series of studies on substance abuse in the LGBT community. She cited numerous statistics that seem to demonstrate that LGBT usage of legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol does not drop in middle age the way it does in the general population. With current cessation efforts focusing on young men for crystal meth and lesbians for cigarettes, she recommended intervening with older LGBT individuals as well before they pick up the habit or start abusing prescription medication. Speaking of transgender individuals, she declared that many delay getting services because they are not comfortable dealing with ill-informed or even prejudicial doctors.

Pamala then read a letter from Dianne, a heterosexual male cross-dresser, who was unable to attend. Married, a father of two, and a successful professional, Dianne identifies as bi-gender and lives as a woman on certain designated days. Her letter offered an enlightening window onto a situation that is rarely discussed. With “bi-gender” being a “non-idea in most people’s minds,” she said, and given the minimal level of privacy in nursing homes, she wondered how she would manage to live as bi-gender when she is no longer able to take care of herself.

Jessica Halem, executive director of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project ( LCCP ) emphasized the importance of approaching the aging question from an inter-generational perspective. She also encouraged LGBT activists and advocacy groups to get involved in mainstream institutions so as to make them more responsive to our community’s needs.

A number of speakers mentioned additional funding for research, both public and private, as a condition to any progress on aging. All agreed that without quantifiable data on LGBT seniors, it will remain difficult to impact national policy decisions.

See http://www.thetaskforce.org/ .

Project tells LGBT elders' stories (pridesource.com, September 15, 2005)

In 1952, Michael Golden was 14 years old - and he had a secret.

"I came home and on TV, there was a live program with Sen. McCarthy," said Golden. "He stated communists, prostitutes and homosexuals would have to be obliterated from the Earth."

After listening to Sen. Joe McCarthy's speech, Golden learned an unintended lesson. He was gay.

"I kept my orientation a secret," he said.

Affirmations is collecting life vignettes like Golden's - from gays and lesbians over age 50, to compile them in a book for publication sometime over the next few years. Photographs will also be featured in the anthology.

It's all part of Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center's Heritage Project.

Affirmations celebrated the Heritage Project's kick-off with a dinner dance at the Gerry Kulick Community Center in Ferndale last week.

"We had a two-fold reason for the project," said Affirmations Community Outreach and Older Adult Services Coordinator Kimya Ayodele. "One, to locate isolated LGBT seniors and connect them with one another and the Center and two, to document the lives of LGBT seniors."

Life was very different when gay and lesbian elders were young, she said.

"A lot of seniors were raised during a time when you could be hospitalized for being gay," she said.

When the anthology is published, Affirmations will send it to LGBT community centers around the country - and to bookstore shelves in the area.

"We want to have a wide mix of stories - from gay, transgender, lesbian and people of color," she said.

Judy Chidester, 64, didn't realize she was bisexual until she was 33, when she recognized the true nature of her feelings for her best friend.

Her love wasn't reciprocated.

"I didn't know where to find lesbians," she said. "I didn't know what they wore and what they looked like. I thought, there must be another lesbian in the Detroit area."

Julie, 64, has been Chidester's partner for the past 22 years.

Julie didn't suspect she might be gay until 1977 - years after she stopped playing for the Detroit Demons, a women's football team.

"I said to a woman on the team, we're the only two that weren't lesbians, and it turned out we both were," she said laughing.

Penny Gardner, 64, said she realized her sexual orientation in her late 40's, after she started exploring feminism.

"My life became more and more woman-centered," she said. "Who knows whether it was nature or nurture that made me discover what fulfilled me."

Gardner said it's important for the LGBT community to listen to the wisdom of people who lived through past eras.

"It gives us roots to know how there's a foundation today," she said.

Most older people have stopped worrying about what the neighbors think, she said.

"Age gives us a lot of freedom to speak out," she said.

For information about contributing to the Heritage Project, contact Ayodele at Affirmations at 248-398-7105, or visit their web page at http://www.GoAffirmations.org/ on the Internet.

Getting on, staying strong (napwa.org.au, December 8, 2005)

With improving anti-HIV treatments, positive people are living longer than many ever dreamed would be possible. But while that’s cause for celebration, writes DAVID MENADUE, ageing with HIV brings its own challenges.

Recently I helped celebrate the fiftieth birthday of a gay male friend who had done his darnedest to avoid any attention being paid to his reaching this milestone; he simply didn’t want the world to know for fear that an ageist society (and particularly gay scene) would regard him as ‘past it’, ‘sexually undesirable’ or a range of other unmentionables.

My friend is HIV-negative and I mused about how differently I had approached my fiftieth, three years ago: I was rapt to have made it this far, overjoyed that I could share this moment with friends when, ten years before at my fortieth, it looked like I might not survive much longer after experiencing a series of AIDS-defining illnesses.

HAART has made an extended life possible for many people with HIV. Almost a quarter of the recent HIV Futures 4 respondents were 50 years or over, having lived for an average number of 14 years with the virus (for those under 50, the average was 10 years since diagnosis)1. The actual number of people over 50 in the HIV-positive population is probably less than this – in the USA, for instance, 10-13 percent of the HIV-positive population is over 50.

With mortality rates from AIDS now very low, we also know that the median age of people newly diagnosed with HIV in Australia is now 37 years, suggesting that issues to do with ageing and HIV will now have to come to the attention of health providers like never before.

From a time when doctors and those involved in HIV care and support strived to keep us alive for as long as possible against difficult odds, we are now entering a period when, with relatively effective treatments, we may see people leading much longer life spans but with efforts now focused on improving quality of life. As the demographic of the positive population ages, the long term effects of living with HIV and of taking antiretrovirals for extended periods of time will become more evident.

In some respects, those of us who have been on treatments for fifteen years or more (since the experimental days of AZT) are likely to be a new type of ‘guinea pig’ once again. Will our health conditions reflect living with HIV long term, HAART use, the normal effects of ageing or a combination of all of the above?

Little research on HIV and ageing

Little research has been done in the area of ageing with HIV and some of the findings have been contradictory.

In the pre-HAART era, several studies showed that patients over fifty progressed more rapidly to AIDS and had poorer survival after an AIDS diagnosis. It is also known that when an older person becomes infected with HIV, the depletion of naive CD4 cells is more pronounced compared with younger people.

Scientists thought this might mean that older people would not experience equally significant rises in T-cells with the advent of HAART. However one study2 of 101 older HIV-infected patients (average age 57 years) and 202 younger patients found those over 50 had similar rises in their CD4 counts after taking HAART and actually more of them obtained undetectable viral load counts than the younger group. This is put down to the older group being more adherent to their regimens and less likely to interrupt treatment.

As we get older our liver and kidney functions can decline and it is thought this may have implications for the dosing of antiretrovirals for older positive people. One study looking at the elimination of AZT from the kidneys of elderly patients found that it was substantially reduced, leading to toxic levels of the drug in the bloodstream3. Decreases in liver function with age could mean that there are higher levels of HIV drugs metabolised in the liver, leading to greater side-effects for older people.

Knobel et al4 in their study comparing people under 40 with those over 60 found that adverse events were much more likely to happen in the older group (64 and 35 percent respectively) and that these patients were more likely to swap to regimens containing non-nucleosides and sparing protease inhibitors because of their toxicities.

More research needs to be done in this area with the use of therapeutic drug monitoring (checking the troughs and peaks of drugs in the body) possibly more warranted in older people living with HIV/AIDS.

When older people don’t take HIV medications, we know that their risks of mortality are higher. In a study by Perez et al5 comparing mortality in 253 HIV-positive people over 50 with 535 younger patients, the older patients not receiving antiretrovirals were twice as likely to die compared with the younger untreated cohort. When the older individuals commenced HAART, their risk of dying declined two-fold and within a three-month period there was no significant survival difference between them and the younger group.

Will we now die from heart attacks?

The risks of conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and osteopenia increase with age – and being HIV-positive and on HAART would seem to further increase the likelihood of ending up with at least one of these.

Those of us on HAART for a number of years, particularly on proteases long-term, have seen rises in our lipids and cholesterol and sometimes insulin resistance. Preliminary data from the Data Collection of Adverse Events (DAD) study of 23,500 positive people around the world in 2003 has shown that taking antiretrovirals does increase your risk of a heart attack – the risk increased by 26 percent for each year of antiretroviral therapy – but the actual numbers of positive people experiencing heart attacks was still small (0.13 percent of the participants), opening questions around the relative severity of the issue.

The inflammatory responses involved with HIV infection may also be linked to heart attacks in positive people. With the use of cholesterol and blood pressure reducing medications and interventions such as exercise, dietary changes and stopping smoking though, it would seem that positive people can significantly reduce their risks so that adverse outcomes are far from inevitable.

Likewise, taking care of your calcium needs can help prevent the advent of osteoporosis. Bone density has been reported to be lower in HIV-positive men and women than the rest of the population and the longer you are positive the greater is the loss of bone density and the greater the risk of fractures or bone disease. Some research suggests that this is most likely to be linked to the cytokine activation involved in HIV replication rather than exposure to antiretrovirals.

As we lose calcium naturally with age, keeping up calcium supplements, vitamin D and dairy foods (if they can be tolerated – otherwise soy products can be substituted) is advised for older people with HIV. Also weight-bearing exercise is recommended to help preserve bone mass. Or will we get dementia?

Many people nominate dementia as their greatest fear in growing old – whether they are HIV positive or not. Those of us who saw friends suffer from HIV-associated dementia in the 1980s and 1990s know it is not a pleasant thing, although in those days it usually didn’t involve a long protracted battle.

We know that HAART has reduced the incidence of HIV-associated dementia and that it is now only rarely seen in people who undergo antiretroviral therapy. Heavy prior use of recreational drugs and alcohol may also be a co-factor. Some research suggests that people over 50 on HAART have a three-fold chance of slowed movement or thought processes – forgetfulness, it could be called – but this cognitive impairment may only be mild and may not affect everyday life.

Caring for those who have suffered brain injury due to AIDS-related illness will continue to be a major concern for service providers as the numbers failing treatment (or inadequately treated for their HIV in the past) rises.

Perhaps the greatest issues we all have to contend with in growing old are the psychosocial ones. Getting older means declining sexual attractiveness and the added burden of lipodystrophy – the sunken cheeks, skinny arms and legs and bulging bellies – has not helped our self-esteem.

Marian Pitts from the Australian Research Centre for Sex Health and Society at La Trobe University in Melbourne recently presented an analysis of the HIV Futures 4 data looking at respondents over 50 compared with those younger6. She found that 40.5 percent of the over-50s were less likely to be having sex than the younger cohort and more likely to have lost their libido (67.6 versus 57.2 percent).

While we know that the virus and our treatments contribute to this – and Viagra can only help so much – mental factors play a major role here, too.

More significantly perhaps, Pitts found that the over-50s were less likely to be in a relationship – and less likely to use any service provider (HIV sector or not) to help with their care and support needs. They were more likely to have low income levels and to be below the poverty line (33 versus 25 percent). One could draw the conclusion that people over 50 appear more lonely and isolated, maybe disengaged from society, because of poverty, fears of age or HIV discrimination, feelings of depression or low self-esteem.

Older gay men are unlikely to feel comfortable in a gay social scene which places a premium on youth and beauty, although life would seem to be no easier for older positive women or heterosexual men looking for a partner either. Maybe disclosing one’s HIV status is a more difficult thing for an older person with HIV, particularly if you have been diagnosed later in the picture.

However this is only conjecture. More extensive research on older people is needed before we could be more definite in our conclusions. While I have no doubt that depression can be a major issue for older people with HIV, Pitts found that the over-50s in her cohort were less likely to regard themselves as depressed or to have a mental health condition (25.3 versus 37.3 percent). This group also scored higher when asked to rate their wellbeing (although they were less likely to say their health was good).

While support staff at AIDS councils confirm that a significant percentage of clients over 50 are isolated and have a poor quality of life for a range of reasons, it is clearly not the case for all. The advantages of age?

I’m guessing that some older people will be just as likely to pride themselves on their self-reliance and ability to cope with the various disabilities that come their way – perhaps expecting it more than young people and be more likely to include the side effects of HIV as ‘just another part of the picture’. It could be surmised that age brings with it greater patience (sometimes!) and more ability to focus on your own needs – rather than the competing demands of family, employment and mortgage payments, for instance.

Social support is important no matter what your situation, and it is probably true that older people, without the structures of a job or a hectic social life, could more easily lose their traditional support and friendship networks. Special interventions will be needed in the future to increase opportunities for socialisation amongst the elderly in our community generally (as well as care issues like supported accommodation and nursing care) and as long as we have an HIV sector, our care and support services should be preparing for the specific needs of the HIV-positive population in this area.

I am only just entering my fifties and may have a few jolts awaiting me as I discover the reality of ageing with HIV. I am grateful that I have had the security of a superannuation income since my retirement (now some fourteen years ago!) Financial concerns undoubtedly worry the elderly as much as anything (maybe except their health). My experience of retirement is that there are opportunities to involve yourself in projects that involve you closely with other people – in my case it has been volunteer work with HIV agencies – to gain satisfaction from achievements and to allow you to use your mind on a regular basis.

In a weird way, having HIV has also probably taught me to care for my body better than if I was your average unhealthy middle-aged Australian man: all those vitamins, natural therapies, dietary changes and exercise programs may well stand me in better stead in the long run – who knows?

While I have no doubt that the strain on my body caused by HIV is considerable, I’d still prefer to assume that I’m not going to die anytime soon from either HIV or HAART-related toxic effects. While we can’t prevent the ageing process or all the damage caused by HIV, we can still do our best to live healthy lives.

Thanks to the HIV Hepatitis and STI Education and Resource Centre at the Alfred Hospital for help with this article.

‘An unblessed trilogy’

Barry is in his mid-sixties and has been living with HIV for at least 17 years. He was first diagnosed when he was 48.

        I really didn’t want to risk passing on the virus to others so I became celibate for about 10 years. It was only after I felt confident that sex with condoms was safe that I had a few sexual partners. When I entered my sixties, my libido went anyway, so sex didn’t become such an issue – although I’m never quite sure whether I’ve talked myself into that to some degree. Have I denied myself that intimacy in my older age because of feelings of stigma about being HIV-positive?

        The changes from [the mid-fifties] on were much greater than the three decades before combined. Of course I knew to expect changes as part of the normal process of ageing but I think HIV accelerates it. You lose your looks faster, you lose energy and strength and my feeling is that you don’t get a chance to adequately adjust to it mentally.

        Nature is funny in some ways because it changes your attitudes to things in life as you age (like your need for sex, or major life achievements, it slows down your ambition a bit) and in the normal scheme of things, you get time to change with it. HIV takes away that adjustment and there is nothing gradual about the process.

        I feel I’ve been given an unblessed trilogy at this time of life: I’m old, gay and HIV-positive. While I’ve accepted all three, they are not exactly a recipe for a stigma-free or easy existence in old age. We live in a terribly ageist society with the gay community being particularly bad at dealing with their seniors – the phrase ‘old queen’ is a very common and negative descriptive. I sometimes feel that I’m treated as invisible by people like cashiers at supermarkets – they will be nice to the young buck in front of me but rude or dismissive when I front them.

        Time is of the essence when you get older. I lose patience when yet another nagging HIV-related complaint comes my way. I wish they would find a cure now.

        When I think of the time sapping away I get frustrated that my quality of life never seems to improve. Is it HIV that’s causing me to feel shitty, the treatments, or just getting old – you just don’t know.

        Thank god for my animals – my daily walks in the park with them are my sanity. At least with them I get nice feedback from other pet owners. They give me a purpose for living.

‘I am not the only one’

Margaret is 70 years old and was diagnosed as HIV-positive seven years ago.

        I was old when I contracted the virus. It has not necessarily shortened my life, thanks to the modern drugs, but my quality of life has altered dramatically. You live entirely for the present and cannot plan for the future anymore. This brings a terrible sadness and sense of loss. Will I see my grandchildren married? Will I always be able to care for myself adequately? This is my biggest concern.

        My family and my partner’s family cannot accept what has happened to us, so consequently our only form of help or advice is from people who are paid to offer these services. Because I chose to stay and assist my partner, who is much sicker than I with multiple health problems, I am constantly told, “You chose to be where you are – you chose him over us.”

        You cannot ever say to your children “I feel terrible,” as their attitude is “you made your bed, you lay in it.” They never ask how you are feeling. I believe they are afraid of your answer as they would not know how to deal with the situation.

        When you are feeling unwell it is hard to know – is it old age or the virus that’s responsible? You live with depression and a very low libido every day. You wake up in the mornings and wonder how you are going to get through the day. What is the point? Who can you talk to and know that they will not shun you? You tend to bottle your feelings inside of you and present a facade to the public.

        The day you start medication is probably the most upsetting of the lot. You are about to put a tablet in your mouth that will not cure you and in all probability give you a life-threatening illness from the side effects of the medication. It could kill you. You have a terrible guilt feeling – not only have you betrayed yourself but your family and friends by letting this happen to you.

        Your life is made up of constant medical appointments. Because we live in the country, we need to travel 600 kilometres on a round trip for our specialist treatments. We rely on organisations like Positive Women and Straight Arrows for help with accommodation when we visit the city. You feel like a charity case and at my age when I have been very active in social work (as a volunteer in several organisations), I find it very stressful to ask for this help.

        On the other side ... since being diagnosed I have met some wonderful people. There are many amazing people who care and are doing a great job, assisting and supporting us. I try to meet as many positive people as possible to get this thing into perspective. To know that I am not the only one feeling like this is comforting but very distressing to see so many young ones with some many diverse problems and dilemmas.

Margaret and Barry spoke to David Menadue. Names in this article have been changed.

References

1 M.K. Pitts et al, Growing Older, living longer and treatments for HIV, Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society, La Trobe University, presentation to AIDS Update, Burnet Centre, Melbourne, April 2005

2 Fair Wellons, M. et al, HIV infection: treatment outcomes in older and younger adults J Am Geriatr Soc 2002, 50:603-7 as discussed in Casau, N. Perspective on HIV Infection and Aging: Emerging Research on the Horizon CID 2005:41, 15 September. Ibid Casau, N.

3 Sauvageon-Matre, H. et al Pharmocokinetics of zidovudine in AIDS patients: influence of age and hepatic disorders, program for 5th International Conference on AIDS, Montreal, Canada, 1989. Ibid Casau, N.

4 Knobel, H. et al Response to highly active antiviral therapy in HIV-infected patients aged 60 years or older after 24 months of follow up, AIDS 2001;15:1591-3. Ibid Casau, N.

5 Perez, J.L. Greater effect of highly active antiviral therapy on survival in people aged 50 years compared with younger people in an urban observational cohort Clin Infect Dis 2003;36: 212-8. Ibid Casau, N

6 Pitts, M.K. ibid.

White House Gags Older Gays (365gay.com, December 13, 2005)

Once every 10 years authorities on aging gather for the White House Conference on Aging (WHCoA). They meet, present papers and make recommendations to the President and the Congress on national aging policies for the future.

The 2005 WHCoA is the fifth in the history of the United States and the first of the 21st Century.

But, this conference, under the Bush Administration, any discussion on aging in the LGBT community has been squelched.

Today at a press conference elder advocates challenged the administration for refusing to include sexual orientation, gender identity and other vulnerable populations in its resolutions. In addition, critics — including some WHCoA delegates — said rigid conference procedures and vague resolutions are preventing substantive discussion of critical aging issues, such as improving the cultural competency of service providers; providing adequate funding for the implementation of elder care services; and bolstering the economic security of a diverse aging population.

“The amount of control over this conference is appalling,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“It’s outrageous that, in 2005 at the White House Conference on Aging, LGBT issues are not only excluded, but that there is no opportunity to officially introduce these issues into the discussion whatsoever.”

By contrast, more than 2,200 delegates attended the 1995 conference, which allowed for resolutions to be submitted by delegates and considered on the floor.

This year, procedures permit no such input from delegates, whose numbers this year have been restricted to just 1,200.

Sexual orientation and gender identity were included in 1995 resolutions, but were ultimately eliminated. Now, 10 years later, sexual orientation and gender identity were not even included in resolutions at any juncture — nor has there been any opportunity for such inclusion — at WHCoA, which concludes on Wednesday.

Official WHCoA delegate Terry Kaelber — the only delegate invited from an LGBT organization — slammed the WHCoA at today’s press conference at the WHCoA site in Washington, saying there has been a “concerted effort” by the administration to “limit discussion and control the outcome” at the WHCoA.

“The process has been to exclude, not include,” said Kaelber, executive director of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE). The New York delegation fired off a letter to the WHCoA policy committee — whose members are appointed by the president and Congress and in essence runs the show — questioning the integrity of the entire process. The letter was unanimously adopted by the delegation late last night and sent to the committee. The California delegation also expressed similarly strong criticism of the undemocratic process at the WHCoA.

Speakers at the press conference said government’s failure to officially acknowledge the existence of LGBT elders means many of that population’s particular needs will continue to go unmet.

Those concerns include the creation of an accepting climate among senior service providers so that LGBT elders are not forced to compromise their sexual orientation or gender identity in order to receive medical care and services. There is a need for caregivers who are properly trained in working with LGBT seniors.

Additionally elder care workers say there is a need to strengthen the legal recognition of LGBT relationships, including more equitable taxation, the ability to make medical care decisions and hospital visitation rights; and the need for meaningful participation in planning.

Older Gays Seek Support Services (windycitymediagroup.com, December 21, 2005)

“Make room for all” was the theme of a meeting hosted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ( NGLTF ) Dec.11, immediately prior to the opening of the White House Conference on Aging.

The Conference is a once-a-decade event that is the culmination of smaller regional meetings. The NGLTF meeting highlighted issues particular to the GLBT community that need to be considered in addressing federal policies and programs on aging.

“LGBT people often have not been visible in that aging world, and because we have not been visible, we have not been included explicitly,” said Task Force senior strategist Amber Hollibaugh. She said San Francisco lesbian icons Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon “were phenomenal at the 1995 Conference and made the issue visible, and were enormously powerful delegates.” But much work remains to be done.

“There is no room for prejudice in the world of aging.” Hollibaugh said. The reality is that GLBT members of the Baby Boomer generation often have led their lives openly and are not going to go back into the closet. It is important that they not face discrimination and that their caregivers be culturally competent in providing that care.

While several of the conference delegates are openly gay or lesbian, Terry Kaelber is the only one who represents an organization whose principal mission is directed toward GLBT seniors. He is executive director of SAGE, the 28-year-old organization for gay seniors in New York City.

“There is some vague notion that we all age alike, that we must lose our individuality and become part of this great aging monolith.” Kaelber said aging is very different for GLBT seniors because of “discrimination and antigay bigotry, which impacts our ability and willingness to access needed programs and services as we age.

“It is informed by the fact that we, by and large, age as single people without the traditional familial support of a spouse or children. It makes us more reliant on the programs that we are not so willing to access.

“Aging as a single person, not just an LGBT person, without traditional familial support networks is highly correlated with increased isolation in old age, depression, substance abuse, medical and physical health complications, unnecessary institutionalization, and even premature death. For our community, adding antigay bigotry and discrimination compounds these outcomes,” Kaelber said.

The reality of women’s life is that they devote the equivalent of 12 years to the role of informal caregiver, generally without compensation. They often take lower-paying jobs to have the flexibility to carry out that role, said Laura Young, executive director of OWL, the voice of midlife and older women. “As a result, women will lose $250,000 of wage wealth” in performing these tasks.

She said “the marriage issue” was important to aging members of the GLBT community, and pointed to the photos from a year ago in San Francisco; “More often than not, they were older couples who had been together for many years who were looking to get some kind of legal status or protection for the lives that they had built together.”

OWL was the only aging organization that took a public stance against the Federal Marriage Amendment, which sought to ban gay marriage.

Young explained that healthcare benefits “become a tax liability for domestic partners, which doesn’t exist for married couples” who do not have to pay taxes on them. She said the Conference needs to talk about changing policies that codify discrimination “if we are going to bring LGBT issues into the dialog.”

“I had an ostrich attitude about aging issues,” said Mary McCarthy, 67. She testified with her partner Bonny Winokar about their marriage in Massachusetts and their fears with regard to Medicare and the house that they purchased and renovated.

McCarthy said, under existing federal spend-down requirements for Medicare, if one of them ended up in a nursing home, “One of us would be destitute and the other would be sick.” The property of a traditionally married couple would be protected.

“In order to have a good old age filled with optimism, you must have a good young age filled with opportunities that continue throughout the lifecycle,” said Dr. Norma Thomas, president of the Center on Ethnic and Minority Aging, in Philadelphia. The effects of poverty, racism, and homophobia do not magically disappear at the age of 60.

“All of the ‘isms’ come from our own chauvinism,” said Regina Shavers, executive director of the Griot Circle, a group of primarily African American and Caribbean seniors. She said the key to serving a diverse community is realizing that, “You just need to know that everybody else’s life is not just like yours.”

“If you have any gender variance, that is totally” another level of competency that has to be addressed. “When I get to the nursing home and they put one of them pink dresses on me, we are going to have a hard time.” She sported a black pantsuit and white ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

“Just because a person comes to you for services, doesn’t mean they are ready to tell you everything. People value their privacy very much” she said. “People in my community survived with their secrecy” in the face of a church that condemned them, and a broader community that often was not accepting.

Shavers said, “We should be allowed to choose our own families and have the financial benefit of those connections.”

Jim Campbell, president of the National Association of HIV Over Fifty, spoke of “the loss [ from HIV ] that has never been addressed” for gay males. “We built a family, and those families disappeared almost overnight.”

He said HIV is not just a gay issue. More than 17 percent of newly diagnosed cases nationally are in those 50 or older, and the number is growing by about 1 percentage point a year.

A survey of HIV patients at the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston found that 62 percent of their caseload is 40 or older. And with the success of combination therapy and people living longer, it is becoming a problem of aging. Campbell called it “an accident waiting to happen” in the gay community.

'Gay marriage' affect over-65s most (ichounslow.icnetwork.co.uk, December 21, 2005)

Half a million same-sex couples over 65 will be celebrating as new "gay marriage" laws come fully into force in England and Wales, according to the charity Age Concern.

The group claims many "would never have thought this day would come" as gay men were branded criminals until 1967.

It believes the Civil Partnership Act - which enables same-sex couples to obtain legal recognition for their relationship, granting them new rights in areas such as employment, pension and inheritance - could have a greater impact on older same-sex couples than on any other age group.

The charity also believes older gay and lesbian couples living together may not be aware that their benefits could be affected regardless of whether or not they register and form civil partnerships.

A total of 687 civil partnerships are due to be formed in England and Wales today - the first day on which ceremonies can take place under normal procedures, the General Register Office has said.

Thirteen couples have already formed civil partnerships under special arrangements, since the law permitting them came into force on December 5.

Although they are not officially regarded as marriages, the partnership agreements are similar to a marriage contract.

In most circumstances, couples in England and Wales must wait 15 days after giving notice that they intend to form a partnership.

But the registration period is shorter in Northern Ireland and Scotland and same-sex couples were allowed to form civil partnerships from Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern England, said: "Older lesbians and gay men are likely to have spent at least half their lives in varying degrees of secrecy, anguish, confusion, excitement, joy and love. Some have coped better than others.

"Civil partnership legislation may not be able to erase those years of discrimination and prejudice, but Age Concern sincerely welcomes the opportunity it brings to bestow a long-overdue dignity and respect to people's lives and loving relationships.

He continued: "However, despite great leaps in society's view, many older gay and lesbian people are overlooked or hidden from service providers.

"Age Concern works to highlight their needs and works with other organisations to help open services to gay and lesbian groups."

Age Concern has produced two fact sheets about how the new legislation affects pensions, next of kin status and benefits. For more information go to http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/ .

Elder Care For Gays, Lesbians Catches On (courant.com, December 27, 2005)

Joy Silver had never seen a nursing home quite like it: There was pulsating music, a spinning disco ball and, yes, even scantily clad go-go boys.

"I said to myself, `Yeah, that's what I want. I want that party when I get to be that age,"' Silver would say many years later when remembering the nursing home in New York's West Village.

Today, Silver is working to create just that kind of retirement facility - not only for herself but also for hundreds of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who eventually will move into a community dubbed RainbowVision on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

In many regards, RainbowVision is your typical "after 50" kind of place. It has a mixture of independent-living units, assisted-living units and state-of-the-art medical care for the extremely aged and infirm. There is a social director, a dining facility and residents who range in age from 50 to 94.

And the community has been built in the kind of beautiful setting - on the edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains - that makes a lifetime of saving for retirement seem worthwhile.

But the 146-unit facility is also unique. It is marketed to gay retirees and elderly as a place to spend the remainder of their lives among people who will not judge them for their lifestyles or life partners. It not only will have gourmet cooking classes, but also rowdy drag queen shows and gay pride parades. And it is seen less as a place to quietly savor the golden years than as a place to savor the very way of life that many of the residents have spent decades fighting to have society see as acceptable.

"I think there is kind of the feeling that at the end of a lot of years of struggle, there is now someplace where we can live and be who we are, the way we are," Silver said.

RainbowVision is unique in another regard. While other well-known gay retirement communities exist in places such as California and Florida, all were largely built with pooled capital from the residents who were planning to inhabit them. In contrast, RainbowVision is the first gay retirement community in the United States to be built entirely with investors' dollars.

"It is a very significant difference that, in this case, RainbowVision was conceptualized and built with money - some $35 million - from investors," said Gerard Koskovich of the Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network. "Residents just have to purchase a condo or rent an apartment and move in - the way mainstream retirees do in most of their communities."

With the aging of the baby boomers - nearly 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1965 - retirement communities have become ever bigger and more profitable businesses in recent years. Although estimates of the number of homosexuals in this demographic differ wildly - typically between 3 and 10 percent - marketing firms are beginning to see great potential in these 2.4 million to 8 million gay boomers nearing retirement.

It is nothing new that retirement communities often are populated by like-minded people. Predominantly Jewish communities are scattered throughout Florida. Golf-centric communities have long been the rage in Arizona and California. And, increasingly, retirement facilities are even more narrowly niche-marketed - to those who want to use their free time to get graduate degrees, to specific ethnic groups, to gay men and lesbians.

The clustering of similar-demographic retirees isn't even always so formal, as with RainbowVision. Indeed, in New York City many buildings in Manhattan have, over time, become almost entirely gay because, as apartments become available, friends of friends move in. So many de facto retirement communities have developed that there is much discussion among social workers in the city that, as people age, elder-care services should simply be brought to these buildings instead of forcing residents to move elsewhere to get such services.

"Life review - the notion of handing on a legacy of memories - becomes very important to people as they age," said Jeane Anastas, chairwoman of the School of Social Work at New York University.

Though no formal studies have been done, anecdotal evidence indicates that many gay men and lesbians who live in more traditional nursing homes often go back into the closet for fear of being ostracized by other residents.

"The truth is that because so many of us watched friend after friend die of HIV/AIDS, we've been thinking about the end-of-life care issue for a lot longer than most people in the mainstream population who are our same age," Silver said.

Yet one of the most common criticisms of communities such as RainbowVision - there are others planned for cities such as Los Angles and Boston - is that the goals of every age segment of the gay population should be focused on fighting for social inclusion as opposed to retreating to an enclave.

"I don't think it's quite fair to say that people who have fought for gay rights all their lives now want to just use their later years to relax, rest on their laurels, forget that struggle and that political activism," Silver said. "But I think your average RainbowVision resident is going to remain very active in human rights, in politics."

Report points to "gay generation gap" (planetout.com, December 27, 2005)

A growing generation gap exists in the LGBT community, posing a challenge for social workers and activists, according to a new publication by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies in Amherst, Mass.

"A generation turns around in five years now," said Janis Bohan, a co-author of the study. The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people growing up have changed in such a radical way that it is difficult for people five years older to fully understand what has happened to the previous generation, Bohan found.

"In interviews with LGBT youth and adults, we found a noticeable gap in communications across generations," noted Glenda Russell, another co-author. "LGBT adults tend to project their own experiences onto today's young people, when in fact the lives of today's young people are often quite different."

One example of this generation gap, noted in the study, was the alternative proms organized by LGBT adults for their counterparts among high school youth. The researchers believe these proms are actually designed to meet the needs of the adult organizers who missed their own proms rather than those of today's young people.

The researchers believe LGBT adults tend to focus on the suffering and isolation of LGBT youth, even though many such teens are actually doing well. "The only youth adults only see are the ones in trouble. What we're not noticing is the youth who are not struggling, who have support groups . . . and are doing just fine," said Bohan.

Bohan noted that young LGBT people sometimes complain that no one is doing anything about discrimination, unaware of the decades of prior activism.

Russell told the PlanetOut Network that the study is important because "if we don't pay attention to both sides of this age spectrum, we are in danger of losing important continuity of who we are as a people and losing the lessons that only come from the continuous understanding of history."

"The good news is that both sides can learn from each other," Bohan said. "LGBT adults should be willing to follow the lead of young people, and young LGBT people should be willing to use adults as mentors."

Young people often provide a fresh perspective on issues that is both less constrained by past strategies for problem solving and less reliant on older -- and perhaps incorrect -- assumptions about the degree of homophobia, the report notes.

It concludes that LGBT adults have greater experience and resources and are more familiar with the historical roots of the LGBT movement.

The challenge, the researchers note, is to create intergenerational contact. Among their suggestions is the creation of youth panels that feature positive stories of coming out.

Study links stress to mortality (thestar.com, February 9, 2006)

Study eliminates other factors like major health problems

Statistics Canada says senior women who suffered from psychological or financial stresses in 1994-95 were far more likely to die over the next eight years than those who did not have such problems.

The study found psychological distress — which includes frequent feelings of sadness, worthlessness or hopelessness — was an important predictor of death among women aged 65 or older.

The analysis followed about 2,400 seniors between 1994-95 and 2002-03 using data from the National Population Health Survey and the Canadian Mortality Database.

Psychological distress was a major factor for women, even when the study took into account other factors such as age, family and financial stress, level of education, major chronic diseases, smoking, weight and use of alcohol.

The finding corroborates previous research and suggests that mental health can influence survival.

The study found the impact of chronic diseases tended to offset that of stress in men over 65, suggesting they may be more vulnerable to the effects of chronic, degenerative conditions such as heart disease and cancer.

Lynch Views: Gay Grandmas (windycitymediagroup.com, February 22, 2006)

At one time placing those two words together, grandma and dyke, would have been inconceivable to me. The concept of lesbian mothers was just as foreign. It never occurred to me, in the 1960s, that lesbians had kids, much less grandkids. We were femme, butch or kiki; had nothing to do with male breeders; and were, above all, young.

It was hard enough when, in my 30s, a friend just a little older than me became a grandmother, but at least she was straight. Well, we did kiss once, but she really did love her husband and four kids and she wasn’t a grandma at that point. In any case, that was a terrible shock, getting to the age where a peer could physiologically be a grandmother.

About 10 years later, I made a new gay friend and it turned out that she was a grandma a few times over. However, her son wouldn’t let his kids near their grandmother because she was queer. She eventually moved across the country to be with a lover. I’ve wondered if, before she died of cancer a few years later, her son let the grandkids meet her.

I suppose it’s always been hard to be a gay grandma, but back in the days of the universal closet, no one talked about it. The family knew only that Grandma had a “friend” who was always invited for the holidays. Maybe the grandkids called her Auntie Jo and the kids described her as a horse-riding kind of woman and maybe the grandkids loved her and her horses and when Auntie Jo moved in with Grandma, the kids were just relieved to have someone watching out for mom, especially someone as handy as Jo was, fixing Grandma’s roof or toilet and teaching the grandkids to ride.

Some grandmothers have it easier. I knew two women who’d been best friends all their lives and finally left their husbands for each other. One of them had a grown daughter who’d never married. When mom and daughter finally came out to each other it was a joyous day. The daughter married her girlfriend, with mom looking on, and started a family. This was yet another eye-opener for me: a lesbian grandmother whose daughter was a lesbian mother. I’d love to hear how the grandbaby turned out.

I suppose one reason I’m still trying to get used to the grandma dyke phenomenon is that the whole notion of having kids was always repugnant to me. My photographer friend went to a gathering of women the other day and called me afterward. “All they talked about was their grandchildren!” she reported. When one of the women commented that she didn’t even like kids, the photographer agreed, saying, “What’s so amazing about having grandchildren!” She said that her comment was greeted with dead silence and the subject changed right after that.

Now, the photographer is not gay, nor was anyone in her group. She chose never to have children, citing overpopulation and lack of interest. Just about anyone, we commiserated, can make a bit of protoplasm—and just about anyone does this rather frequently. What’s the endless fascination with baby humans? I have no objection to the lesbian baby boom, but now it’s a straight friend who seems to think most like me.

I’d managed to stay away from the maternal crowd until I fell for my late partner. Marcia had two daughters. One has stepchildren and the other has a nine-year-old and another on the way. I told Marcia right off the bat that I hadn’t a clue how to relate to a lover’s kids. She just left the subject alone. These young women were used to their mom having a partner. Little by little, especially during Marcia’s illness, I got to know her daughters. It’s funny, but those relationships feel different from anything I ever experienced before. It’s not that I feel mom-ish toward them, or even Auntie Jo-ish toward their children. I don’t spend holidays with them. I don’t send birthday presents to the kids. But there’s something more, and less, than friendship.

Earlier today, I was talking with the pianist and the handy dyke about gay grandmas. I insisted that both members of a couple we know are grandmothers, although only one of them meets the biological definition. The pianist blew me away when she blithely asked, “Doesn’t that make you a lesbian grandmother too?”

Inconceivable.

Grey, gay and out at last (saga.co.uk, March 9 , 2006)

Since gay liberation in the Sixties, it’s become easier to be honest about sexuality. Homosexual men and women no longer have to hide their love away, but as couples mature there are fresh challenges to be met, writes Angela Neustatter for Saga Magazine.

Jeremy Kingston, 73, remembers coming to sexual maturity as a gay in his twenties: “Except that what you were called was far more abusive then: queer, faggot or nancy boy. And we lived with the spectre of Oscar Wilde. I knew that I'd be flung inside if I was caught in flagrante with a boyfriend.”

Jeremy, playwright and theatre critic for The Times, met me in an Islington restaurant where we joked about the young men on the streets, advertising their gayness in dress and style without any of the fear that he went through. “Children of the Gay Pride revolution,” Jeremy observed, a tad wistfully. But nowadays he is happy to discuss openly the picaresque life he has led as a homosexual as well as 22 years of marriage and two adored sons.

He says the “vastly changed” attitudes to homosexuality over the past 35 years enabled him to write his play Making Dickie Happy, an autumn production at the Rosemary Branch theatre in Islington, in which Noël Coward urges his friend, Lord Mountbatten – who is deeply troubled by his sexual identity – to acknowledge his gay feelings.

He thinks it is the best long play he has written, not least because he now feels comfortable addressing issues of homosexuality honestly. “The first play I put on when I was in my twenties featured a relationship between a young man and a sensitive sailor. That had to be cut out and the play changed altogether because, I was told, the Lord Chamberlain wouldn't have permitted it. Apparently the nation couldn't take the fact that such effeminate monstrosities existed.” The result was “a writing block which went on for a long time, and I am sure it was because I was afraid to say what I wanted, what mattered to me”.

All the gay people interviewed here now live openly with partners, or feel able to acknowledge publicly that they are gay. But they have lived through times of prohibition and profound disapproval – times during which, as Colin Spencer in his history Homosexuality records angrily: “the authorities seemed to be utterly oblivious to the private hell into which they plunged individuals”.

The key point in many of their lives was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, when homosexuality between consenting adults over 21 became legal. As Spencer observes, after the Act “the pace of change was hectic”. Next came the era of gay liberation.

The anguish of being gay and feeling unable to acknowledge it is still vivid in the mind of Ken Thomas, 62, who grew up on an isolated Cornish farm as a single child: “I realised at puberty that I was attracted to men but I didn't want to admit it. I hid my feelings and was incredibly lonely. I certainly didn't feel I could tell my parents.”

He went to Oxford University and although he had friends of both sexes, “I tried to put sexuality out of my mind.” It was when he visited Russia on an academic exchange that he met a student in Moscow and both were passionately drawn to each other. “I realised I could be happy with a man but we didn't do anything. We were too afraid of the KGB. I was heartbroken when I had to go back to the UK. I was a mathematics lecturer at Birkbeck and I didn't know anyone else homosexual.”

By 1974 living alone in a bedsit, he decided he could not go on in this way. “I very much wanted to have someone, more than a friend, to share my life with. But even though the law had been altered, many of us still felt fear that we would get into trouble. Yet, if I look back, I can see that things were changing and there was quite a drive to help gay people move forward with their lives.”

Eventually he discovered a gay dating agency in the London listings magazine Time Out. “It promised six introductions for £5. The second was Ian McDonald, who I have been with ever since. We were immediately attracted. When we moved in together I was anxious about how it would be taken, but although there were a few strange remarks at work, most of my colleagues and the students were fine about it. That was the beginning of my seeing that I could be open about what I was, and Ian and I have spent a lot of our time campaigning on gay issues.”

Knowing how to meet others was a pressing matter for many gay people when homosexuality was outlawed. Sheila and Viera, who fell in love and lived together in 1947, knew no other lesbians until they heard about the Gateways Club in King's Road, Chelsea. There they mixed with women who matched the rather fearsome stereotypes in the public mind of what lesbians were like – what author Jill Gardiner (From the Closet to the Screen – Women at the Gateways Club) described as: “women in tailored jackets and box-pleat skirts, brogue shoes and bow ties”.

Jeremy Kingston soon learnt where to meet men. “I spent my time in the 1960s falling in and out of love around the Earls Court area – a world within a world.” He had grown up in a home where sex was “an unacknowledged dirty business”. His sister became a nun and his gay feelings were aroused by a man who made a pass at him in the cinema. “But I wanted to be heterosexual like my mates. They all had girlfriends so I tried having one but she terrified me with her open mouth wanting kisses. I felt alarmed she would swallow me up.” By 1955, when he worked as a clerk in London, he had acknowledged his gay yearnings and was going “up West” to clubs and finding “talented and witty” gay men who seemed so much more entertaining role models than his heterosexual friends.

But he badly wanted children: “I still felt it would be better if I could put my gay phase aside as a protracted adolescence. I could see how much easier life would be if I were straight and I thought maybe I could turn my fancy to something else.”

It was rewarding, therefore, to find himself sexually attracted to an actress “with lovely Cleopatra eye make-up and a purple leather dress”. They married in 1967 and stayed together for 22 years, but “although I was faithful to her with women, I had my afternoons in London with male lovers. But although my wife accepted that I'd had a gay phase before we married, she didn't know it went on”.

Although his sons were growing up in times when Jeremy could see it was a great deal easier than it had been for him to “come out”, he says emphatically that there is still enough homophobia and prejudice to make it a difficult choice. He was determined his sons should not suffer if they had homosexual desires, so when his younger son, aged 14, appeared to be “in a sort of decline”, Jeremy wondered whether he was troubled by his sexuality.

“I found a time to tell him that I had been gay when I was young and that there was nothing wrong with that. The damage came from being ashamed; made to feel wrong. He didn't say anything but indicated that he appreciated my making an effort to talk” – in fact his son was not gay.

Jeremy told his older son when a book was being published featuring him with the author, an erstwhile lover. He says with a smile: “I was touched because he just said he was glad that I'd decided to get married, otherwise he and his brother wouldn't have existed.”

The marriage ended, however, when the sons had grown up, although he remains in good contact with both of them. Jeremy says, “I realised that I am 70% gay and my yearnings for men were very real.”

The main reason why gay men who lived through the years before the 1967 Act got married was a desire to “get over” their gay desires and be able to live “a normal life”.

The torment this has caused so many was the subject of the controversial film Victim (1961) in which Dirk Bogarde plays a lawyer who desperately wants to suppress his homosexual desires, and has tried to sublimate them in marriage and a family. Paul Green, 72, did not marry but lived a young man's life of bitter loneliness, “trying hard not to recognise what it was I wanted”. He visited psychiatrists “hoping they could cure me” but found the attempt depressingly unsuccessful. At the age of 30 he had a nervous breakdown.

A woman who was a teenager in the Sixties, so shocked her parents when she said she was a lesbian that her mother took her for aversion therapy. This involved injections to induce vomiting and electric shocks when pictures of women were shown on a screen. She says wryly: “It put me off women for a time but it didn't make me like men.”

Kay Jenkins, 63, was attracted to women in her teens and early twenties but married young and quickly buried her fears that this had been a mistake, by having a child. She remembers how, in the Sixties, although women did not live in the same fear of being caught having sex as men did, words like “dyke” and “lesbian” were shouted as abuse. Agony aunt Marjorie Proops echoed a widely held view when she wrote: “I, like most other heterosexual women, prefer not to think about lesbianism.”

It was in this climate that Kay fell in love with a woman.

“I worked as a photographer and I was away from home on a job. The woman was an old friend – I'd always had close emotional relationships with women – and suddenly it turned into something more. It felt momentous but also the most natural thing in the world.” She pauses, looking around the room of her Victorian north London house, where pictures of her son Barney, 26, are displayed. He was three at the time and Kay knew how much society would disapprove of her leaving her husband for another woman – and much more so because she was a mother.

She says: “He went mad when I told him. I assumed it was just jealousy but then I realised the fact I was gay was significant. He immediately rang my oldest friend and said ‘do you realise your best friend is a lesbian?'”

Her worst fear was that she would lose her son. Her husband said he would go for custody: “There had been a number of high-profile custody cases in which husbands had been given the children because it wasn't considered right for them to grow up in a lesbian home. I got the name of a solicitor with some experience in this and she advised me ‘don't admit anything'.” But the thing she believes really swung it was that her husband was foreign and not even European. “Of course I was glad to have my boy but I was shocked when my solicitor said: ‘The judge will probably prefer to award custody to a lesbian than a foreigner'.”

For women now in their fifties, life is in many ways easier. Lula, just 50, has been able to live “a far more boisterous and open life as a gay woman than people born even 10 years earlier”. Even so, when she told her father about her sexual orientation, “he burst into tears and asked where he had gone wrong as a parent. Then he said he'd love me even if I were a cripple!”

When Lisa Saffron, 52, reached her early thirties she very much wanted a child. A short marriage had ended without children and she knew that she was attracted to women. She sees it as a measure of how far things had moved that “Gay women, with a new confidence inspired by gay liberation, were beginning to make the decision to have children on their own.” She asked a gay man, recommended to her by her lover, to be her donor and had a daughter, Dena, in 1985. “It was an act of solidarity. He wanted to help me but not to have involvement as a parent and that suited me.”

The tolerance of gay women living together did not extend to them having children in this way. There was heated public discussion about how children would grow up living with gay parents. Lisa, who four years ago set up Pink Parents, an organisation that offers guidance and support to gay parents, remembers how upsetting all this was to her and to her “very liberal and loving” parents. “Of course I worried about how prejudice against lesbians and gay men would affect my daughter, but in fact I was able to choose a London school where they were very accepting and there were lesbian teachers on the staff.”

Dena felt at ease in her primary school. But when she started secondary school she heard the words “gay” and “lezzie” being used as terms of abuse, with no corrective messages from the teachers. “She felt the hostility and was very intimidated. She had trouble making friends. Even so I really admired her when I was on a radio talk show and, aged 14, she grabbed the phone and said, ‘I want to say my Mum is a lesbian and I don't have any problem with that'.”

When Dena was five years old Lisa got together with Maria, shifting the family shape from single mother to stepfamily. Now, Lisa and Maria remain in a strong relationship and Dena is working and living independently.

The recognition that they will not have children is a great sadness for many gay men who do not want, or feel it right, to marry. Certainly Ian remembers Ken “becoming broody” and long discussions about how they might involve children in their lives. At the time they were living in the borough of Haringey which was advertising for people to foster teenagers.

“We applied, went through the training and in 1990 became almost certainly the first gays in London to foster,” Ian says. “The council, realising how the media might react, asked them to keep quiet about it.” In fact Ian and Ken invited journalists to the happy, caring home they created for the disturbed and needy boys they took in over the years. In 1997 the Daily Express voted them Model Parents.

Far more problematic, says Ian, was the way he was treated by the Church, and this was echoed by other Christian gays I talked to whose faith is central to their lives. Soon after he had met Ken, and realised it would be a serious relationship, he saw the minister at his church to explain the situation. “He appeared to be sympathetic, but I discovered afterwards that as soon as I left, he rang a female friend, assumed to be my girlfriend, and told her to get me into bed as soon as possible ‘and drum this nonsense out of me'.”

Later, when he was nominated as an Elder of the United Reform Church, several people said they would leave if he was ordained and one, a policeman, said that he couldn't tolerate Communion being given to a criminal. Even so, Ian wanted to train for the ministry and went through an assessment. “But at the last minute I was turned down.

I received a letter from the ministry's committee saying, ‘We are aware God is calling you but we are not going to allow it'.” In the end Ian went Oxford to do a theology degree and he was given a commendation to the Church.

He remembers: “I set out looking for churches and was turned down by seven who all knew I was gay.” Angry and disillusioned, he decided to withdraw: “I was not prepared to give up my relationship and live a lie for the sake of ordination, but I felt very let down by the Church. However much acceptance there may now be of gays elsewhere, it's not there on the whole in the Church.”

However, since moving to Devon, where the couple live in a small and, they say, “extremely friendly” village where they are totally accepted, he has been asked to preach at the Minster in Exeter.

One of the most pressing issues for today's ageing gay population is what will happen as they grow old and have no immediate family to share and care. Research by the Sefton Pensioners Advocacy Centre on Merseyside shows that one of the greatest fears of pensioners is finding themselves isolated or living in homes where they cannot acknowledge their sexual orientation. More than 40% of respondents aged 60 or over wanted specific accommodation for lesbians and gay men.

Age Concern too, hs prioritised the needs of gay people as they get older and has a range of specific resources. It also helps gay people get in touch with networks to help with, for example, bereavement.

The bombing of the gay Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street in 1999 was a frightening reminder of the ever-present reality of violent crime against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. Nevertheless, having survived the years when being gay was the love that dare not speak its name, the people I have talked to all say they are living in the best of times so far, because it has become so much easier to live openly and honestly. Even those like Paul Green, who says: “I feel envious of today's young, gay men who can be as flamboyant as they wish and who have not had the battle I've known to get change.” He has a partner and declares, “not to be clandestine feels good. I feel a sense of almost spiritual relief to experience this.”

Gay and lesbian seniors face health quandary: study (theglobeandmail.com, March 14, 2006)

Gay and lesbian seniors are a hidden population in Canada facing huge obstacles in accessing proper health care and social services, a new study from McGill University has found.

The McGill School of Social Work conducted the study on the treatment of gay and lesbian seniors by health care providers and others between 2003 and January of this year. The report, released Tuesday, was based on 90 interviews with seniors, their caregivers and their health care workers in three urban centres -- Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax.

What it found was somewhat shocking.

For example, many gay and lesbian seniors, accustomed to an era where they did not discuss their sexual orientation with anyone, told the researchers that they had never even told their doctors that they were homosexual.

"It cannot be understated that gay and lesbian seniors who grew up prior to the era of gay liberation face considerable obstacles to accessing health care," said McGill School of Social Work professor Shari Brotman.

The researchers found that the gay and lesbian elders would only tell their physicians if asked directly.

Others reported mistreatment if their caregivers or health care providers found out their orientation.

One elderly woman in Vancouver who was quoted in the study said that she was ignored when she asked for help after she was "outed."

"And [the nurse] said, 'Yes. Was that you?' [a lesbian identified in a newspaper article]. I said, 'Yes, it was me.' From then on, I couldn't get anyone to help me out of bed."

In another example of hostility, a gay senior citizen told researchers that he had a home care worker who, when he found out the man was gay, offered to help "save me from this blasphemous...thing."

Dr. Brotman told globeandmail.com in an interview that homosexual seniors not only fear discrimination and hostility in accessing health care, but also come from a time where sexuality was not discussed.

She said researchers actually had trouble finding gay and lesbian seniors to interview because they are such a private, close-knit group of people.

"The prevalent theme throughout all our interviews was 'don't ask, don't tell," the study 's authors said.

"There was an overall passive status toward coming out in face of the health care system."

In terms of the caregivers or the health care providers, the study found that they had mostly a positive attitude toward their charges. That said, there were many who felt that the seniors' sexual orientation did not make a difference toward how they did their job.

The researchers pointed out, however, that their lack of willingness to openly address identity issues impacted their ability to "provide a strong system of support to gay and lesbian seniors."

Additionally, when the researchers interviewed the health service providers, many said they did not have clients they could actually identify as gay or lesbian.

"This exemplifies the real invisibility of gay and lesbian seniors in the health system," the report said.

On a more positive note, the study found that many seniors who had spent most of their lives hiding their sexual orientation or living in fear of discrimination felt freer to be themselves during their senior years. For many, it was because they were not in a rigidly heterosexual workplace any more. The average age of those interviewed for the study was 67.

However, Dr. Brotman said many fear being put into institutionalized care when their health deteriorates because they are afraid they will have to give up the freedom that they have earned by entering institutions that may either ignore homosexuality or be hostile toward it.

"Losing their autonomy and requiring health care again makes them quite afraid," she said. "People are afraid of going back into the closet."

Overall, the study found that the current climate of awareness of gay and lesbian issues and general acceptance in Canadian society doesn't translate into proper services for the elderly in that category.

Dr. Brotman said she and her researchers will use the study to encourage proper training at all levels of the health care system, including courses for university students in health professions, ongoing learning for health care workers, and education for organizations and institutions and the voluntary organizations associated with the elderly.

"We need to try reaching out in different ways," she said.

Past caring (society.guardian.co.uk, April 12, 2006 )

Older people face discrimination even in death, writes Paul Cann, so if you want to improve your chances of good quality palliative care, you had better die young

Ask anyone how they would like to spend their final days and most will probably say they want to die in quiet, peaceful privacy. Perhaps at home, or in a private hospital or hospice room, surrounded by family.

The reality is otherwise. Too many older people are not getting the kind of death they would want.

The opportunity to go into a hospice or to die at home declines the older you get. Less than one in 10 older people who die from cancer do so in a hospice, compared with one in five cancer sufferers overall.

Most older people die in hospital, reportedly not where most would like to die.

"Most of us want to die in our sleep, but worry it won't happen," said one older person in a focus group on attitudes to death carried out by Help the Aged last year. "I fear I will be put on a geriatric ward and just left there to die."

Shockingly, a new Help the Aged survey, this time of 800 health practitioners, offers little reassurance to older people fearing an undignified death.

Together with Health Service Journal and Nursing Times, we asked doctors, nurses and social care staff from across hospitals, care homes and hospices about care provision for dying older people. The stark results reveal that the age discrimination older people face continues even into death.

Some 59% of medical practitioners said older people who are dying receive a worse level of care than a dying younger person. If you want to improve your chances of good quality palliative care, well, you had better die young.

There is even a hierarchy in terminal illnesses. Older people dying from a non-cancer related illness receive a poorer standard of care than those with cancer, according to two-thirds of doctors and nurses who work regularly with older people.

As one respondent put it: "Our policy does not allow for dying patients to have a side room. We allow patients to die in a six-bedded bay, due to side rooms being kept for MRSA patients, who are more often than not walking around the hospital anyway."

Our survey revealed that although a huge majority of health professionals agree that their time would be well spent with those who are dying, just listening and reassuring, nearly two thirds said they did not have the time.

Even if they did have the time, many health professionals are held back by social taboos preventing them from discussing openly with patients about how they would like to approach death.

Older people who are dying often face additional conditions including pain and discomfort, sensory deprivation, arthritis and depression.

Two in three medical practitioners working with older people, responding to our survey, said these complaints are often overlooked.

At Help the Aged, we believe everyone has the right to a dignified death, whether child, teenager, young adult or older person. The resounding message from many older people facing death is that they want to be treated as equal human beings, with emotions, feelings and spiritual needs, and not as a machine that needs fixing, or else discarding.

In society, as well as in medical priorities, there needs to be a change in our attitude towards older people. Too many of us believe dying is what "they" do, and do not think about it happening to us.

So the change must start with attitudes, and continue with training. Half of medical practitioners working with older people have never received specific training to help them deal with people as they die. Well over half said they would benefit from such training.

Help the Aged is calling for compulsory training and support for all health and social care staff who work with older people, to allow them to deliver high-quality care for those who are dying.

Hospitals, care homes and hospices should also put in place better policies for dealing with dying older patients. Policies where communicating with patients about their needs, how they would like to die and easing any related suffering becomes paramount.

Half of our survey respondents said there were no such policies in place where they worked.

Health authorities, care homes and even homecare providers should also introduce strict checks to ensure their provision of care for dying older people is of the same high standard as that provided to younger patients.

Overall, we would do better to listen to older people about how they feel about death and dying, how they would like to be treated, and what their needs are.

Older people should be made aware of the choices available to them, and each option should bring palliative care of the highest quality, offering dignity and some sense of fulfilment.

It is possible to die in dignity and comfort, in the setting you choose. Pioneering approaches and first-rate practice exists in a number of places across the country, stimulated by the new "care pathways" and led by the best professionals.

The government's important, but insecure, End of Life care programme must seize on this work and ensure it becomes normal practice. Dying well should not be a roll of the dice.

We should all be committed to older people enjoying a good quality life. But older people have the right to a good quality death too.

· Paul Cann is the director of policy at Help the Aged

NHS launches dignity drive for elderly patients to end neglect (observer.guardian.co.uk, April 16, 2006)

The neglect of the elderly in the NHS will be targeted this week under new guidelines forcing hospitals to respect patients' dignity.

Professor Ian Philp, the government 'tsar' on services for old people, admitted pressure to treat more patients had meant elements of basic care were being left behind.

Breaches of respect - shouting at patients, failing to ensure they are properly fed and clothed, or allowing them to soil themselves - will in future be treated as seriously by health watchdogs as failure to meet waiting-time targets, he said.

The new standards follow a string of reports revealing how elderly patients have suffered malnutrition when meals were whisked away before they could eat them, or been shunted between wards for no medical reason. The worst cases involved emotional or physical cruelty.

'Things happen to older people that, if they happened to children, would end up in the criminal courts, but don't even get mentioned: they're swept under the carpet,' Philp told The Observer.

'I had a lady in my outpatient clinic who had two broken arms and I couldn't find out from her notes what had happened. She told me, "That's what happens if you speak up for yourself." It happened to her, she said, in a care home.'

Such cases should be prosecuted, he said, but the everyday humiliations of thoughtless or disrespectful care would be tackled by a tougher inspection regime.

Checks by the NHS Healthcare Commission will now cover 'dignity' issues, he said. Hospitals will be expected to encourage patient complaints and view breaches of dignity as, 'as much of a system failure as a breach of a four-hour wait in an emergency unit,' with the same sanctions. These mean hospitals can be downgraded in national ratings and, in the worst instances, face intervention to improve their performance.

However, there will be no extra money to pay for enforcing the new regime, which will be a tough task because two-thirds of adult patients in acute hospitals are now over 65.

Gordon Lishman, director of Age Concern, welcomed the moves but called for 'a commitment by the government that money to deliver services is available', adding: 'Not one more older person should suffer undignified, inequitable or disconnected healthcare.'

Care home inspectors 'collude with abuse' (society.guardian.co.uk, December 11, 2003)

Health and social care inspectors are failing to protect elderly care home residents from abuse and neglect, an older people's charity warned a parliamentary inquiry today.

The charity Action on Elder Abuse (AEA) accused the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) of repeatedly failing to properly investigate the abuse of older people or take action against the perpetrators.

In a written submission to the Commons health select committee's inquiry into elder abuse, which begins today, the AEA expressed "grave reservations" about the commitment of the two regulatory bodies to safeguarding the welfare of elderly care home residents.

The charity said the NMC operated like "an old boys club" as it allowed nurses to simply vouch for their colleagues rather than thoroughly checking whether they have a criminal record.

It said the council "was increasingly being seen as an extension of the nurses' trade unions", particularly since 2002 when it decided to allow a convicted child abuser to stay on the nursing register.

With regards to the NCSC, the charity said its priority appeared to be maintaining a good public image and warm relations with care home owners, rather than ensuring quality care for vulnerable older people.

The commission's failure to make clear to care homes what practices were unacceptable, and to listen to the concerns of elderly residents, amounted to condoning and colluding with abuse and neglect, the AEA added.

It said: "There has to be a threshold... of abuse and seriousness in terms of the impact of abuse or neglect that commands immediate enforcement and closure. To do less is to condone and collude, and to leave it to someone else to pick up the pieces."

The AEA also criticised the government for failing to address elderly abuse in the national service framework for older people, which aims to eradicate age discrimination in health and social care services.

It said: "A major flaw within the NSF is that it does not even address elder abuse as an identified category requiring attention."

The health select committee inquiry will also hear evidence today from the charity Help the Aged, the Registered Nursing Homes Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services.

California measure would help gay seniors (advocate.com, April 26, 2006)

On Tuesday the California assembly committee on aging and long-term care approved a bill that would require the California Department of Aging to ensure that a variety programs and services targeted to elders also account for the needs of gay seniors. The measure passed on a 3–1 vote and will now move to the assembly committee on appropriations.

“LGBT seniors are denied many of the vital protections afforded by marriage that provide comfort and security in older age,” said Seth Kilbourn, political director for the gay rights group Equality California. “This legislation will enhance California’s ability to meet the unique challenges that face these individuals and that result from lifelong experiences of marginalization.”

"California already leads the nation in protecting LGBT couples and families—it’s time to focus our attention on our LGBT elders,” said gay assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco. “By requiring the state to assess the unique challenges they face in their later years, we can better understand their needs and provide culturally competent and appropriate services.”

Wilton Manors gun group promotes self-defense for gays (sun-sentinel.com, Monday, May 22, 2006)

Their motto is "Armed gays don't get bashed."

Joani McBride explains: "A., I'm female, and, B., I'm little. You know, I'm fairly defenseless. But honey, a .357 [Magnum] beats four aces every time."

A gun aficionado for three decades, McBride knows the difference between a Colt Commander .45 ACP and the Charter Arms Bulldog .44, her two favorite handguns. And she knows how to point them if she has to -- she did once, at a knife-wielding attacker in Colorado.

McBride is 62. She is 5-foot-4, 130 pounds. She is one of 25 members of the Wilton Manors chapter of the Pink Pistols, an international gay and lesbian gun advocacy group.

"We're as ordinary as dirt," McBride said. "We're just shooters who happen to be gay."

On a recent practice day, McBride met at the Arizona Shooting Range in Lauderdale Lakes with four other members to aim a black Glock 9-millimeter semiautomatic at an orange torso-shaped target dangled on a retractable mount 15 feet away. Ready, aim, shoot.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Pistols member Dan Dugan of Homestead was packing a Lorcin .380 semiautomatic pistol his father gave him for Christmas. It was his first time shooting. He wants to fight the perception that "gay people are wimps."

"There's a stereotype that gay people are easy targets," said Dugan, 54. "Gay people are targeted many times for no other reason than the fact that we are gay. We should be able to defend ourselves."

That's the aim of the club.

The Pink Pistols started in Boston in 2000 when founder Doug Krick read an online article calling on gay people to form "pink pistol" task forces.

In Florida in 2004, 45 hate crimes motivated by victims' sexual orientation were reported to police, representing about 18 percent of all hate crimes, according to federal statistics.

Today, there are between 7,000 and 10,000 members in 43 Pink Pistols chapters throughout the United States and Canada, according to Gwen Patton, national spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania-based group.

"We're here to send the message that members of the sexual minorities are not valid victims for random hate and violence," said Patton, adding that not all the members are gay.

The Pink Pistols was just what Michael Hennessy of Fort Lauderdale was looking for.

"I felt a sense of empowerment," said Hennessy, 62, after shooting a gun for the first time at the Pistols practice. "I wanted a specific gay identity group. I didn't want a political group. I just wanted to learn how to shoot."

The shooting session over, Dugan pulled the silhouette target off the mount and reviewed his marks. "Not bad," he said.

Dugan and Hennessy rolled up their targets (you always keep your first target) and followed the others across the street to Denny's, where the group shared shooting stories and tips on how to use, store and clean their guns.

They ate cheesecake and left black gunpowder thumbprints on their coffee mugs.

"You know what the nice thing about the Glock is?" someone asked. "You can stick it in your dishwasher to clean it."

California Assembly Passes Gay Seniors Bill (365gay.com, Friday, June 2, 2006)

Legislation that requires the state of California to deliver programs and services targeted to LGBT seniors passed the Assembly on Thursday.

The Older Californians Equality and Protection Act is aimed at ensuring that the California Department of Aging accounts for the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors in all of its programs and services.

The measure passed by a 48-32 vote and now goes to the Senate.

"California's LGBT seniors deserve to live their golden years with dignity and stability," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).

By 2030, one in five Americans will be 65 or older. Roughly four million of these will be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

LGBT elders face a number of particular concerns as they age according a recent report by the Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

LGBT elders often do not access adequate health care, affordable housing, and other social services that they need, due to institutionalized heterosexism.

Several studies of nursing home administrators, Area Administration on Aging directors and health care providers found widespread homophobia among those entrusted with the care of America's seniors.

As a result many older gays and lesbians retreat back into the closet, reinforcing isolation.

California with the largest population of gay and lesbian couples of any state could see increasing problems for older gays, Equality California, the states largest LGBT rights group said.

"LGBT seniors should be able to take advantage of any government service that is available to all older Californians," said Seth Kilbourn, Equality California political director.

"The elder LGBT community has unique needs that should be considered in current and future state programs administered through the Department of Aging."

Saul Friedman: Time to recognize gay seniors (newsday.com, Saturday, June 3, 2006)

In the 50-plus years that I have been covering civil rights and the other human issues of our day, the nation and older Americans have come a long way in their understanding and genuine acceptance of people who are gay. Now it's time to go a bit further.

June is Gay Pride month, and a letter from Karen Taylor reminds me that there are perhaps 75,000 New Yorkers older than 60 who are lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders (LGBT). As she put it, they are "a part of the senior community we rarely hear about." In all of the columns I've written for seniors, I have yet to deal with the problems and hopes of this older population. So it's about time.

Taylor, 48, a longtime worker with the elderly, is the full-time director of Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), in Queens, one of four such groups in New York State (the others are in Syracuse, Manhattan and one is just getting organized on Long Island).

A program in Brooklyn, called Griot Circle, serves gay and lesbian seniors of color.

Queens, says Taylor, is the borough with the largest population of seniors in the city, with more that 400,000 men and women older than 60. That translates to perhaps 20,000 to 40,000 gay, lesbian or bisexual older men and women in Queens. And I figure there are as many as 5 million gay or lesbian older Americans.

Sadly, however, they are often described as an "invisible" minority, for unlike their counterparts in the younger generations, older lesbians and gays tend to guard their anonymity. And too often a gay man or lesbian grows older and encounters all the problems and fears of aging in silence, without the help of a son or daughter or grandchild.

The American Society on Aging found a couple of years ago that two thirds of gays and lesbians are likely to live alone. According to Taylor, New York's Brookdale Center on Aging says more than 90 percent of gay and lesbian elders live alone, 80 percent have no partner and 20 percent have no one to turn to if they need help.

Older gays are part of the psychology of their own generation that had little understanding of homosexuality and often not even their longtime neighbors know of their sexual preference. More often older gays and lesbians have simply not come out of the closet, a move which would help them survive among their middle- and working-class peers. They still fear the loss of jobs, services, friends and even family. Or they become targets of gossip and the butt of jokes.

While younger gays are more likely to acknowledge and openly celebrate their sexual orientation through various organizations, Taylor noted that most agencies for older Americans do not offer services for gays and lesbians. And she says many gays and lesbians who are "out" do not feel welcome at some senior centers.

The Journal of Gerontological Social Work found that 75 percent of social workers in New York State's nursing homes reported problems in the workers' attitudes towards gay and lesbian residents. And The Gerontologist reported that many older gays and lesbians hid their sexual orientation from physicians and other health care workers, thus risking a worsening of their health problems.

According to The Gerontologist, older gay men and lesbians "mistrust the health and social service networks as a result of lifelong experiences of ... oppression."

That's where the nationwide network of LGBT elder centers, and the SAGE groups, come in. Taylor, whose Queens group operates as a program of the Forest Hills Community House, offers her clubhouse in the Jackson Heights Community Services Center as a safe haven for gays, lesbians and their friends. Programs include monthly "socials," classes, group trips and professional counseling on such elder issues as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Gays and lesbians living with longtime partners are denied the same rights of survivorship to Social Security benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Taylor says the LGBT community estimated that $124 million a year in survivor benefits are lost because Social Security does not recognize same-sex unions.

Veteran Congressman Joseph Crowley, a Democrat who lives in Woodside and represents Queens and the Bronx, is a co-sponsor of a bill, the Equal Access to Social Security Act, to add the term "permanent partner" to the program to allow surviving partners and children the same benefits as married couples.

SAGE/Queens, where the minimum age is 50, will be holding an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow, coincident with a Gay Pride parade that begins at noon in Jackson Heights, at 89th and 37th avenues. The club holds a Pride social next Saturday. If you're interested, call 718-533-6459.

On another subject, a Medicare Part D note: Some readers have already expressed surprise that they are closer to the so-called doughnut hole, where they will be responsible for all expenses. That's because they didn't figure in the price their insurance company is paying for their medicine. The initial benefit of $2,250, you remember, includes your deductible, if any, the co-pays and the cost of the drug paid by your insurer.

I would like to hear from you when you get close to or exceed $2,250 and fall into the doughnut hole. Depending on your experience, some lawmakers are seeking to raise the initial benefit or eliminate the doughnut hole. Let's help them.

Aging gays fuel specialized housing market (seattlepi.nwsource.com, Saturday, June 10, 2006)

Like other gay men in their golden years, Jack Norris and Seymour Sirota had heard the horror stories.

An elderly lesbian couple is housed on separate floors of a nursing home and kept from seeing each other. A gay retired college professor feels compelled to keep his sexual orientation a secret after his roommate at an assisted living facility asks to be transferred.

"I thought, 'We are not going to be in that situation,'" the 67-year-old Norris says crisply. "This is not going to happen to us in our final days."

That's how the two New Yorkers, partners for 14 years, landed at Rainbow Vision, a just-completed senior community in Santa Fe, N.M. From the private dining room named after Truman Capote to the cabaret where '60s teen icon Lesley "It's My Party" Gore was scheduled to appear this weekend, everything about the 146-unit retirement village was designed with the comfort of graying gays and lesbians in mind.

As the generation of gay men and lesbians who came out in the 1960s and '70s reaches retirement age, about a dozen specialized senior developments across the country are either up and running or in the works.

In such senior-heavy locales as California, Arizona and Florida, as well as less traditionally gay-friendly places like North Carolina and Texas, builders have found a market in a segment of the gay population that worries getting old will mean going back in the closet.

"In a retirement community, you want to be with people of like minds and like interests, whether it's a golf community or a religious community," said Bonnie McGowan, who is spearheading Birds of a Feather, a second gay senior complex in New Mexico. "Until I feel safe walking down the street holding a woman's hand ... and not feel like I'm going to offend even one person, there is a need for this."

Besides personal safety, specialists in gay aging issues offer other reasons why the so-called Stonewall Generation, named for the 1969 New York riots that marked the beginning of the modern gay movement, needs and craves places of its own to retire.

Among them are the years of stigma and isolation many gays who are over 50 experienced, that may have left them estranged from their families, financially insecure and childless.

"There is a real sense of disenfranchisement and also a sense of independence, of 'I don't want to be dependent on family, I want to be dependent on community,'" said Judy Dlugacz, founder of the San Francisco-based lesbian travel company Olivia Cruises and Resorts.

Olivia is currently scouting land in the Palm Springs area for what Dlugacz hopes will be the first of several high-end resort communities geared toward mature lesbians who are looking either for a vacation home or a place to retire.

Joy Silver, developer of Rainbow Vision, also plans to expand to Palm Springs, a desert community already popular with gay tourists.

"Back in the day, we could identify each other because the only place to be gay was a gay bar," said Silver, who views her Santa Fe property as somewhere for baby boomer gays to live their later years as residents of a majority.

"Now, we have more options and we may be more out, but it's still going to be hard to find friends or partners," she said. "It doesn't help to live in a gay-friendly community without any other gay people."

Along with second chances - Silver is planning to throw a prom party "for those of us who didn't go to senior prom with the person we wanted to" - Rainbow Vision was designed to foster a sense of immediate belonging.

The fitness center was named after lesbian tennis pioneer Billie Jean King, for example, while services for those requiring ongoing medical care reflect lessons learned from the AIDS crisis. The 26 rented assisted living units comprise a section of the complex called The Castro, after the San Francisco neighborhood that has long been a center of gay culture.

"Just as we have set the trends in music and fashion, (gays and lesbians) will be setting trends for the redefinition of family and community," Silver said.

Steven David, a postdoctoral psychology fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles who counsels and researches older gay men, said the concept of gay senior housing gets mixed reviews from his clients. He has spoken to some who think living in a gay environment sounds fun and others who think it sounds awful, "just like some straight people like retirement communities and some don't."

Meanwhile, some in his field oppose the idea of separate communities for gay seniors, which also have taken off in Canada and parts of Europe, as voluntary self-segregation. "There has been an argument of, 'Should we be creating these places in the first place or forcing society to accept us?'" he said.

For his part, Jack Norris says that battle can wait for the next generation.

He spent years in a job where he had to silently endure anti-gay jokes. Sirota, who is 80, did not tell his family he was gay until the two men got together.

Norris said even talking publicly about their new life at Rainbow Vision felt like a revolutionary act.

"Seymour was worried maybe we would be getting too much exposure," he said. "But then I said, 'We need to be like Rosa Parks. We can't sit in the back of the bus.'"

The Gray Agenda (sfgate.com, Sunday, June 11, 2006)

This town is swimming in gays and chock-full of bars. Though gays lay claim to many of those bars, there are enough left over to keep the straights sloshed, too. But there is a strange lack of middle ground in San Francisco -- call them gray bars -- that attract a good mix of gay and straight people at the same time.

San Francisco's neighborhoods, politics, workplaces and social settings are already pretty integrated with and accepting of the "alternative lifestyles" -- but they don't seem terribly alternative here. It's less surprising to have a transgender co-worker than it is to have a Republican one. But though some 10 percent of the city population is GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender), there are only a handful of watering holes where 10 percent (or more) of a bar crowd is. Can't we all just drink along?

Certainly much of this separatism has less to do with antipathy between orientations and more to do with romantic opportunity. People go to bars to socialize, but also to look for love, and the odds of finding a gay husband are significantly higher in the Castro than in North Beach. This explains why bars that go gray are usually populated by younger people -- clientele less likely to be looking for a lifetime commitment as a chaser for tequila shots. Likewise, restaurants and other mellow scenes are more mixed between gay and straight patrons because many of those patrons are already coupled.

What gray bars may lack in mate-shopping possibilities they make up for in atmosphere. People are more receptive to starting up conversations with strangers when they're not worried about those strangers trying to cop a feel. In gray bars, the other features of the venue stand out -- the quality of the drinks, the music and the people you meet.

Here's a toast to these few, proud gray bars and the people who patronize them. Maybe they'll inspire you to stop by, meet in the middle and to create new gray bars -- you have the power.

Amber A sexy and oh-so-stylish crowd of straight and gay people in their 30s packs into Amber to check each other out and pick each other up through the thick, misty haze of (legally allowed) cigarette smoke. The Safeway-adjacent bar is reminiscent of a basement family room from the 1960s (when everybody smoked) with a brown and orange color scheme, worn leather and fabric couches to sit on and faux wood-grain speaker cabinets on which to set your drinks. Those drinks are not plastic tumblers full of Tang but top-shelf mojitos and Manhattans served out of extra-large martini glasses. Caution: Have two of them and you'll lose all sense of gaydar. Amber, 718 14th St. (415) 626-7827.

The Phone Booth This off-the-beaten path bar in the Mission is named for its small size rather than its best feature. That honor is held by the jukebox, filled with music from snob-pleasing indie rock albums. After cramming a popcorn machine and pool table into the place, there's not a lot of room to stand and have a drink. Luckily, hipsters don't take up much space. The regulars are young queer and straight people with messy hair and shaggy clothes, who come in small groups (big groups wouldn't fit) to experience the neighborhood bar feel -- even if they don't live in the neighborhood. The Phone Booth, 1398 South Van Ness Ave. (415) 648-4683.

Pop's Pop's and the Phone Booth have more than their proximity in common. At both places the drinks are cheap, the pool table is always in use and the patrons are hip, tattooed, just-rolled-out-of-bed looking, bike-riding gay and straight folks in their 20s. But at Pop's you'll see more lesbians, hear more heavy metal and have more distractions, including a photo booth, a pinball machine and a tabletop Ms. Pac Man game. To complete the gray bar theme, one of the TVs is tuned to a ballgame and the other to something queer, like "American Idol." Pop's, 2800 24th St. (415) 401-7677.

El Rio El Rio is your everyday, outer Mission, downscale, indoor/outdoor, multiroom venue that hosts happy hours, barbecues, open-air movie nights, an outrageously popular Sunday salsa party and live bands with names like Deathship Lollipop and the Sound of Urchin. It's populated by a mix of neighborhood Latinos, lesbian hipsters, bargain drinkers and rock 'n' rollers. What more could you want -- free oysters? Duh, of course they have free oysters. El Rio, 3158 Mission St. (415) 282-3325.

The Orbit Room After 5 p.m., his sunny cafe-by-day is a favorite of medium-size groups of shiny preppy people, who range from co-workers to networkers to book clubs to birthday parties to pre-dinner daters. On each early evening visit, the gay-to-straight ratio changes dramatically, depending on which groups share the space. And visiting early on is highly recommended, as the bartender's station is about the size of an office cubicle, making it impossible to distribute fancy drinks at any reasonable speed. The upside is that the crowds who come here are congenial and patient because the famous cocktails with fresh ingredients like tarragon and hibiscus are well worth the wait. The Orbit Room, 1900 Market St. (415) 252-9525.

Wild Side West Bernal Heights is a semi-sleepy neighborhood populated with big families, young straight couples, tree-hugger types and lots of lesbians, and many of them hang out in this bar. Upstairs the Wild Side looks like a saloon, with old wooden floors and features, and acts as a neighborhood clubhouse. The downstairs patio is filled with tiny nooks separated by oversize plants and junkyard art. Everything about this place is laid-back, welcoming and funky -- in many ways the spirit of San Francisco. Wild Side West, 424 Cortland Ave. (415) 647-3099.

Chaise Lounge Catercorner from Wild Side West is Chaise Lounge, a former dive that underwent a metrosexual makeover with an emphasis on sleek decor and top-shelf drinks. Wednesday is ladies night, Friday night belongs to the straight crowd, and the rest of the time the mix depends on who walks in, who throws a party, or which DJ is spinning. The crowd is like a box of chocolates -- you never know what you're gonna get until you poke it with your finger and hope brandy squishes out. Chaise Lounge, 309 Cortland Ave.

Lush Lounge Q: When is a piano bar not a piano bar? A: When they get rid of the piano because it's taking up too much space. The rest of the Lush Lounge's Old Hollywood features remain, with photos of crooners like Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank and Nancy Sinatra still hanging on the one wall that isn't made of glass or mirrors. The drinks keep to the classy/campy theme and include a house specialty mojito and a slushie-style frozen watermelon martini. The changes to this venue mirror those to the neighborhood, as the classically queer Polk Street gets straighter, but during happy hour corporate casual representatives of every orientation share space and trade conversation at the bar. The Lush Lounge, 1092 Polk St. (415) 771-2022.


TOUCHES OF GRAY

At the Arrow Bar (10 Sixth St.), it's hard to tell who's what because the people in the fashion-forward crowd looks as if they go to art school -- in 1984. The Castro-adjacent restaurant Mecca (2029 Market St.) often features a gay-adjacent bar crowd. When the Rickshaw Stop (155 Fell St.) hosts indie rock and punk-pop dance parties it gives off a subtle gay glow. The straight biker bar Zeitgeist (199 Valencia St.) is slightly gray on Sunday afternoons, and the gay biker bar the Eagle Tavern (398 12th St.) goes totally gray on rock 'n' roll Thursday nights. The formerly gay Transfer (198 Church St.) may eventually go straight but, for now, it's having fun flirting with bisexualism. -- Camper English

* Camper English is the author of "Party Like a Rock Star Even When You're Poor as Dirt" (Alyson 2005).

Gay village opens for pensioners (theherald.co.uk, Monday, June 12, 2006)

A retirement complex in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is the latest in the US to open for gay men and lesbians.

As a generation of gay men and lesbians who came out in the 1960s and 1970s reaches retirement age, about a dozen specialised developments across the country are opening or in development.

Builders have found a market where members of the gay population worry that getting old will mean concealing their sexuality.

Besides issues of safety, many gays who are over 50 have experienced years of stigma and isolation that might have left them estranged from their families.

Joy Silver, developer of Rainbow Vision, a 146-unit village in Santa Fe, also plans to expand to Palm Springs.

Homes for gay elderly planned in Ohio City (cleveland.com, Saturday, July 1, 2006)

The location of a proposed housing project catering to gay people has been moved from a downtown Cleveland site to the Ohio City neighborhood.

A Place for Us Development Inc., a nonprofit group focusing on the needs of elderly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, had planned to build a $30 million, 250-unit condominium complex in the downtown Warehouse District.

Because of financing problems, the project was recently downsized and moved to less-expensive property, said Linda Krasienko, president of the group.

The new proposal is a $15 million, 57-unit complex on an empty lot on the southeast corner of West 28th Street and Detroit Avenue. "I've been working on this for nine years," said Krasienko, noting that most assisted-living facilities would not allow aging gay or lesbian couples to live together.

"There's a need for a facility that's sensitive to the needs of the gay and lesbian community, to provide respect and dignity to them as they age," she said.

A Place for Us is open to all ages, though it will focus on activities and needs of the elderly, said Krasienko, who lives in Westlake and is a deacon at a gay church in Lakewood.

The price range for units in the new proposal range from $160,000 to $250,000. Krasienko said she hopes to break ground this year and open within a year.

"I hope no surprises come up this time," she said.

Gay seniors settle into a niche (usatoday.com, Monday, July 3, 2006)



Jack Norris and Seymour Sirota feared ending up like a lot of older gay men they know — no children, partners dead or gone, families estranged, little to do but sit in their New York City apartments hoping the phone rings.

The couple tried retiring in Tampa but never felt comfortable there. They considered Sun City Center, Fla., until they heard about gay men who had moved in and promptly fled back into the closet. "We didn't want to go that route, not at this point in our life," Norris says.

RainbowVision, the nation's first retirement village aimed at gay men and lesbians, seemed a perfect fit. A visit to arts-happy Santa Fe, a high-desert cultural oasis with a gay-friendly reputation, sealed the deal. They put their Tampa place and Upper West Side co-op on the market.

Moving to a new $361,000, three-bedroom condo put Norris, 67, and Sirota, 79, on the leading edge of an emerging niche in the USA's booming retirement market. Communities tailored to gay seniors have been a dream, gay advocates say, ever since the gay-rights movement was born after the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York's Greenwich Village, a clash of police and drag queens after a raid on a gay bar.

But only recently have projects gotten off the ground: all-inclusive places like RainbowVision; conventional subdivisions that market homes or lots to gays; non-profit urban ventures that include affordable housing; and hybrids of all three.

A few have acquired land and are moving forward, says the American Society on Aging, including subdivisions in Pecos, N.M., and Zionville, N.C., urban condos and apartments in Boston and Los Angeles, and a lodge with cottages, town houses and nursing units in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Palms of Manasotas in Palmetto, Fla., the first to pitch retirement housing to gays in 1997, is in Phase 2 of constructing condos and single-family houses.

RainbowVision, 146 condos and rental units on 13 acres, opened with a party June 10. Twenty or so singles and couples already had moved in as "El Centro," the village's amenity-laden social center, got finishing touches.

Residents can eat in El Centro's cafeteria, work out in the Billie Jean King Fitness Center & Spa, book a massage, take a yoga or Pilates class, soak in a hot tub, sign up for physical therapy and acupuncture, or treat themselves to facials.

There are art studios, meeting rooms, a lounge and cabaret. Assisted-living apartments on the top floor are an option when residents grow frail but don't want to leave.

RainbowVision is sold out with a waiting list. It has attracted middle- and upper-middle-class gays from across the country. Its gay-owned development company is building a second, larger project in Palm Springs, Calif.

"People say, 'Why did you create a gay and lesbian community?' " says Joy Silver, RainbowVision's founder and president. "But nobody ever says, 'Why did you create a golf community?' So my question is, why wouldn't you have a gay and lesbian community?"

Gay senior communities don't exclude straights. Dina Rubinstein, a 90-year-old great-grandmother, picked RainbowVision after a long search. "I can't stand the regular retirement places," she says. "They're just for old people."

Limited options for gay seniors

The gay senior market is large, but no one knows quite how large. Census forms don't ask about sexual orientation. There are 37 million people 65 or older in the USA and 79 million baby boomers approaching retirement age. An estimated 2.9 million gay men and lesbians are over 55, according to SAGE (Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders), a non-profit group that serves gay seniors in New York City.

Like straights, most gays tell surveys they want to grow old at home. RainbowVision and other gay projects appeal to perhaps 10% to 20% of retirees who'll spend their golden years elsewhere.

Either way, gays have different circumstances, advocates say. Almost 90% of gay retirees have no children, and nearly 80% have no partners, SAGE estimates.

Many gays in their 60s or older remain in the closet. "People forget they grew up in a time when every part of society believed gays and lesbians were immoral, suffered from mental illness, when the state outlawed our conduct," says Terry Kaelber, SAGE's executive director.

Legal barriers and social policy further marginalize gay seniors, says Kimberly Acquaviva, a nursing-education professor at George Washington University.

Same-sex partners are denied Social Security survivor benefits. Gay men and lesbians are taxed on 401(k) plans and IRAs that they inherit from partners. They pay estate taxes on jointly owned homes while married couples don't. When a married man or woman goes to a nursing home, his or her spouse can stay in their home. Same-sex partners don't have that right.

Older gays don't trust mainstream institutions, so they're less likely to seek services they need, including hospital care, Kaelber says. That, studies show, leads to higher rates of illness, substance abuse and depression, he says.

"Unfortunately, the gay and lesbian community has been very slow in responding," Kaelber says. "We tend to be youth-focused."

Few conventional retirement communities, assisted-living facilities or nursing homes are sensitive to gay lifestyles, needs and interests. They may not discriminate overtly, but they're not welcoming and inclusive, gay advocates say. In a 2000 study of New York City long-term-care facilities, 13% made sensitivity to sexual orientation part of staff training; 65% dealt with racial and ethnic diversity.

SAGE and other groups have developed programs to teach staffs in senior facilities to be as deferential to gays as other minorities. The training isn't widespread, and many institutions aren't receptive, Kaelber says.

When training deals with transsexuals and other gender non-conformity, sessions get "very electric," Kaelber says. "The gay man who likes to wear some makeup, the lesbian butch who wouldn't be caught dead in a nightgown, how do you treat them?" he says.

'Strong search for community'

Gay men and lesbians, often closer to gay "families of choice" than to their biological families, seek shared values and interests in retirement. "I find this very strong search for community," says Maria Dwight of Gerontological Services Inc., a market research firm in Santa Monica, Calif.

Her surveys identify a gay senior market that is younger — 60s, compared with 70s in traditional retirement communities — and better educated and more affluent.

Gay men and lesbians concentrate in large cities, and urban retirement projects are being built for them, with a twist: They'll also be neighborhood centers extending services to non-residents. Stonewall Audubon Circle, 66 condos in Boston's Fenway neighborhood, and a five-story development of 104 affordable rental units near Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles, incorporate that model.

A similar development called Openhouse is planned in San Francisco. "The irony is that many gay people came here for a safe haven. Yet without housing services to support them as they age, they'll have to leave because it's so expensive," says Moli Steinert, Openhouse's executive director.

RainbowVision's Silver says retirement industry investors considered the gay market too risky when she was trying to bankroll her project. That's changing.

egis Senior Living, developer of 40 retirement projects mostly in California, is building its first for gay men and lesbians, Fountaingrove Lodge in Santa Rosa. "When we looked at the market demographics, it wasn't a stretch," egis president Dwayne Clark says.

Only 10 states ban housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, but opposition to gay projects is as likely to be over land use as bias. Two lesbians in Tallahassee, Fla., challenged a retirement village in 2003 over a policy of excluding same-sex couples and won. The women chose to live elsewhere.

Developer Bonnie McGowan says it wasn't homophobia but NIMBYism — not in my backyard — that united critics of her Birds of a Feather subdivision in Pecos. Opponents sued, lost, appealed to the state supreme court and lost again. "It was more about change," McGowan says.

RainbowVision move-ins confirm the desire for a place where, as Roger Bergstrom says, "I don't have to be afraid to hold my partner's hand and walk down the street."

A retired teacher from Arlington, Va., Bergstrom, 76, hid his sexual orientation until he left the classroom. He and his partner, Barry Baltzley, paid $327,000 for a three-bedroom condo. "When this place fills up, there will be more of a sense of family," Bergstrom says. "I've already met the type of people I hoped I would be living with."

Gay carers in the community (pinknews.co.uk, Monday, July 3, 2006)

This week the Alzheimer’s Society is launching a campaign to raise awareness of dementia, PinkNews.co.uk’s Marc Shoffman discovers the effect of the disease on the gay community.

The phrase “gay community” is often thrown into the ring when talking about same-sex issues such as HIV, discrimination, marriage, and homophobia, but under the rainbow flags and civil partnership certificates, an increasing section of the group appear to be overlooked, despite having unique needs.

For the older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) generation Alzheimer’s disease can cause stress, trauma and hurt that even positive legislation such as civil partnerships and the Equality Act cannot fix.

“How do care homes cope with someone being called a partner who has not had a civil partnership, it’s too late to have a civil partnership as you need consent from both sides, it’s a lot harder to guarantee goods and services to people who cannot speak for themselves,” says Roger Newman, 65, a co founder of the Alzheimer’s Society’s Lesbian and Gay Network, which provides support for gay partners and carers.

It is estimated that in the UK there are between 35,000 and 70,000 lesbian, gay and bisexual people caring for a person with dementia, this is based on the fact that between 5% and 10% of the population is thought to be homosexual and 750,000 people have dementia.

Dementia is a term used to describe various different brain disorders that have in common a loss of brain function that is usually progressive and eventually severe. There are over 100 different types of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s.

Symptoms of dementia include loss of memory, confusion and problems with speech and understanding.

There is a 1 in 5 chance of a person in their 80s having dementia, although many cases are being diagnosed in people as young as 40, the society claims.

Roger joined the helpline after caring for David, his partner of 30 years, who died in 2000 after succumbing to dementia when he was 52.

Roger said: “David had to be sectioned in 1992 because his behaviour was so challenging.

“He went missing from the residential home and was found dead on the beach.”

He was happy to say h[e] and his partner did not experience any negative feelings except for at one time being mistaken for father and son. But many gay and lesbian carers and patients may suffer from memories of anti gay laws and a lack of preparation, “The over 60’s know what its like to be illegal, to experience police entrapment, to lose jobs, and to ensure nobody knows they are gay. They have led reasonably anonymous relationships but are now in the public domain as they will need public services and care,” he said.

He added, “A lot of partners haven’t worked out what to do if that happens, there are sufferers who have made no power of attorney.

“I have spoken to one carer who couldn’t think of anyone who knew they were gay and have dealt with professional service providers calling the help line thinking patients were lesbians but not knowing how to confront the issue.”

The important thing Roger says, is to bring the older generation back into the gay community through raising awareness of their specific needs, “It’s worse than cancer, you are dealing with irrational behaviour, incontinence, anger, violence, and not being able to talk.

“Being in a residential home is a lonely experience, they are not going to ask if you are heterosexual or homosexual, am I going to open The Pink News in the room and read it in the lounge?

“There is a tremendous need here for training of staff who work in residential homes to show empathy and for managers to create a truly inclusive environment for lesbian and gay residents so they don’t have to hide their sexual orientation.

He said that although his late partner‘s care home was very good, “you need support of gay friends and people in that area.

“When David was in a home two gay friends placed a cousin as a resident to the same place, I felt at ease as I was not the only gay in the village.

“The community must be all encompassing, when we talk about being gay it always reverts back to young people.

“You need to look at needs of old people as they will be the majority sooner or later.”

Up until two years ago the Alzheimer’s Society was the only national charity with a dedicated gay section for older people.

The organisation’s Gay and Lesbian Carers Network provides support to partners looking after their loved ones or relatives who may face unique problems such as coming out to medical professionals and homophobia.

The network is funded centrally by the society, but Roger said there is a real difficulty in obtaining long term funding and thus ensuring the social group is adequately represented.

However, the voice of the older LGBT generation appears to be getting louder now with the support of the Age Concern charity.

Age Concern has a national programme that works for older lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, called Opening Doors. The programme gives support and information on what is happening nationally and locally and produces resources, the latest of which, The Whole of Me, addresses the needs of LGB people in residential care.

Mr Newman said: “There is a huge amount of ageism in society in general, things are great when you are active and can look after yourself, but chances are that won’t be forever.”

Alzeimher’s Awareness Week runs from the July 2 2006 to July 8 2006.

Full information about the lesbian and gay carers network can be found on www.alzheimers.org.uk and accessed through the Alzheimer’s Helpline on 0845 300 0336

Gradual disappearance (xtra.ca, Thursday, March 30, 2006)

When David Nixon began to have memory lapses as he was nearing retirement in 1999, he simply attributed them to stress.

But as they became more frequent, the then-65-year-old, who was working for the government as a records analyst in Victoria, started looking for answers with his longtime partner, Ken Sudhues. Finally, in late 2000, he was diagnosed with dementia, a neurological disease that has no cure.

"It was bloody unfair," says Sudhues, who was 44 at the time.

Nixon, now 71, is not alone. According to the Alzheimer Society of BC, 61,000 British Columbians have some form of dementia, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Dementia is generally characterized by a loss of memory, judgment and reasoning, mood changes, and often affects a person's ability to function at work or perform the activities of daily life.

Nixon's diagnosis doesn't prevent him from living his life to the fullest, or from recalling the details of that full life.

Born in Vancouver, he moved east at a young age and spent most of his childhood in Ottawa. At the age of 19, he became a cryptographer for the now-defunct External Affairs department of the Canadian government, a position that took him to places such as Cambodia, Germany, Indo-China and the Congo.

But his life changed at the age of 25, when he requested leave to vacation in Capetown in 1961. He received a surprisingly terse denial from the government and was ordered to return to Ottawa.

After working on Parliament Hill for two weeks, Nixon received a phone call from the RCMP-telling him that they needed to speak with him immediately and he was to hang up the phone, go outside to a waiting car and tell no one that he was leaving. Believing that he was to take part in a secret government mission, Nixon eagerly complied.

What he was confronted with was a tiny, cramped room and a bright overhead light shining in his eyes.

"It was like something out of a bad movie," he recalls. "The opening comment was: 'We have reason to believe you are a homosexual and if you don't resign immediately, we will have to take legal action.'"

For Nixon, this was like a bolt out of the blue. Completely shocked and appalled, he left the government and moved to London, England, where he lived with an actress friend and helped out with electrical work on stage sets. Feeling unfulfilled, he moved back to Canada to live in Montreal, where he sunk into depression.

He was then referred to Dr Ewan Cameron, a psychiatrist at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal who ran experiments for an initiative called MKULTRA, a CIA-directed mind control research project.

Dr Cameron's methods included induced comas, insulin therapy and electroshock therapy. Nixon, who had access to confidential information while working for the government, was subjected to electroshock therapy treatments that completely wiped out his short-term memory.

Though there are no concrete studies that prove a connection between electroshock therapy and neurological disorders, Nixon muses on what might have been.

"I still wonder if those massive electroshock treatments have brought on the onset of this [dementia]," he says.

Nixon moved back to Victoria in 1977. He met his partner a year later when they were introduced by Nixon's goddaughter at a party, and they've been together ever since. They married in 2003.

After Nixon's dementia diagnosis, both men sought help and support from the Alzheimer Society of BC, attending monthly support groups. As far as they know, they are the only same-sex couple in British Columbia who has contacted the Society for assistance.

"There must be other couples out there who are going through this," Sudhues says. "Where are they hiding? Why are they hiding?"

Sudhues and Nixon are open about their relationship in their support groups. They attend meetings separately, with Sudhues in a group for caretakers and Nixon in a group for dementia sufferers.

"We're just open and honest about who we are and always have been," Sudhues says. "I'm not about to go back into the closet."

Still, he says, sometimes he finds meetings a bit awkward. "The pronouns get in the way sometimes. I see people's facial expressions, the winces."

Nixon says being gay isn't an issue in his group.

"It's never come up one way or another," he says. "There's a lot of laughter. We sit around talking about what we forgot last week."

According to Ariela Freidmann, senior manager of communications for the Alzheimer Society of BC, the sexual identity of people seeking help is irrelevant and everyone is welcome at the Society.

"It's really about the support," she says. "People find they have common experiences and struggles. We cater to everybody who needs the support."

Nixon and Sudhues note that their sexuality has not affected the quality of care they've received from an often straight-biased health care system.

"Our relationship has not been a barrier in any way," says Sudhues.

As Nixon's caregiver, Sudhues often takes notes during doctor's appointments and can usually remember things better than Nixon can, making him a great resource for health care practitioners.

"The doctors welcome Ken being there sort of as an interpreter," Nixon says.

For Nixon, the progression of the disease has involved the gradual disappearance of certain skills and knowledge. For example, soon after his diagnosis he lost the ability to drive and voluntarily gave up his license in favour of his bicycle, but then lost the ability to change bicycle gears.

More recently, Nixon has been suffering from "absence attacks," a form of epilepsy that causes him to lose awareness and stare into space.

Sudhues likens Nixon's situation to a computer, where there's very little available space and new information keeps getting rewritten over the same document.

"Every day, there's just a little bit less of David than there was before," Sudhues says. "I've had to stop saying, 'But you used to know that.'"

Nixon's dementia has brought on many life changes for the couple. After the diagnosis, the couple scaled down their lives, selling their home in the suburbs and moving downtown. They also visited their lawyer to work out a representation agreement and power of attorney.

"I think every couple should consider doing this kind of documentation," Nixon says.

Nixon used to take care of the finances, but Sudhues has taken over that task along with the role of caregiver. They have also noted that their circle of friends has gotten smaller, with many friends finding it difficult to deal with Nixon's dementia.

For Nixon and Sudhues, there is a degree of frustration in Nixon's condition. Not only do they sometimes lose patience with one another, but they are disappointed that they don't have the opportunity to fully enjoy Nixon's retirement after all their years of hard work. Still, they are honing their coping and negotiation skills and enjoying life as it comes, taking it day by day.

Both Nixon and Sudhues can't say enough good things about the Alzheimer Society of BC, which they say has been a great source of support and resources. They regret that other same-sex couples haven't sought the help that they have.

"They're missing a great opportunity for assistance and sharing," Sudhues says.

Gay Community Gets Housing Protection (cfn13.com, Tuesday, July 11, 2006)

A new amendment to Orange County's fair housing ordinance adds, among other things, sexual orientation.A new amendment to Orange County's fair housing ordinance adds, among other things, sexual orientation.

The County Commission voted unanimously for the amendment to the 1983 ordinance Tuesday.

The vote was preceded by less than an hour of public comment which was largely in favor of the ordinance.

There were one or two people who spoke against it.

The County Commission voted unanimously for the amendment to the 1983 ordinance Tuesday.

The vote was preceded by less than an hour of public comment which was largely in favor of the ordinance.

There were one or two people who spoke against it.

Orange County's original fair housing ordinance prohibited discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

The new ordinance adds not only sexual orientation, but also disability and familial status, which involves children living with a parent or guardian.

The new ordinance will take effect as soon as it is registered with the state.

Registration usually takes a couple of weeks.

MySpace for boomers comes with death alerts (smh.com.au, Tuesday, August 1, 2006)

A social networking website for Americans aged 50-plus went live on Monday - complete with an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service.

The founder of internet job site Monster.com, Jeff Taylor, launched Eons.com, a similar site to the popular online teen hang-outs MySpace or Facebook for the 50-plus crowd.

Instead of career and school sections, Eons.com has interactive games to build brain strength, news on entertainment and hobbies for older people, a personalised longevity calculator and tips to live longer.

It also has a nationwide database of obituaries dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments.

"The death business is growing," Taylor told Reuters, offering figures showing the number of deaths in the United States rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000, and was projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040.

In addition to adding photos and videos to obituaries, members of Eons.com can sign up to receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

This is similar to email services offered by various other Web sites that alert people when a friend or colleague signs onto a certain site.

"Many people no longer live where they grew up so the idea of a rich story about someone's life in a local newspaper is often lost," said Taylor, who sees online obituaries replacing the traditional death announcements in newspapers.

He said baby boomers, the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, also wanted to have a greater input into their own funerals. This prompted Eons.com to look into a service where people could plan for their favorite songs to be played at their funeral and where friends and family can go afterward for food and drink.

But Taylor, who quit Monster.com last year, said Eons.com's main focus was not death but celebrating turning the Big 5-0 and living the grandest life possible.

Taylor, who is only 45, said he saw the need for Eons.com, for about 44 million of the 86 million Americans aged over 50 are online, but only a few use social networking sites.

This is also a wealthy group, controlling about 67 percent of the nation's wealth - and with plenty of time ahead.

"We now live about 20 years longer than our grandparents," said Taylor. "These are people who want to spend money to save time rather then spend their time trying to save money."

Gay seniors bill passes in California senate (advocate.com, Saturday, September 2, 2006)

A bill that would ensure that the California Department of Aging includes programming for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender seniors as part of its services was passed by the state senate on Thursday and sent to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for consideration. The Older Californians Equality and Protection Act was authored by gay assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco and sponsored by the gay rights group Equality California.

"We applaud the senate for recognizing the need to support one of our most vulnerable populations," said Geoff Kors, Equality California executive director. "We call on the governor to sign this important bill so that LGBT seniors are adequately served by government services that are available to all older Californians.”

Studies have shown that lifelong experiences of marginalization place LGBT seniors at high risk for isolation, poverty, homelessness, and premature institutionalization. Many may avoid accessing services altogether, even when their health, safety, and security depend on it.

"California's LGBT seniors deserve our focus and attention so they can live their golden years with dignity and in comfort," said Leno. "This bill will include them in the design and implementation of all state programs serving the elderly to ensure they are afforded the care and services they need."

There was no word on if and when Schwarzenegger would sign the bill.

Groups push for recognition of LGBT aging issues (advocate.com, Saturday, October 21, 2006)

Though often unrecognized as a crucial issue in the struggle for LGBT rights and equality, the rapidly increasing number of LGBT people aged 65 and over has put a strain on the ability of service agencies to provide for them. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, there are as many as 3 million LGBT senior citizens across the country, and that number is expected to climb as high as 4 million by 2030. Many of these people are without children, single, and often financially unstable due to lack of access to a partner's Social Secutiy or pension benefits.

"This generation includes the LGBT people who came of age with the profound social changes of the 1960s and 1970s," the San Francisco Chronicle reported Gerard Koskovich of the American Society on Aging as saying. "They took part in the gay liberation movement when they were young and they are moving toward old age with expectations that are quite distinct from those of the previous generation of LGBT people who grew up in an era when discretion was the key to survival."

Although organizations for older queer people are emerging in major urban centers in New York, California, and Florida, LGBT seniors are often at higher risk for isolation, financial difficulties and prejudice from caregivers. Brian de Vries, a professor of gerontology (the study of aging) at San Francisco State University, claims his research indicates that nondisclosure of sexual orientation is widespread and presents another obstacle for LGBT seniors seeking reliable healthcare.

The North Berkeley Senior Center has become the first senior organization in the Bay Area to earn the certification of "LGBT friendly" by Lavender Seniors of the East Bay, an LGBT senior group that hopes to compile a nationwide directory of LGBT-friendly senior centers and nursing homes. "So many of our seniors, especially the older ones, have had negative experiences in health care agencies or in community agencies like senior centers," the Chronicle reported Lavender Seniors director Barbara Faulkner as saying.

San Francisco has taken a step in combating the devastating effects of isolation and alienation facing the elderly LGBT population through funding a social support organization that promotes intergenerational dialogue and helps to keep seniors an integral part of the LGBT community.

"I feel like he is one of my professors, in a way" the Chronicle reported 26 year-old Jimmy Ho speaking about his program match Luis Oropeza, 63. "He has a lot to teach me."

Queer, Isn't It?: Gay and Gray (popmatters.com, Friday, October 27, 2006)

Daniel and Kurt have been happily coupled for over 40 years. As an out and proud couple, they have fought homophobia through the worst times of the gay equality movement, and they have taken great pride in the growing acceptance that American society has for homosexuality and gay couples. They had already been together for a couple of years when the ‘69 Stonewall Uprising in New York City sparked the nation’s Gay Rights movement, and both were in their mid-40s before the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality off the list of mental disorders (1973). They lost many of their closest friends in the early years (’80s) of the AIDS epidemic, and cheered ACT UP’s first major demonstration in 1987, which stormed Wall Street in New York to protest the hefty financial profits of AZT manufacturers. Both had retired before the 1993 US Supreme Court ruling declaring sodomy laws unconstitutional. Now in the golden years of their lives, Daniel and Kurt have done something they never thought they would. They’ve gone back into the closet.

Last year, Kurt had a stroke, and Daniel’s weakening health prevented him from taking care of his life partner. Consequently, the two were forced to take up residence in a nursing home, where, they quickly learned, homophobia is rampant and abuse of elderly homosexuals frequent. In the name of self-preservation, they told the staff they were life-long “friends”, not a couple, which means that they can no longer show one another affection, call each other by their pet names, or refer to their past struggles in the fight for gay rights. At least not in front of others.

Daniel and Kurt are a fictional couple, but their plight is neither farfetched nor isolated. Such institutional homophobia against gays has resulted in California’s legislature passing The Older Californians Equality and Protection Act, which is presently waiting for Governor Schwarzenegger’s signature to become law. Mark Leno, Assemblyman from San Francisco, says that the intent of the bill is to insure that aging GLBT residents will be included in “the design and implementation of all state programs serving the elderly to ensure they are afforded the care and services they need.” (”Calif. Passes LGBT Senior Law”) However, the bill is just a band-aid. The struggles of elderly gays and lesbians are spiraling into despair, and few people seem to be paying attention.

Obviously, legislation similar to that in California is needed throughout the entire US. The LGBT Aging Project of Massachusetts reports that, nationwide, almost half of service providers in senior centers declare gay and lesbian seniors unwelcome unless they hide their sexual orientation. And the 1999 New York State of the State Report on Lesbian and Gay New Yorkers observed, “Older people are the greatest users of medical care services, but services for the elderly, including nursing home and residential care, almost never consider the possibility of a LGBT identity.”

The LGBT Aging Project reports that every week 10,000 LGBT individuals reach the age of retirement. For many of them, though, the “golden” years are anything but. Having grown up acutely aware of how homophobia can manifest itself, these individuals become reluctant to make use of public services where they might encounter discrimination, even if that means forgoing necessary medical treatment. Such a disinclination to make use of available services forces elderly homosexuals to rely on family and friends for needed care. But tragically, 68 percent of aging LGBT persons over 50 couldn’t think of a single person who would be willing to provide such care if it was needed. That leaves them alone at a time in their lives when they are more vulnerable to injury, disease, crime, and financial hardship.

It is easy to attribute such a status to a lack of foresight, a failure to plan for the future. However, many of those gay men entering retirement age never expected to live long enough to see senior citizen status. This generation of gay men and women lived through an era when their friends and lovers were dying at an alarming rate; a considerable number still struggle with HIV and AIDS, but thanks to medical advances, they have been living years or decades longer than any one thought they would. It is difficult to plan for a future which may never come. Even without such a pessimistic outlook, the financial burdens of the medical regimen required to keep an AIDS death at bay limits the ability to start a suitable retirement fund.

Elderly LGBT individuals not suffering from the virus still had just cause for not expecting to live to a ripe old age. Having spent their formative years in a time when homosexuals were frequently killed, harassed, or ostracized, countless gay people came to expect a violent end for themselves. Now that they have survived such a culture, their fears aren’t quelled.

Violence against elderly homosexuals is rampant. Those homophobes wanting to vent their rage against queers find mature gays and lesbians easy targets. Why start a fight with a 20-something homosexual who spends time in the gym when you can wail on a 70-something one who struggles with arthritis? How widespread this violence is remains uncertain, as such crimes are usually recorded as being hate crimes against homosexuals or against the elderly, but seldom as being against elderly homosexuals. Additionally, many elderly gay men and women remain in the closet to everyone except their closest friends, so they don’t report hate crimes as being exactly that.

Even within the gay community, discrimination against the elderly is widespread, as young gay men and women often refer to elderly gays as “trolls”, “dyke hags”, or by other unflattering terms. Gay bars and discos are considered the domain of the young, and older gays who frequent them are often ridiculed. Of course, such behavior is consistent with Western culture, which fails to value its elderly, but in a subculture that places high priority on appearance, the loss of physical fitness can be particularly devastating, and the barbs aimed at those who are no longer “players” particularly cruel.

Suppose, though, that a gay couple survived the AIDS epidemic, gay riots, prejudicial senior services, and thugs preying on the old. They’ve worked for generations, contributed to society at least as much as their heterosexual counterparts, if not more - they may even have overcome housing discrimination and bought a home together, thus becoming part of the economy-stabilizing middle class. They should have a happy and peaceful retirement, right? Not necessarily. Because gay and lesbian couples have no legal protections, they must have a slew of legal documents drawn up to insure they share the same rights as married heterosexual couples. A surviving partner could lose his or her home and finances, as well as custody of adopted children or pets without appropriate legal documents. Likewise, gay and lesbian individuals can be denied visitation rights should a partner be admitted to the hospital; they have no role in important medical decisions, can’t identify bodies in the case of death, and can be excluded from planning funeral arrangements.

These problems for LGBT elderly persons are not just an American phenomenon. News agencies in the UK, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Australia report that aging LGBT individuals and couples have experienced some, if not all, of the same discrimination and harassment in those countries as well, despite the fact that many of those countries are more progressive in their attitudes towards alternate lifestyles.

All in all, it would seem to be a pretty grim picture for the elderly homosexual. But does anyone think that the generation that rioted to protest police brutality, fought for fair housing and employment legislation, and marched to get AIDS funding would go quietly into the night? Not likely. Numerous social and service organizations which cater specifically to the needs of older homosexual, bisexual and transgendered persons are emerging. Prime Timers Worldwide has numerous chapters throughout the US, Canada, and Australia, which cater to gay men who “involve themselves in their community with volunteerism, politics, gay issues, arts, entertainment, and every other facet of healthy living.” Senior lesbians can join Older Lesbians Organizing for Change, which is headquartered in Ohio but draws members from across the US in their fight against ageism. Additionally, numerous regional groups have been formed, such as the Coalition of Older Lesbians (COOL) in Los Angeles and Gay Reunion in Our Time in Brooklyn, which assists persons of color.

While these groups address the disparities many older LGBT must face, other organizations seek to establish LGBT communities exclusively for senior citizens. The Gay and Lesbian Association of Retiring Persons has as its mission “to develop and operate Retirement Communities that are openly LGBT friendly and to promote, provide and support education on aging… We also want to promote fun, friendship and continued relationships in a group living setting that is accepting and tolerant of differences while emphasizing health, wellness and well-being.” With and without the assistance of GLARP, retirements communities for elderly gays are opening worldwide, providing aging LGBT persons with a safe home, as well as care and attention for those who have no one to turn to. Unfortunately, many of these retirement villages are still cost-prohibitive for lower income people, but the fact that they are being built offers hope that affordable nursing communities for LGBT elders will soon follow.

As much as these communities are needed, they isolate older gays and lesbians from those who could most use their input: the younger generation. So many of the liberties which gays and lesbians enjoy today, from Gay Pride Celebrations to the ability to dance in a gay bar without the fear of being arrested, came about due to the hard work of the generation now settling into old age. While focusing attention on the battles still to be won in the fight for gay rights, it is easy to overlook the battles already won and the brave women and men who endured beatings, persecution, prosecution, and rejection to win them. After all that, don’t they deserve a peaceful, secure retirement—and our respect?

Planning, building with the GLBT community in mind (startribune.com, Thursday, December 21, 2006)

A housing project to fill the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered seniors at a variety of income levels is taking reservations. If enough spots are reserved, construction will start next fall.

Barbara Satin, a transgendered woman in her 70s, has the first reservation to live at the Spirit on Lake Housing Cooperative, a housing community in Minneapolis for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) seniors. It's a project that Satin says is long overdue and will fulfill a need in the GLBT community.

"There is GLBT housing elsewhere in the country, but nothing in the Midwest that's marketed to this population," said Satin, who is working as a marketing consultant on the project. She is also a member of the Spirit of the Lakes Church in Minneapolis and a founder of GLBT Generations, a group that looks at the needs and concerns of GLBT seniors.

Both groups are cooperating with the Powderhorn Residents Group (PRG) to develop the project.

In the past, GLBT seniors were more apt to stay in the closet for fear of being rejected when they needed help, Satin said, recalling a story from several years ago when a transgendered member of her church had a stroke.

"In order to get health services, she had to go from being Gale to Glen," Satin said. "But that's changed as the GLBT community has become far more visible and willing to identify themselves. They've decided they're not going to go back in the closet for the remainder of their years."

The Spirit on Lake Housing Cooperative is planned for an area that's undergone substantial changes, including the award-winning transformation of the former Sears complex into the Midtown Exchange. The four-story building will be built on Lake Street at 13th Avenue S., the current home of the Spirit of the Lakes Church. A new church will occupy the first level of the building and the upper floors will have one- and two-bedroom apartments. The church will be owned and funded separately.

Pricing

Kathy Wetzel-Mastel, PRG project manager, said that retirement living specific to the GLBT community is a growing trend, but until now, most have skewed to those with higher incomes. "This is one of the first, if the not the first, housing project to do a mixed-income approach."

Twenty percent of the 41 units are planned for households that earn less than 50 percent of the area median income (AMI). Twenty percent are for households earning less than 80 percent of the AMI and are intended for those with little or no equity from the sale of a home to reinvest. Of the remaining units, 15 will have income limits of 115 percent AMI and 10 are reserved without restrictions.

Prices are expected to range from $100,000 to $160,000 for one-bedroom units and $175,000 to $250,000 for two-bedroom units, depending on size and amenities.

The development is a limited equity cooperative, meaning all shares/units are subject to a resale formula limiting the return on equity.

Reservations

Independent seniors 55 and older can reserve a unit now, but construction won't begin until enough units are reserved and all of the financing is in place. Developers hope to break ground by fall 2007 and complete construction within 12 months.

Reservations can be made with a $200 refundable deposit at PRGInc.org or by calling Wetzel-Mastel at 612-721-7556, ext. 15.

To learn more about the community and how the cooperative housing model works, attend one of the meetings at 6 p.m. on Jan. 22, Feb. 15 and March 16 at Spirit of the Lakes Church, 2930 13th Av. S.

Housing caters to 'gay and gray' (billingsgazette.net, Sunday, January 7, 2007)

Jan Gaynor and Barbara Cohn have decided to spend their retirement years in this city of art and culture, not just because it's steeped in 400 years of history but also because it offers something new.

The sixtysomething couple wanted to live in the nation's first full-fledged retirement community for gays and lesbians. They sold their house in California and moved into a condominium at Rainbow Vision Santa Fe this summer.

"We've been together for 16 years, and we were looking to retire someplace where we could be ourselves," Cohn said. "Here, we can hold hands and give each other a kiss without someone raising an eyebrow." Since Rainbow Vision opened in June, 60 people from across the country have bought or leased residences and settled into what's been billed as a resort community for those who want to make the most of the second half of life.

Gay men and lesbians are the newest niche in a booming retirement housing market that already includes developments catering to Asian-Americans, the deaf, golfing enthusiasts, military veterans and university alumni.

Besides Rainbow Vision, 21 gay and lesbian retirement communities are under construction or on the drawing board, according to the American Society on Aging.

The baby boomer generation is propelling the development of these communities.

The number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans over 65 will more than double in the next 25 years, from an estimated 3 million to 7 million, according to projections by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Yet it's more than a matter of numbers. Gay boomers are the first generation to come of age after the gay rights movement of the 1970s and have been more open about their sexual orientation than previous generations.

"Gay boomers won't worry what other people think if they choose to live in a gay retirement community," said Sandra Timmermann, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute, which has published a report titled "Out and Aging."

Gay people have long thought about retiring together, but the idea of building such communities hadn't progressed much beyond talk until recently, said Amber Hollibaugh, a strategist for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Over the past decade, however, a few housing projects have popped up to serve the "gay and gray" population. Developers have built subdivisions of single-family houses or sometimes just sold lots for trailer homes.

"As gay people, we may feel especially vulnerable as we age, since we're less likely to have children to call on for help," Hollibaugh said. "Yet we've also been resourceful and created our own 'families of choice' with our friends."

Rainbow Vision, a 13-acre development of adobe buildings, is the first project to offer a broad range of retirement living choices - from 120 residences for active adults to 26 assisted-living suites for frail seniors.

From the outside, only rainbow banners at the entrance suggest this is no run-of-the-mill retirement home. Inside, members enjoy a fitness center and spa, gourmet food prepared by a chef trained in France, cabaret shows and a salon.

"Life can be difficult. We try to make it easy," said Joy Silver, the community's founder.

Activity revolves around the community center, where tai chi and yoga classes in the morning are followed by hot stone massages and book discussions in the afternoon and cabaret shows with celebrity look-alikes at night.

Gay memorabilia adorns the center's walls - Billie Jean King's tennis rackets in the fitness center named after her, an old magazine cover of Truman Capote in the library, a photograph of Oscar Wilde in the community room.

Sessions on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Aging Issues (thematuremarket.com, Sunday, January 14, 2007)

The Joint Conference of the American Society on Aging (ASA) and the National Council on Aging (NCOA) -- taking place March 7-10, 2007, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers in Chicago -- will include an array of sessions addressing the concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people ages 50-plus and of the agencies and professionals serving them. The LGBT sessions at the annual event address an issue of growing concern, according to the organizers.

"The oldest of the baby boomers started turning 60 just last year -- and this generational shift is increasingly inspiring healthcare and social services providers, as well as the LGBT community in general, to focus on responding to the unique needs of LGBT elders," said Richard Gollance, a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles who serves as cochair of ASA’s Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network (LGAIN). “The conference offers an ideal opportunity for learning and networking for both professionals and nonprofessionals interested in LGBT aging.”

More than 20 sessions at the ASA-NCOA Joint Conference will deal with LGBT midlife and old age, with a focus on such topics as health and mental health; care for bisexual elders; the concerns of transgender older adults; HIV/AIDS; advocacy, law and public policy; working with diverse communities; intergenerational programs; and end-of-life issues. In addition, LGAIN will join the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging in presenting a special program on Saturday, March 7: An LGBT Elder Forum that will bring together elders from Chicago and experts from around the United States for a full day of information-sharing.

“The object of the forum is to give professionals a chance to learn from the experience of LGBT older adults and for experts to share their findings and perspectives directly with LGBT elders,” said Terri Worman, chair of the LGAIN special program committee. “Exchanges of this sort are highly unusual at professional conferences. The special program reflects LGAIN’s ongoing commitment to finding innovative ways to both enhance the skills of professionals and support LGBT elders in advocating for themselves.”

Based in San Francisco, the American Society on Aging has been a national leader in continuing education for professionals in aging since 1954; the association's Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network, founded in 1994, is the only professional group of its kind. The National Council on Aging, based in Washington, D.C., has been helping community organizations for over 50 years through advocacy, research, demonstration programs and innovative education and service initiatives.

The 2007 ASA-NCOA Joint Conference is expected to draw nearly 4,000 participants from throughout North America to attend some 1,000 sessions on all aspects of aging. A complete schedule and online registration are available via the conference website at www.agingconference.or g. Details also are available by phone at (800) 537- 9728, ext. 9675.

For extensive resources on LGBT aging, as well as a full list of Joint Conference sessions and activities dealing with LGBT and HIV/AIDS issues, visit the LGAIN home page at www.asaging.org/lgain.

ACLU Seeks Retirement Health Insurance for Same-Sex Partners of New Mexico State Employees (commondreams.org, Monday, February 5, 2007)

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today against the state of New Mexico on behalf of three lesbian couples seeking retirement health insurance for the domestic partners of lesbian and gay state employees.

"After serving the state for 25 years, I hoped to retire with the same peace of mind as my straight colleagues," said Ellen Novak. "But retirement has meant that my partner has had to switch to costly private health insurance with inferior coverage at the point in our lives when we are most likely to face health problems. I worked just as hard as my colleagues, so it doesn't seem fair that my family has been saddled with this burden."

Novak, who has been with her partner Linda McCreary for 15 years, was forced to retire in 2004 after being diagnosed with a chronic lung condition. When she was still working for the state, she was able to provide McCreary health insurance as her domestic partner, but because of the state's unfair policy of denying retirees domestic partner coverage, McCreary's domestic partner coverage was terminated when Novak was forced to retire. Married couples in the same situation are permitted to continue to provide health insurance to their spouses after retirement.

The lawsuit filed today charges that the state's policy of denying lesbian and gay state retirees equal health insurance for their partners violates the state constitution's equality guarantees. Unlike their straight colleagues, lesbian and gay employees are barred from marrying in the state and therefore, in the absence of domestic partner benefits, are denied equal compensation.

"Lesbian and gay employees make commitments and form families just like straight employees, and their families have the same needs," said Peter Simonson, Executive Director of the ACLU of New Mexico. "Health insurance is an important portion of how employees are compensated. It's not right for the state to take care of straight families, but to force gay and lesbian families to bear the significant expense and suffer the inferior coverage of private health insurance at the point in their lives when they need health care most."

In 2003, Governor Bill Richardson issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage. Under the order, domestic partner coverage is not available to employees after they retire, while spousal coverage is provided.

Proposed legislation, SB 502, which was introduced by Senator John Grubesic and will be the subject of a committee hearing this Wednesday, would close the loophole and provide benefits to the domestic partners of retired employees.

"The state legislature has the opportunity to spare taxpayers the needless expense of defending this lawsuit by passing this bill," said Simonson. "The cost of providing the domestic partners of state employees with access to retirement health insurance would only result in less than a one percent increase in claims dollars paid out by the authority. And this nominal cost would likely be offset by the savings to the state on account of having more people insured."

The other two couples involved in the lawsuit are:

Havens Levitt and Rebecca Dakota -- This Albuquerque couple has been together for 11 years, but have know each other for 25. Levitt, 54, has been a teacher for more than 23 years with the Albuquerque public school system. Dakota, 52, works for an anti-smoking campaign and as the part-time director of the Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance. Because her jobs are both part-time, she relies on Levitt to provide her health insurance. When Levitt retires, Dakota will no longer have access to health insurance and will be forced to pay for private insurance, which is especially expensive for someone of her age.

Mary Meyer and Hope Miner -- This Sandoval County couple has been together for 13 years and is raising two children together. Meyer, who manages the WIC Nutrition Program for Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties, has worked for the New Mexico Department of Health for 22 years. Miner retired from the Albuquerque school system in 2003 after serving as an elementary teacher for 25 years. When domestic partner benefits became available, the couple decided to have Meyer cover Miner as a domestic partner in order to avoid the double fees the couple had to pay towards their separate health plans. After Miner retired, the couple learned that the domestic partner coverage would no longer be available once Meyer retired. When Meyer retires, the couple's monthly expenses will increase because they will both be required to contribute to their own health plans.

The legal team for the ACLU in Novak and McCreary v. New Mexico is George Bach, staff attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico, Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project of the ACLU, and cooperating attorney Maureen Sanders of Sanders & Westbrook, P.C.

Biographical information for all of the couples, a Q&A about the lawsuit and the legal papers filed today are available at: www.aclu.org/caseprofiles

Deb Price: Gay retirees need protection from discrimination (detnews.com, Monday, February 12, 2007)

Three years ago, Ellen Novak developed a chronic lung condition that forced her to retire at just 52 after 25 years of working for the New Mexico state government.

As a social worker and program manager for the state's Department of Children, Youth and Families, Ellen had had her partner, Linda McCreary, and their two children on her employee health plan.

The family had gotten that financial boost in 2003 when Gov. Bill Richardson signed an order extending benefits to state employees' partners. The change meant Linda, who owns a real estate company, no longer had to buy expensive, bare-bones private coverage.

Unlike spousal benefits, partner benefits didn't follow Ellen into retirement. Hurting financially because of Ellen's retirement, the family had to come up with $225 a month to buy Linda catastrophic insurance.

Rather than suffer in silence, the lesbians, openly gay since their early 20s, demanded fairness. Their claim is before a court. And New Mexico state lawmakers are weighing legislation to make sure retirees don't lose partner benefits.

"We have a responsibility to fight, both for ourselves and for the gay men and lesbians who are a generation above us who feel too afraid to say who they are," Novak says.

The couple is at the forefront of what will be a wave of lawsuits as the first generation of gay Americans to have spent much of adulthood outside the closet hits retirement -- and runs smack into a retirement world not used to dealing with gay people prepared to speak up for themselves.

Similarly, a Florida lesbian couple -- retired university professor Sheila Ortiz-Taylor and librarian Joy Lewis, both in their mid-60s -- had to wage a legal battle. Three years ago, they forced a retirement community in Tallahassee to allow unmarried couples, including gays, to pay the same to live in the continuing care community as married heterosexual couples.

"I am sorry it takes lawsuits," Joy said, "but that is what it took."

These path-breaking couples tackled discrimination just as self-respecting gay Baby Boomers started reaching retirement age. Many have been open for decades. Others have outlived their last reasons for being closeted -- fear of losing a job or a parent's love.

Michael Adams, executive director of Sage, says his advocacy group for gay seniors hears of outrageous discrimination against older gays too frail or fearful to fight back. What has yet to happen is a high-profile, big-dollar settlement that will shake retirement-oriented businesses.

"That will dramatically change the landscape," Adams predicts. "We have the legal legs to stand on in many states. And increasingly we will have the plaintiffs to step up to the plate."

But Lewis is right: It shouldn't have to take a lawsuit.

Fifteen of the 17 states that protect gay workers also forbid anti-gay discrimination in housing and public accommodations. The federal government ought to follow their example. The gay community's allies in Congress shouldn't just reintroduce the narrow Employment Nondiscrimination Act now that Democrats are in charge. That would do zero to protect gay retirees -- or the rest of us who're gay and run into nonwork discrimination.

Just like gay workers, gay retirees need state and federal laws to shield them from discrimination. Job protections are only half a solution.

Gay seniors to get a place of their own (insidebayarea.com, Wednesday, February 28, 2007)

The nation is getting older, and gays are going gray along with everybody else.

Trouble is, elder members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities say they often feel more isolated than other senior citizens. Many don't have a strong family network for support, and some have encountered homophobia in traditional senior residences, according to activists for gay seniors.

In response to this need, a gay and lesbian development and management team is transforming the historic Lake Merritt Hotel on Madison Street in downtown Oakland into one of the country's first urban independent-living residences to actively welcome the LBGT community. Straight seniors are welcome, too.

The launch of the Barbary Lane project — so named after the diverse fictional community of Barbary Lane in author Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" novels — was announced at a news conference Tuesday at the hotel. Maupin himself attended the event, and a large rainbow flag was draped in the hotel's big plate-glass window overlooking Lake Merritt.

Developers hope to complete the project in the fall. Applications are now being accepted to lease the 46 proposed units.

"I'm an old guy myself," Maupin said. "So I've been thinking about what retirement will mean to the world's first openly gay generation. Most of us spent the first quarter of our lives in hiding, and we have no intention of going back in hiding for the last."

"A lot of times, LGBT seniors almost feel like they have to go back in the closet, just as new life challenges occur," said Jeffrey Dillon, chief operations officer for Barbary Lane.

Dillon, David Latina and Randi Gerson are the three openly gay housing specialists who founded the project.

"We really want to revolutionize senior housing," Dillon said. "Our doors will swing both ways. Our restaurant will be open to the public for lunch and events, mingling the senior community with the outside community of all ages and backgrounds."

"This will be the Bay Area's first senior housing community to actually embrace, not just accept, members of the LGBT community," Latina said.

Based on recent census data, studies by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force estimate there are currently more than 3 million LGBT Americans over the age of 65. And that number is expected to double by the year 2030.

Other studies conducted by SAGE, Service and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders, indicate members of the LGBT community are twice as likely to be single in their senior years as straight people. Nearly 90 percent have no children, compared with 20 percent in the general senior population. Many say they have no one to call in times of crisis.

The 1927 Art Deco-style hotel, named as a city landmark in 1991, served as a boutique hotel over the past decade. It will undergo a $2 million "green" renovation, using non-toxic materials and energy efficient heating systems.

It also will be made more senior-friendly with ramps, a bigger elevator, a new sprinkler system and call buttons in the rooms. Designers plan to maintain the character of the old building while updating kitchens and baths. Amenities will include a concierge service, a health and fitness center, numerous activities, housekeeping and a computer center.

Rental prices will range from $3,295 to $4,295 a month.

For more information on the Barbary Lane project, call (510) 903-3600, or visit http://www.barbarylanesenior.com .

Low-income Housing Project For Gay Seniors To Open (nbc4.tv, Thursday, March 22, 2007)

What is being billed as the nation's first affordable housing development for HIV-infected, homeless and low-income gay, lesbian and transgender senior citizens opens its doors Thursday in Hollywood.

The 104-unit Triangle Square development features covered parking, a pool, an open courtyard and an activity center.

The nearly $21 million project was built by developer McCormack Baron Salazar and the nonprofit Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing.

Developer Tony Salazar says the project's builders and financiers believe all seniors are entitled to a decent living environment, regardless of their income, race or sexual preference.

Latest Maupin tale tells of 'closet of age' (books.guardian.co.uk, Tuesday, June 12, 2007)

Michael Tolliver Day declared as first instalment in celebrated chronicle of gay San Francisco published in 18 years

San Francisco today marks what the city's mayor has officially designated Michael Tolliver Day. The object of this honour is not the usual city luminary or sporting star but a fictional character - moreover, one who had disappeared for 18 years.

Tolliver is one of the key players in Tales of the City, the sprawling newspaper series turned set of six novels by Armistead Maupin, which, between 1976 and 1989, chronicled the tangled lives of a group of characters centred around the US city's colourfully bohemian gay scene.

The first new book in the series in 18 years is published today, finally bringing Maupin's millions of readers worldwide up to date with the likes of former Ohio innocent Mary Ann Singleton, pot-growing landlady Mrs Madrigal and - most of all - Michael Tolliver himself.

The new novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, is a first person narration by the title character, whose life in many ways resembles that of his creator.

At the start of the series a guileless young man energetically exploring San Francisco's then-burgeoning gay nightlife, Michael is now in his mid-50s, slightly arthritic and HIV-positive.

"I wanted to tell the story of a gay man getting older -- especially one who thought death was imminent and is now confronting normal mortality," Maupin, 63, told the Associated Press in an interview marking the publication of the book.

This was an important theme, he said in a separate interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper that printed Tales of the City as a column.

"Age is the last closet you come out of in the gay world," he said. "There are such gloomy visions of gay men aging. But if you worship beauty above all else, if you worship sex above all else, you're in trouble. If you're not working on your heart every second, you are going to have a very sad old age."

A former journalist, Maupin became famous and wealthy through the series of novels, which were later made into a popular TV miniseries.

Michael Tolliver's life still mirrors Maupin's own - both are newly married to much younger men they first spotted on internet dating websites and then bumped into by chance and both have settled down to a routine of generally cosy domesticity.

However, while Maupin's husband has been welcomed by his family, in the new book Michael has to introduce his partner to relatives who are born-again Christians, a plot theme that reflects the author's distaste for conservative politicians moralising about gay people.

"We've made progress from utter invisibility 30 years ago to prominence in the cultural scene, but with that prominence has come a more rampant form of homophobia," Maupin told AP.

"My hope is that we're close to the time that homophobia takes on the status of racism today -- normal, mainstream people don't accept it."

A Welcoming Place For Gay Retirement (sfgate.com, Sunday, June 17, 2007)

Historic hotel becomes Barbary Lane, based on popular 'Tales of the City' series

"Tales of the City" enthralled the Bay Area when it began running in The Chronicle in 1976.

Author Armistead Maupin's serial centered on five fictional people -- four tenants in their 20s, including Michael Tolliver, and their kindly landlady, Mrs. Madrigal. They all lived at 28 Barbary Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill and created their own kind of family.

To spice things up, other characters bore a strong resemblance to prominent local people, leading to many a guessing game. The characters represented a spectrum of straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who kept the series going through six "Tales" books published from 1978 through 1989. Maupin has brought his characters up to date in his new book, "Michael Tolliver Lives."

Maupin has inspired another Barbary Lane and is serving as the spokesman for Barbary Management Group LLC. The company is transforming the historic Lake Merritt Hotel in Oakland into Barbary Lane Senior Communities at Lake Merritt, one of the country's first independent living facilities for LGBT seniors and the first of its kind in the Bay Area. It's expected to open to people 55 and older in November. Preleasing began in March. Other groups are planning gay senior projects in the Bay Area, but they won't be opening anytime soon.

"I've done a little thinking about what retirement will mean to the world's first openly gay generation. Most of us spent the first quarter of our lives in hiding and have no intention of going back there for the last," Maupin said in a statement.

Architect Randi Gerson, a principal with the company, added, "We have heard many stories of LGBT people who want to live their lives openly but who feel they must go back into the closet or risk poor care or being snubbed for being gay if they move into traditional retirement, independent or assisted living" facilities.

"Even today, many senior communities do not allow same-sex couples to share a unit," she said.

"As a lesbian, I think where and how we age is one of the biggest concerns confronting my generation. We want to age just as we lived -- out of the closet, close to friends and engaged with life. Until now, this was not possible," she said.

Her company intends to make it possible.

Barbary Lane's 46 studio and one-bedroom apartments will range from about 506 to 705 square feet. They'll have updated kitchens and bathrooms along with such original touches as redwood millwork and 9-inch crown moldings in the living rooms.

Rents, expected to range from $3,295 to $4,700 a month, will include two meals a day, weekly housekeeping, linen service, all utilities including basic cable TV and wireless Internet, 24-hour staffing, concierge, newspapers, a fitness program, social activities and transportation in a van and hybrid town car. Pets are welcome within limits.

Two other apartments will be available as short-term rentals for guests.

Residents will have breakfast seven days a week and dinner on weekdays in the hotel's restaurant, Madrigal's Terrace Room, which overlooks the lake. Weekday lunches will be open to the public. There will be a themed brunch for residents on Saturday and a public brunch on Sunday.

The public may rent the restaurant and ballroom for special events Saturday nights.

Opening the facilities to the public will allow higher quality food and service, said Dave Latina, president of Barbary Management Group.

Located across from Lake Merritt at 1800 Madison St. (at Lakeside Drive) and designed by William Weeks, the Lake Merritt Hotel opened in 1927 as a trunk traveler hotel -- an apartment hotel for people who arrived in Oakland by train for an extended stay.

This Art Deco beauty and the Claremont Hotel were considered quite posh. The Lake Merritt charged $3.50 a night, while the Claremont charged $2.75. Lake Merritt rents were higher because it had full kitchens, Latina said. It also was closer to the train station and the then-new Paramount Theatre. Over the years, its ballroom featured entertainment by the likes of Count Basie, and it was a popular place for parties, weddings and other special events.

The hotel discontinued nightly rentals and became an extended-stay apartment hotel in the '60s. The hotel's owner and the developer of an adjacent property wanted to raze it in the '80s, but preservationists objected. In 1987, lifelong Oakland resident Randall Berger and his wife, Cheryl, real estate investors, bought the building and saved it from destruction.

"Where could you ever go wrong with lakeside property?" Randall Berger said during a Barbary Lane open house.

After the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged only the elevator shaft in 1989, most of the tenants moved out rather than rely on the stairs while the elevator was being repaired. The Bergers refurbished the building in 1991. That year the city also designated it a landmark for its Art Deco, historical and social significance.

Business lagged after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent downturn in the hospitality industry, so the Bergers refurbished again, creating a boutique Clarion Suites hotel.

In 2005, they began looking for a partner to work with them in converting the hotel to an apartment building for independent seniors. In the meantime, Latina, who was vice president of a real estate development and management firm in Oakland, began talking with Gerson and Jeffrey Dillon, now Barbary Management's chief operations officer, about developing gay senior communities.

All three had many years' experience in multiunit housing and were involved in LGBT activities.

They foresaw a huge wave of Baby Boomers moving into their retirement years and wanted to create "a caring, vibrant and tolerant community," just like Mrs. Madrigal's, Latina said. "Our vision will be revolutionary."

When Latina heard about the Bergers' desire for senior housing at the hotel, he "saw that our business model and this building would work well together," Gerson said. The Bergers still own the property and are investors in the company. They maintain the building while the company maintains the brand and services, Latina said.

Their involvement "allows us to grow our capital much quicker" because the company didn't have to buy property, he said. Development costs are expected to exceed $13 million.

Nevertheless, the building was so well built and maintained that "everything we're doing (to upgrade) is voluntary. Nothing is mandatory," Latina said.

Much of the work is intended to make the building more senior-friendly by removing some steps and adding ramps, installing roomier elevators, replacing bathtubs with step-in showers, modernizing and upgrading the kitchens with universal design, adding fire alarms and sprinklers, and providing private gathering areas for residents.

These areas include a multipurpose room and a family room with computers, a fireplace, a TV and card tables.

Other facilities will include a spa and a room for hair styling and manicures.

In addition to the restaurant, residents may enjoy Tolliver's Cappuccino & Tea Bar and Mother Mucca's Speakeasy Lounge. Rumor has it that the latter actually was a speakeasy during Prohibition.

The lounge, just a few steps up from the dining room and sharing its views, is adorned by a colorful mural of the lake painted by Oakland artist and sculptor Andre Boratko in 1956.

Barbary Management Group is a for-profit company. Its business plan calls for Barbary Lanes in five other urban centers with large gay populations: San Francisco, San Diego, Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Santa Rosa-Sonoma.

Residents will automatically become platinum members of the Barbary Lane Club with access to any Barbary Lane community. Nonresidents also may join the club. Although the Lake Merritt project is designed for middle-income residents, Latina said, the company hopes to develop a larger project where it can provide some more-affordable units. It's also hoping for some higher-level care such as an assisted-living floor.

Barbary Lane at Lake Merritt doesn't provide assisted living, but residents may hire caregivers. The company has vetted three home-care firms that will require their employees to undergo LGBT sensitivity training.

Parking will be limited, with only 20 underground spaces that will cost about $100 a month. Because the space is tight, there will be valet parking.

"We're committed to being an urban community" where people can walk, use public transit (the 19th Street BART station is four blocks away) or travel in the hotel's vehicles, Latina said.

The entire building will be nonsmoking, said spokeswoman Jo Ann Driscoll. Even though the project is intended for LGBT residents, straight seniors may live there, too. Thus the project is billed as gay-friendly.

Its motto: "Closets are for clothes, not for seniors."

For information, go to www.barbarylanesenior.com or call (510) 903-3600.

Facts and figures

Oakland has the highest lesbian population and the third-highest combined gay and lesbian population among the nation's 50 largest cities, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

The nation has an estimated 2.9 million LGBT residents over 55. Their numbers are expected to rise to 3.3 million by 2011 and nearly 4 million in 2016.

Compared with the general senior population, LGBT seniors are twice as likely to be single as they age, four times as likely to have no children to call upon for help and twice as likely to live alone.

LGBT seniors' biggest worry about moving to a senior facility is other residents' hostility toward them, followed closely by worry about hostility from service providers.

LGBT people ages 55 to 69 are more likely to be interested in an LGBT retirement community than those 70 and older.

Men and women have the same level of interest in such a community.

Sources: "The Gay & Lesbian Atlas" by Gary Gates and Jason Ost, 2004; Diversity Center, Santa Cruz, 2004; Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders, New York, 2006

Elder co-housing project is aimed at gay women (seattletimes.nwsource.com, Sunday, June 17, 2007)

When they were younger, Nancy Nystrom and her friends joked about one day living together in a home for old lesbians.

But as they aged, the joke grew less funny. Lesbian women and gay men often go back in the closet in later life, fearing discrimination and even abuse if they need care.

Why wasn't there a special place for them?

Soon there will be, on a quiet, wooded hillside in Bremerton.

That's where Nystrom is helping pioneer a self-planned and affordable community for women — especially lesbians — who want to grow old together on their own terms. The experiment is not only news in the gay and lesbian community, it's an early sign that the elder co-housing movement emerging nationwide has arrived in Washington state.

"This is extremely possible with any group of people, gay or straight," said Nystrom, a longtime social activist and University of Washington lecturer in social work. "If you have a small group of friends all dedicated to the idea of having a healthy old age, you could do this."

Looking for a place where they can be independent but not be alone, Nystrom and a small group of women from around the country — aged 55 to 78 and predominantly lesbians — are developing KitsHarbour, an interconnected, two-house project they will own and run together.

Over the last several years, they've purchased and started to remodel two large side-by-side houses to accommodate frailty. They've hammered out the legalities of ownership, agreed on rules for living in community together and successfully lobbied the county to stop the traffic at the end of their road.

Nystrom, her partner and another woman moved in about three years ago and own the homes for now. But four others — a doctor, nurse, author and retired government bureaucrat — are expected to arrive after retirement over the next few years and start to participate financially. Two of the initial seven women are straight.

The cost for all will be a one-time $2,500 membership fee and $650 a month. Fifteen women are on a waiting list.

"We're not time-worried," Nystrom said. "We'd rather see it done right."

Nystrom, who talks about KitsHarbour around the country, discussed the project at the first Northwest Forum on Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Aging, held Friday and Saturday at the UW. The public event — a collaboration of several groups — aimed to provide education on the needs and challenges facing the older LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community.

Co-housing communities — created and managed by residents — have been around since the early 1990s. Scores are now scattered across the country, including some in Washington state. But only in recent years have a very few been started that focus exclusively on elders, such as the 30-household ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon, Va., and eight-household Glacier Circle Senior Community in Davis, Calif.

At KitsHarbour, everyone must have long-term care insurance and will be allowed to stay until permanent, round-the-clock nursing care is needed. But it will be fine to need help with activities such as cooking, walking, bathing or taking medication. When a resident dies or leaves, her financial share will remain in the corporation for the benefit of future residents.

In the future, the homes will be connected by a breezeway wide enough for wheelchairs and will have additional bedrooms and baths and three kitchens for residents to cook communally or individually. Plans include installing an inside elevator and an outdoor tram down the hillside to the lower yard.

Right now the backyard is being turned into a nature preserve with all kinds of bird feeders, special plants and a tree hollowed out on top to attract nesting owls. Eight raised garden beds are being built and stairs leading to the lower yard are designed for people using walkers.

"The major theme is like-minded women who want to be together ... work together ... support each other," said Teresa Jones, who is Nystrom's partner and also a UW lecturer.

That doesn't mean staying apart from the rest of the world. Connecting with the larger community is a priority. Nystrom already serves on the stewardship committee for the local nature preserve, and Jones belongs to the Dahlia Society.

Nearby neighbors support this new kind of commune in their midst.

"Women live longer than men. Being in isolation is one of the worst things when we grow older," said Sarna Becker, a community-college biology teacher, who lives next door with her husband and two young sons.

She's also glad it's open to heterosexuals, because housing can become an issue for many women as they age.

Rebecca Wilson and her husband are neighbors in their 50s who moved from out of state and have no children. They're hoping the women of KitsHarbour will become like an extended family, and the couple even plan to create a path connecting their backyards.

Then as they all grow old, says Wilson, they can look out for each other, share interests and help with rides to the doctor, grocery shopping and cooking communal meals. "So we're connected deeper than neighbors who just come and go."

'Love is human, not gay or straight' in 'Inlaws & Outlaws' (seattlepi.nwsource.com, Thursday, June 21, 2007)

For 50 years, Chuck Lazenby lived with the love of his life.

They were homeowners with a knack for renovating fixer-uppers. They lived in many houses throughout Seattle, but they called one house in Magnolia home for 24 years.

They were private people whose idea of a night out was a quiet dinner party at one of their friends' houses. They lived together as a couple with ups and downs as any other, but they never moved out or gave into temptations that might have driven them away from each other.

They stayed together until Lazenby's true love, David Asplund, died in 1999.

"He was the one and only. Sometimes that doesn't happen to people," said Lazenby, 75, who was born and raised on First Hill. "This isn't just 50 years of greatness. There were times we didn't think we could hold it together, other people entering our lives trying to split it up. It was a mess sometimes, but we always seemed to resolve the problems."

They may never have held a marriage certificate -- even if it had been possible in their time, they both remained closeted for the entire course of their relationship -- but for all practical purposes Lazenby and Asplund were a committed, loving couple.

Lazenby cooked and cleaned. Asplund made their yard the envy of the neighbors.

They met when Lazenby was 18 and Asplund 26. With his matinee-idol looks, Lazenby drew a fair number of admirers as he waited tables in Seattle. It was late 1948 and he noticed one regular customer more than the others. He knew when he received a big tip from the admirer that the attraction was mutual. A few months later they moved to an apartment above a tavern, across from the Paramount Theatre. They shared a Murphy bed.

The relationship was the stabilizing force in Lazenby's life. "When I cooled my heels I knew it was for real," he said. "I was the wild one. I was ready to be grounded."

Their union outlasted the many multiple marriages of Lazenby's siblings and endured sickness, temptation and the stress of keeping their love a secret from both families. Lazenby felt the loss of his lifemate as acutely as anyone who has ever lost the love of his or her life, feeling it as the ending of his own life, almost.

Which is no big revelation to Drew Emery.

"Love is human, not gay or straight," said Emery, director of "Inlaws & Outlaws," his first feature-length documentary, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival two years ago. It has made the circuit of film festivals around the country, as well as at specially requested events in churches and on college campuses in America's heartland.

It finally is making its cinematic run in his hometown, at Queen Anne's Uptown Cinema through June 28.

"The idea of gay marriage being different," said Emery, "... it's not. We get married for love. That's never said in the whole (same-sex marriage) debate. It's bull. Nobody has said the real reasons, that people have romantic ideals and they want someone to spend their life with."

Marriage, the film explicitly declares, is something not to be entered into lightly. Period.

One half of one couple in the film, Laramie Holliman, could be any girl who has ever thought long and hard about the perfect wedding. She's girly, she's giddy, she's absolutely besotted by her beloved and fixated on the trappings of the ceremony. It just so happens her life partner is another bride. Together, Laramie and Aubree Holliman are the most "traditional" couple in the documentary.

But even in this film, people marry because they're following a script written by the expectations of their families and society. One couple is a pair of women raised as Latter Day Saints who fell in love in high school. But one of them felt obliged to marry a man -- to appease her family and to try to live the life of a good Mormon girl. She did, with her lover serving as her maid of honor -- a real, heartbreaking version of "My Best Friend's Wedding."

The marriage ended in misery, the two women finally stopped fighting their mutual attraction, and they found happiness and fulfillment together.

Jane Abbott Lighty, 71, also followed the script and married a man. It lasted two years. Her wife, Pete-e Petersen, 79, never got that far but not for lack of trying. Many men tried to take her hand in marriage.

"I kept giving back the ring," she said, explaining how she turned down no less than three proposals. "I like men, but when it comes to love I'm wired a little differently."

For her, love was about finding someone who made her feel Magic! (yes, with a capital M and exclamation point). On Jan. 13, 1977, in the Old Town part of Sacramento, she found it on a blind date with a knockout with whom she talked about everything and anything until the restaurant closed. She helped keep the woman from losing her footing on the cobblestones outside and ended up in an embrace, lips locked.

They recently celebrated their 30th anniversary by taking the first all-gay transatlantic cruise on the Queen Mary.

"I do wish every couple in the world had what we have," said Petersen, a University of Washington graduate who lives with Lighty in a dream house in West Seattle across from Alki Beach. "We have such a wonderful understanding of each other and deep, abiding love."

Both are health professionals who ended up as nurse consultants in Washington state a little more than 20 years ago. Neither could conceive of a life without the other.

"What we really want is to have people view us the way they do anybody else, as the person next door," Lighty said. "We are all just people. We have these hopes, fears, dreams. We all need love. Our love is just as legitimate as any other relationship. There's no big difference."

They've raised a child, Betsy, the daughter of Petersen's deceased sister. (Betsy has married -- a husband -- and has kids of her own.) They owned a home in Magnolia for 10 years, they've worked to bring better health to all kinds of people and they've volunteered with their community -- most recently with the Seattle Men's Chorus and helping to found the Women's Chorus.

Lighty and Petersen decided after all their time together they would get married, and did, in October 2005 with the blessings of the pastor where the Women's Chorus rehearsed, Seattle First Baptist Church.

It was a decision not entered into lightly.

"What I did learn was that gay people are very intentional," Emery said. "No gay person is going to get married unless they really, really think about it." He added with a laugh, "We don't make mistakes."

Lazenby wouldn't take back a day from his time with the leading man in his life, but making the film brought back strong feelings.

"At first I couldn't talk to anybody on the phone because I'd break down," he said. But working with Emery on a previous lesbian/gay intergenerational documentary and doing "Inlaws & Outlaws" helped him.

"This has really been a healing process," he said. "Now I think I'm doing this for David, too."

Lighty, Petersen and Lazenby are scheduled to be the celebrity grand marshals at Sunday's Pride Parade.

"I don't think he (Lazenby) knows he's the hero of this film," Emery said. "People don't think they'll identify with him, but he goes on the biggest journey. You just want to hug this guy, not because he's a victim but because he's a survivor and he's not bitter. His heart is as intact as it ever was."

Online

• For more information about the film: inlawsandoutlawsfilm.com

Lavenders Looking Out for Gay Seniors (ebpublishing.com, Thursday, July 5, 2007)

Despite their name, San Leandro’s Lavender Seniors aren’t a group of gray-haired ladies who lunch or get together to have a knitting circle.

Rather, they are an activist group whose mission is to improve the quality of life of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people over the age of 55.

Both a political group and social organization, the Lavender Seniors were formed over a decade ago when a group of gay seniors organized to lobby in local government for representation.

Meeting in restaurants, the senior group quickly grew from a handful of members to several hundred. They meet a couple of times a month throughout Alameda County, giving voice to a segment of the population that many people forget exists.

“I was recently at a conference and someone said to me, ‘Oh, I never really thought about gay people being old.’ It’s like, did you think we disappeared?” said Lavender Seniors care coordinator Pat Cull with a laugh.

“As the baby boomer generation gets older, we’re seeing a lot of LGBT seniors with failing health with no family, some people lose their homes when their partner dies,” said Cull. “People are forgetting about this part of the population and we’re giving it a voice.”

Cull is especially passionate about the group’s Friendly Visitor program that pairs homebound elderly LGBT individuals with sympathetic volunteers.

“A lot of people from this generation never came out of the closet,” said Cull. “And even if they did, sometimes they go back in the closet because they’ve become dependent on other people for care.”

The Friendly Visitor volunteer helps these seniors with everything from doctor’s visits to grocery shopping, or they may just visit and talk.

Despite living in the traditionally liberal-minded Bay Area, Cull says that LGBT seniors still face discrimination on a daily basis.

“Even in Berkeley, we’ve had our rainbow flags stolen, our posters ripped down. People are still afraid to come out,” she said. “When you live in the closet, you depend on a small group of friends.

And when you get older, that group of friends starts to die out. These people are alone and that makes them sad, nervous, and afraid and that’s no way to live.”

Friendly Visitor is just one of the Lavender Seniors many ongoing social programs. The group also holds informational meetings on health-care options, potluck dinners, and fun activities.

All are welcome to the group’s next regular meeting, at 7 p.m.. on July 11. For more information on the meeting and about the Lavender Seniors, call 667-9655 or visit www.lavenderseniors.org .

Younger and Older: Out of Sight, Out of Touch (sfbaytimes.com, Thursday, July 5, 2007)

Most older gay men that I know and work with say that they don’t see many younger gay men around and have no idea where they are, who they are and what they do. But many of these older men and I – I’m 51– feel a real desire and commitment for younger men to be part of our world and part of a larger multigenerational gay community.

In the community work that I do, I put on a lot of meetings, activities and events that are open to the gay community at large. In my own ways, I try to attract and include an active participation of younger gay men in all of these. But it never seems to work. And because of that, I keep being told that I personally and we older men as a group don’t try hard enough to engage younger men and that we are insensitive to the issues younger men are facing. I often hear that by not insuring that young gay men are present, we are being de-facto youth-phobic and exclusionary. I certainly can understand that this is what it looks like from the outside.

When I was a young gay man, I didn’t have older generations of out, established older queer men to engage with, so I can’t begin to understand how younger gay men today feel about and relate to men my age and older. But I am serious when I say that I want younger men to be part of my life and my activities, and I have tried to engage them. But as I look at the city and think about ways to bring younger men into my gay world and culture, I don’t see them around and I don’t know how to reach them. I don’t know where younger gay men are or how to find out what they think and feel about the older gays. Seventy-five percent of “gay” men are reported to be under 40, yet I don’t see them out and about on the street, or engaged in visible social activities that men of my generation did and to some extent still do.

In the San Francisco of my youth – my 20s and early 30s –-where there were countless gay bars, multiple gay neighborhoods, a real sense of recognition for other gay people, and strong gay political activism, I never sensed a divide between generations or that one particular generation was not part of the same gay culture and community. I saw us all as being part of the same tribe, diverse but together. No matter where I went in San Francisco, I saw queers of all stripes and ages, and they acknowledged me in return. Has the world changed that much in the past 25 years?

Younger gay men have told me that many gay guys their age don’t see the need to identify as gay or limit themselves as being part of a “gay” community, a community that they see as an historical artifact of the past. A very wise young man recently wrote to me that young queers “may see gay culture as stereotypical, hormone-driven, or unnecessary.” Some young queers will have nothing to do with a “gay” community since their sexual preference is just one aspect of their lives, but not one of the defining ones. Further, he wrote that for many queer youth, older gays are “an establishment of conformity that rebellious adolescents can lash out against.”

Many of the gay men over 40 I know see a real need for gay and queer and same gender loving men of all ages to be part of a vibrant, active and interactive community. So given the different concepts of community held by younger and older gay men, how do we all begin to move forward together?

Younger activist men have told me that it is the responsibility of older men to reach out to younger men, that older men must be the ones to initiate and maintain inclusiveness. Older men must somehow meet younger men where they’re at and make them feel welcome in the older men’s world. It has been suggested that different strategies be employed by the older, more established, more financially secure older generation of gay men to attract younger men to participate in activities, meetings and events. One idea is to pay or offer other incentives to younger men to entice them to give of their time and participation.

But isn’t being part of a family the responsibility of all involved? Instead of thinking that we need pay-to-play strategies, maybe we need to ask ourselves, younger and older queers alike, whether there really are a lot of younger men who want to hang out with their older counterparts, who want to sit at a collective table, and who want to try to be part of a world they in all probability feel little connection to. Maybe when we invite younger men to be part of what we’re doing and they don’t show up in great numbers, instead of accusing ourselves that we didn’t try hard enough or that we weren’t creative enough or that we didn’t pay enough or we didn’t break down our own phobias enough, we should find out whether they are interested in being with us at all.

When I was in my 20s, I wouldn’t have gone to a “discussion” meeting with a room full of 40- to 60-year-old men (unless I thought the chances of my getting laid would be greatly increased). If it wasn’t part of my scholastic pursuits, in my down time away from work and school I wasn’t going to “philosophical chats”, I was going out dancing, going out to South of Market bars, reading French poetry on foggy days at Land’s End, or sadly enough caring for sick friends who were dying.

There have been times when I have befriended some wonderful committed, community-minded young men who want to teach me about themselves and their lives as much as I want to share my reality with them. But despite my ongoing attempts to bring younger men into a collective intergenerational gay myspace, I am disappointed that my interactions with younger men are relatively few.

In the last SFGMCI Men’s Minds survey, 85% of men in their 20s said that it is important that the gay community is united, 62% of these 20-something men believe that feeling part of a gay community is related to their health and well being, and 53% feel that being gay is key to who they are as a person. Yet even with these hopes for unity and wanting to feel part of an identified community, only 32% of these men feel connected to the community and only 36% feel that there is a gay community in San Francisco with which they identify.

I know that our city has changed greatly from when I arrived here not knowing anyone, not having a place to live and not having a way to make money. San Francisco is now oppressively expensive. I know that many younger men have to live in the less expensive parts of the City/Bay Area and that many have to work multiple jobs just to make it here. I also know that the social and political need for a gay identification and affiliation has lessened over time. Given these realities, it’s not surprising that I don’t see younger men. I realize that ways of communicating and connecting with people are also very different across generations. I don’t text, I don’t do myspace; I’m old fashioned in that I find cyber-relating to be impersonal and limiting. Perhaps younger people don’t see me and my outdated modes of communication and interaction just as I don’t see them and theirs.

I’m left puzzled about how to move forward in my quest for fostering a gay family that includes men of all ages. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Maybe my dream is one of a nostalgic older man, a dream that is potentially irrelevant to the interests and needs of younger people. Maybe they don’t need and want me and my kind as much as I believe we need and want them. Or are we all really interested in the lives of each other and just lacking effective ways of connecting and sharing community? You tell me.

Cohousing for lesbians planned in Bremerton (seattlepi.nwsource.com, Sunday, July 8, 2007)

Nancy Nystrom leans on the railing of her back deck, describing the eight gardens, wide paths and waterfall she eventually wants to have installed across the broad expanse of rolling lawn.

The property and its two houses eventually will serve as a home for elderly women only. The plan is loosely modeled after cohousing communities, where residents own their homes but share a common space, perhaps a separate house with a kitchen, sitting area and craft room.

In recent years, elderly cohousing has gained ground as aging baby boomers head into retirement. Nystrom and her partner, Teresa Jones, have taken it a step further with plans for a version that caters to lesbians.

"One of the things I think is that older lesbians, as a group, create more social support networks and create more help systems to grow old together," said Nystrom, a lecturer in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington.

The development of suburbs in the late 1940s marked the demise of multigenerational housing. People started moving out, that generational link disappeared, "and we developed no social systems to offset the needs" of older people, Nystrom said.

"We have to start as a society developing some of those systems. And that's what cohousing is about," she said. "It's totally a support network designed to help everybody have an easier time growing old."

There are about 90 cohousing communities around the U.S., mostly clustered in Denver and Boulder, Colo., Northern California, Seattle, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

Seattle is one of four places in the country that has more than seven such communities.

Cohousing communities offer people places to live while maintaining a connection to their neighbors that often is lost in traditional settings, said Joani Blank, a former board member and volunteer with the Cohousing Association of the United States.

"For several generations, people have not known their neighbors," she said. "People are beginning to feel very isolated by their fortresses."

Blank said there are very few "special focus" communities like Nystrom and Jones envision.

"That will be the first one in the country that has a gender restriction," she said.

However, similar efforts to develop housing targeted to the older lesbian and gay population have been under way in the past few years.

"Even half a century ago members of the community were aware of the need for such housing, and wanting to build it," said Gerard Koskovich, staff liaison for the Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network of the American Society on Aging.

The idea only recently came to fruition, in part, he said, because the gay community now has the assets and social networking to realize such goals.

The number of gay seniors is estimated at 3 million to 4 million, according to Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders.

"That could increase to as much as 6 million in the next 20 years," said Michael Adams, the group's executive director.

Nystrom and Jones said they focused on women because they live longer than men, and lesbians because there is still fear among the gay and lesbian community of discrimination, abuse and being "hidden away" as they grow older.

New Elder Care Facility to Include Gay Residents Wing (edgeboston.com, Friday, July 20, 2007)

Boston’s Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home has announced plans for a new facility that will include a wing for LGBT seniors.

GayCityNews.com carried the story yesterday, detailing how the $26 million facility will feature a 10-bedroom unit specifically meant to house "elderly residents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender," as Barry Berman, executive director of the home, told the Boston Herald.

Said Berman, "[Residents] could feel comfortable putting up a picture of their partner without someone snickering at them or ostracizing them."

The new facility is to be named after Elsie Frank, the mother of gay Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.

The late Mrs. Frank had advocated for LGBT equality, as well as for affordable housing for senior citizens.

Safe sex for seniors (theglobeandmail.com, Wednesday, July 25, 2007)

As volunteers in hairnets served Styrofoam cups of Jell-O to the lunch crowd at a senior centre in Queens, another group of volunteers was distributing something that didn't quite fit in amid the card games and daily gossip: condoms.

"You're giving out condoms," said a wistful Rose Crescenzo, 82, "but who's going to give us a guy?"

But this was no joke.

The condom giveaway is part of an effort by the New York City Department of Aging to educate older people about the risks they may face of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. After the condom giveaway, free HIV testing was offered.

AIDS education of the elderly has become an important issue as antiretroviral drugs that can keep patients living into their golden years changes the face of AIDS. Experts warn that ignorance about HIV among seniors can lead to new infections.

And those infections are happening. A physician from Howard University Hospital in Washington recently diagnosed unsuspected HIV in an 82-year-old.

So HIV educators have crafted a message of prevention and are taking it to senior centres and other locales where older people meet. They also hope to create a welcoming environment for people who already have the virus.

Call for more action on ageism (news.bbc.co.uk, Sunday, September 2, 2007)

Almost two-thirds of elderly people believe not enough is being done by the government to combat ageism, according to a survey by charity Help the Aged.

Many of those questioned wanted an outright ban on age discrimination, with others saying they faced a daily barrage of incidents of ageism.

The survey questioned 1,321 adults aged over 60 by telephone during last month.

The charity will also present 450 responses to the government's Discrimination Law Review on Monday.

'Active role'

Last year ageism at work for people under 65 was outlawed.

The government's Discrimination Law Review is consulting on whether further steps are necessary.

Nearly two thirds (63%) of those questioned thought the government was not doing enough to combat ageism.

The charity's research also suggested just over half the older people reported that health professionals dismissed their problems as "just old age", while one in 10 aged 60 and over said they had been spoken to in an ageist way.

Kate Jopling, head of public affairs at Help the Aged, said: "It's high time the government stopped dragging its heels and took an active role in fighting age discrimination.

"We live in a society where racism and sexism are not tolerated, yet age prejudice is tolerated and even accepted in goods, facilities and services."

'Committed'

Help the Aged has launched a Just Equal Treatment campaign to put ageism on an equal footing with racism and sexism.

The charity is calling for the Single Equality Bill - which the government is currently consulting on - to include a ban on age discrimination to cover the provision of goods, facilities and services.

Ministers are looking at how age, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and religion can be brought together into a set of laws - the Single Equality Bill.

The charity also wants and extension of the public sector equality duty to include older people's needs in relation to public services.

The government has said it is committed to a Single Equality Bill and placed "huge importance" on equality.

Gay retirees worried over 'straight influx' (telegraph.co.uk, Friday, October 5, 2007)

Residents of a gay retirement community in America are worried the special ambiance of their “private oasis” could be ruined by an influx of straight people.

RainbowVision, billed as the “first community of its kind”, opened last year in the New Mexico desert offering resort-style comforts and promising its mainly gay and lesbian retirees “the experience of people being together and sharing in the same values”.

But now a glut of empty properties is prompting fears the community’s composition, which is currently 80 per cent gay, could alter dramatically.

Roughly half the 120 units are up for rent or for sale and some worry that the depressed property market will mean owners seeking to offload their homes will sell or let to whoever they can, regardless of sexual orientation.

And they are completely free to do so as New Mexico outlaws any housing discrimination based on sexuality.

It is a concern for some of the residents who say they have spent their working lives “closeted” and do not want their new-found freedom compromised.

“It does not matter how friendly they are,” Roger Bergstrom, 77, a retired school teacher who shares a RainbowVision condo with partner Barry Baltzley, 57, told the Los Angeles Times.

“If straight people are in the majority, it’s different. It’s not what we came here for. It’s not where we want to live out the rest of our lives.”

The community, on the edge of Santa Fe, boasts luxury restaurants, a state of the art gym and spa – The Billy Jean King Fitness Centre – and hosts cabarets and other social functions for residents.

Most residents of RainbowVision, which also has retirement homes open or planned in San Francisco, Palm Springs and Vancouver, say their goal is a majority gay community where they are free to express affection and heterosexual culture does not dominate.

There are already several straight residents who live happily alongside their gay neighbours.

Joy Silver, founder of RainbowVision Properties, however, said there was little likelihood of anyone uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality moving in.

“You have to pass three rainbow flags [the symbol adopted by the gay movement] before you even get in the place.”

Home for greying gays in Gujarat (dnaindia.com, Friday, October 5, 2007)

An old age home for gays will soon come up on the banks of the Narmada in Gujarat to help them battle the problems they typically face in the autumn of their lives – loneliness and HIV/AIDS. The complex will come complete with a 200-bed hospital and crematorium to be built at a cost of Rs10 crore.

The scion of the erstwhile royal family of Rajpipla, Manavendrasingh Gohil, himself a gay activist, and a Canada-returned octogenarian are spearheading the move. The project has four acres and efforts are on to get more land. Octogenarian Jayant Trivedi donated land at Kumbheshwar about 15 kilometres from Rajpipla. Trivedi is currently engaged in securing another 11 acres from the Narmada district authorities for the project.

“Some initial hiccups in acquiring the land are being faced by us as the government is yet to clear whether the land could be donated to our registered trust Narmada Har Seva Ashram, or if it needs to be procured at a government valuation rate. I have written to the Gujarat Chief Minister two days back and am hoping that he will be sensitive to the cause of HIV/AIDS patients at least,” said an optimistic Trivedi.

Gohil, who won an UNAIDS award for his work to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS in the community, said: “Back in the year 2000 when we were forming Lakshya Trust with a group of friends, we could forecast the scenario for gay men who mostly stay single and succumb to loneliness later in life. Young gay men have multiple partners but at an old age you will not be as attractive as you used to be and that leads to depression or to becoming a recluse.”

Insecurity runs high among greying gay men, he says. “As we get older we try to separate ourselves from the heterosexual society. Human beings are social animals but old gay men are deprived of any social binding. Since there are no social bindings in gay partnerships, breakups are often. This results in loneliness and insecurity.”

The trend of old age homes exclusively for gays first started in Berlin some three years back and has gained popularity in the US as well.

Gay and Senior: Where Do We Go From Here? (gfn.com, Tuesday October 9, 2007)

Enlightenment hit the masses this morning via The New York Times. There on the front page of the Gray Lady, a prominently placed story announced what was already conventional wisdom in the gay community: nursing homes and assisted-living centers are no place for gay people. In these environs, openly gay and lesbian residents face ridicule, ostracization and worse from fellow residents and undereducated (read bigoted) staff alike.

Faced with no better option, many elderly gay people retreat back into the closet they thought they'd left years ago, just to survive these settings.

"There is something special about having to hide this part of your identity at a time when your entire identity is threatened," noted Dr. Melinda Lantz, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, who spent 13 years in a similar post at the Jewish Home and Hospital Lifecare System. Going back into the closet, said Lantz, is "a pathway to depression, failure to thrive and even premature death."

While this assessment may seem far removed from our pre-retirement lives -- independent as we are with the vast arena of options that come from being part of the working world -- there's no denying we're getting older and that our numbers are growing.

There are currently an estimated 2.4 million gay, lesbian or bisexual Americans over the age of 55, according to Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. That estimate was extrapolated by Gates using census data that counts only same-sex couples along with other government data that counts both single and coupled gay people.

The Detroit-based non-profit Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center offers an estimate, however, that really cuts to the heart of the matter: nearly 20 percent of gay seniors have no one to care for them should they become ill -- that's versus 2 percent of heterosexual seniors. If there's no one to care for us, well, a hefty 20 percent of us, where do we go to find a non-oppressive environment in our twilight years?

As the Times noted, solutions are emerging across the country. In Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and other urban centers, so-called gay aging projects are springing up to train long-term care providers, along with a virtual cottage industry of real estate developers offering up-scale retirement communities for those who can afford it.

California, though, is the only state with a law saying gay elderly have special needs, like other members of minority groups. To that end, the state boasts the nation's first and only multicultural affordable housing development for gay seniors.

Opened in May, Triangle Square's 103 apartments located in the heart of Hollywood are for those on fixed and low incomes over age 62, with monthly rental rates between $230 and $800, a bargain in today's housing market. While this should be a model for every major city in the country, the facility's laudable and nurturing environment (created through a rare combination of local, state and federal monies), just scratches the surface of the growing number of gay older adults living in the greater Los Angeles area, estimated by the Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing to be between 30,000-75,000 ... and growing.

Moreover, this marvelously humane facility is not geared for assisted living. Think of it as an inclusive, social services environment. But some 3000 miles away change and a cause for a hopeful future have taken root.

In the Boston suburbs, the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home will break ground in December for a complex that includes a unit for the gay and lesbian elderly. And Stonewall Communities in Boston has begun selling homes designed for older gay people with support services similar to assisted-living centers.

But Stonewall Communities, with its development partner Abbot Real Estate Development, are offering something quite different from Hollywood's low-income Triangle Square -- the Stonewall at Audubon Circle, as it's called, will offer 66 luxury condos that will sell between $450,000-$750,000. And supportive services do not appear to be included in the purchase price.

But focused on more traditional and less opulent facilities, openly gay geriatric case managers have begun to guide clients to a climate of more compassionate service.

Lisa Krinsky, the director of the LGBT Aging Project in Massachusetts, offers "cultural competency" training sessions. Speaking to the Times, Krinsky says in the last two years she has trained more than 2,000 employees of agencies serving the elderly across Massachusetts.

Her training addresses common problems and proffers logical solutions. While admissions forms for long-term care have boxes to check for marital status and next of kin, for example, none of the language addresses the circumstances of gay men or lesbians. This is where Krinsky's suggestions are changing the culture of these care givers. Like the issue of the marital status/next of kin question. Krinsky suggests a follow-up question like “Who is important in your life?”

When a gay man fired his home-health aide, did the case manager ask why? Krinsky posits that the patient might have been receiving unwanted Bible readings from a caregiver who thinks homosexuality is a sin. What of an elderly lesbian at an assisted-living center who refuses visitors? She might be afraid that her friends’ appearance will give her away to fellow residents, offers Krinsky.

In other words, the recipients of Krinsky's training are being taught to realign their critical thinking to ask questions of their clients that acknowledges that the gay experience is really not the same as the straight experience, save for a few discreetly placed rainbow flag pins and an old Judy Garland LP tucked away.

It is this kind of education that may offer the most far-reaching results for elderly gay men and women virtually stuck in an assisted-living or nursing facility.


Facts About Older Gay Adults

• Same-sex partners cannot share a room in most care facilities.

• There are many government programs that target the elderly, but none are geared towards gay seniors.

• Gay seniors face race, class, age bias/ageism and isolation within their own community.

• Many gay seniors retreat back into the closet, due to homophobia amongst those entrusted with the care of older adults.

• Gay seniors do not have the same family support systems as their heterosexual counterparts.

• Same-sex partners cannot receive Social Security survivor benefits.

• Basic rights and hospital visitation are regularly denied same-sex partners.

• Tax laws discriminate against same-sex partners.

• Medicaid regulations protect the assets and homes of married spouses when their partner enters a nursing home or long-term care facility; no such protection is offered to same-sex partners.

• Gay seniors are more likely to live alone and experience isolation and loneliness.

• Gay seniors are reluctant to reveal their sexual orientation to health-care providers because of fears they will face discrimination or concerns about confidentiality; in addition, some health care providers make assumptions about the health risks gay people face and may provide inadequate care.

source: Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing

Company plans housing for Vancouver's gay and grey (canada.com, Friday, October 12, 2007)

Two Vancouver businessmen are in the planning stages to build a luxury retirement complex for gays.

Partnered with RainbowVision of Santa Fe, N.M., Dean Malone and Darren Stoltz have held three quietly advertised "town hall" meetings in gay and lesbian communities in Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster.

Malone and Stoltz run Plum Living, which provides in-home support and health care services for gays and lesbians.

"We told people about the meetings through our little network of people and word of mouth and expected maybe 10 or 15 people to show up," said Malone. "We got more than 50 people at each meeting, so I think this is something that the community wants."

Very few care homes welcome openly gay residents, said Chris Morrissey of Vancouver's GLBT Generations Project, adding that after years or even a lifetime of living out of the closet, many gays face the prospect of hiding their sexual orientation to get the care they need in old age.

Recent articles in the New York Times and Vancouver's Xtra West contain tales of fear, rejection and even suicide for openly gay seniors who end up in nursing homes where they are harassed or moved from the general living area and placed with severely disabled or mentally ill residents to quiet the protests of homophobic seniors.

RainbowVision is a decidedly upmarket part of the solution. Rainbow's complex in Santa Fe is a mix of 120 condos and rental suites over five hectares that includes a restaurant, bar and what the Los Angeles Times called "a gym that would turn heads in West Hollywood."

All the Santa Fe condos sold within three months, though occupancy at the complex is now around 70 per cent. Condos currently on the market range in price from $269,000 to $340,000 US.

Malone said he and his friends had been talking about a Rainbow-like concept for 10 years before he ran into Silver at a Montreal human rights conference last summer. He was so smitten with the idea that he travelled to Santa Fe to follow up just a few months later.

"I'm at the younger end of the demographic, but this speaks to the lifestyle options my partner and I are looking for, both now and in the future," said Malone. "It can't happen soon enough and so we are going to be part of making it happen," he said.

Rainbow Vancouver will offer a wide range of assisted living and in-home care options for residents as they age, as well as an active and social lifestyle.

Gay Elders’ Needs Coming Into Focus as Boomers Age (edgeboston.com, Tuesday, October 9, 2007)

As the baby boomers face the prospect of assisted living facilities, a new face of prejudice is coming to light: that of anti-gay bias directed at the elderly.

The New York Times examined the subject in an article posted today, quoting senior citizens who spoke about their experiences facing prejudice from fellow assisted care residents and staff.

The article quoted Gloria Donadello, an 81-year-old, who said that people at a facility where she lived in Santa Fe, NM, made "certain kinds of comments" that she found troubling.

"’Please don’t do that, because I’m gay,’" Donadello recalled saying to them.

A 77-year-old Bostonian, Dr. Jalna Perry, a psychiatrist, recounted how she, too, was upfront about her sexuality--and found herself treated as "a pariah," a status that affected her health and well-being until she moved into a GLBT facility.

The move, she said, "was a choice between life and death."

The one bright spot at her former facility was a gay male nurse to offered Perry the consideration that heterosexual residents received as a matter of course from the staff.

Said Perry, "Except for that nurse, I was very lonely."

Added Perry, "It would have been nice if someone else was out among the residents."

It’s long been the case that GLBT elders commanded little attention; that is likely to change. Already, the Times story reported, more and more elderly gays and lesbians are speaking up about the problem, reporting conduct that includes taunts and exclusion, even outright abuse.

The result is injurious to the GLBT elders who are subject to such abuses; the Times story stated that some commit suicide. Even the thought of facing bias-driven mistreatment in their twilight years brings some older people facing the prospect of assisted care living to a state of anxiety. That in itself can be enough, according to physicians and social workers, to harm the elderly.

But the baby boomers, a generation comprising about 80 million Americans who were born in the post-World War II period lasting roughly 14 years, from 1946-1960, have never been a cohort to accept the world as it is; and with estimates of between 1.6 and 8 million members of that generation being GLBT, the landscape of the eldercare service industry is inevitably going to have to change to address their needs.

Seeing the tribulations of those who have gone before them, GLBT boomers approaching the age when they will need the services of such facilities have begun to take action.

The results include initiatives--"LGBT Aging Projects"--geared toward education of health care providers for the elderly. There’s also an increasing trend toward GLBT-specific elder-care facilities, whether offered in a wing of a larger establishment (as in the case of a planned addition to the Boston-area Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home) or gay and lesbian retirement villages, such as the Palms of Manasota, in Palmetto, Fla., which bills itself as America’s premiere GLBT retirement community.

But GLBT people need more than a safe place to live out their golden years: they need advocates and a social support system. That’s where case managers--GLBT themselves--and GLBT-oriented organizations for senior citizens can make a difference.

The New York Times story quoted the president of Stonewall Communities, David Aronstein, as saying, "Many times gay people avoid seeking help at all because of their fears about how they’ll be treated."

Continued Aronstein, "Unless they see affirming actions, they’ll assume the worst."

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight (nytimes.com, Tuesday, October 9, 2007)

Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, “people were laughing and making certain kinds of comments, and I told them, ‘Please don’t do that, because I’m gay.’”

The result of her outspokenness, Ms. Donadello said, was swift and merciless. “Everyone looked horrified,” she said. No longer included in conversation or welcome at meals, she plunged into depression. Medication did not help. With her emotional health deteriorating, Ms. Donadello moved into an adult community nearby that caters to gay men and lesbians.

“I felt like I was a pariah,” she said, settled in her new home. “For me, it was a choice between life and death.”

Elderly gay people like Ms. Donadello, living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide.

Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.

The plight of the gay elderly has been taken up by a generation of gay men and lesbians, concerned about their own futures, who have begun a national drive to educate care providers about the social isolation, even outright discrimination, that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clients face.

Several solutions are emerging. In Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and other urban centers, so-called L.G.B.T. Aging Projects are springing up, to train long-term care providers. At the same time, there is a move to separate care, with the comfort of the familiar.

In the Boston suburbs, the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home will break ground in December for a complex that includes a unit for the gay and lesbian elderly. And Stonewall Communities in Boston has begun selling homes designed for older gay people with support services similar to assisted-living centers. There are also openly gay geriatric case managers who can guide clients to compassionate services.

“Many times gay people avoid seeking help at all because of their fears about how they’ll be treated,” said David Aronstein, president of Stonewall Communities. “Unless they see affirming actions, they’ll assume the worst.”

Homophobia directed at the elderly has many faces.

Home health aides must be reminded not to wear gloves at inappropriate times, for example while opening the front door or making the bed, when there is no evidence of H.I.V. infection, said Joe Collura, a nurse at the largest home care agency in Greenwich Village.

A lesbian checking into a double room at a Chicago rehabilitation center was greeted by a roommate yelling, “Get the man out of here!” The lesbian patient, Renae Ogletree, summoned a friend to take her elsewhere.

Sometimes tragedy results. In one nursing home, an openly gay man, without family or friends, was recently moved off his floor to quiet the protests of other residents and their families. He was given a room among patients with severe disabilities or dementia. The home called upon Amber Hollibaugh, now a senior strategist at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the author of the first training curriculum for nursing homes. Ms. Hollibaugh assured the 79-year-old man that a more humane solution would be found, but he hanged himself, Ms. Hollibaugh said. She was unwilling to identify the nursing home or even its East Coast city, because she still consults there, among other places.

While this outcome is exceedingly rare, moving gay residents to placate others is common, said Dr. Melinda Lantz, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, who spent 13 years in a similar post at the Jewish Home and Hospital Lifecare System. “When you’re stuck and have to move someone because they’re being ganged up on, you put them with people who are very confused,” Dr. Lantz said. “That’s a terrible nuts-and-bolts reality.”

The most common reaction, in a generation accustomed to being in the closet, is a retreat back to the invisibility that was necessary for most of their lives, when homosexuality was considered both a crime and a mental illness. A partner is identified as a brother. No pictures or gay-themed books are left around.

Elderly heterosexuals also suffer the indignities of old age, but not to the same extent, Dr. Lantz said. “There is something special about having to hide this part of your identity at a time when your entire identity is threatened,” she said. “That’s a faster pathway to depression, failure to thrive and even premature death.”

The movement to improve conditions for the gay elderly is driven by demographics. There are an estimated 2.4 million gay, lesbian or bisexual Americans over the age of 55, said Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. That estimate was extrapolated by Dr. Gates using census data that counts only same-sex couples along with other government data that counts both single and coupled gay people. Among those in same-sex couples, the number of gay men and women over 55 has almost doubled from 2000 to 2006, Dr. Gates said, to 416,000, from 222,000.

California is the only state with a law saying the gay elderly have special needs, like other members of minority groups. A new law encourages training for employees and contractors who work with the elderly and permits state financing of projects like gay senior centers.

Federal law provides no antidiscrimination protections to gay people. Twenty states explicitly outlaw such discrimination in housing and public accommodations. But no civil rights claims have been made by gay residents of nursing homes, according to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, which litigates and monitors such cases. Potential plaintiffs, the organization says, are too frail or frightened to bring action.

The problem is compounded, experts say, because most of the gay elderly do not declare their identity, and institutions rarely make an effort to find out who they are to prepare staff members and residents for what may be an unfamiliar situation.

So that is where Lisa Krinsky, the director of the L.G.B.T. Aging Project in Massachusetts, begins her “cultural competency” training sessions, including one last month at North Shore Elder Services in Danvers.

Admissions forms for long-term care have boxes to check for marital status and next of kin. But none of the boxes match the circumstances of gay men or lesbians. Ms. Krinsky suggested follow-up questions like “Who is important in your life?”

In the last two years, Ms. Krinsky has trained more than 2,000 employees of agencies serving the elderly across Massachusetts. She presents them with common problems and nudges them toward solutions.

A gay man fired his home health aide. Did the case manager ask why? The patient might be receiving unwanted Bible readings from someone who thinks homosexuality is a sin. What about a lesbian at an assisted-living center refusing visitors? Maybe she is afraid that her friends’ appearance will give her away to fellow residents.

“We need to be open and sensitive,” Ms. Krinsky said, “but not wrap them in a rainbow flag and make them march in a parade.”

Some of the gay elderly chose openness as the quickest and most painless way of finding compassionate care. That is the case for Bruce Steiner, 76, of Sudbury, Mass., whose 71-year-old partner, Jim Anthony, has had Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade and can no longer feed himself or speak.

Mr. Steiner is resisting a nursing home for Mr. Anthony, even after several hospitalizations last year. The care had been uneven, Mr. Steiner said, and it was unclear whether homosexuality was a factor. But Mr. Steiner decided to take no chances and hired a gay case manager who helped him “do some filtering.”

They selected a home care agency with a reputation for treating gay clients well. Preparing for an unknown future, Mr. Steiner also visited several nursing homes, “giving them the opportunity to encourage or discourage me.” His favorite “is one run by the Carmelite sisters, of all things, because they had a sense of humor.”

They are the exception, not the rule.

Jalna Perry, a 77-year-old lesbian and psychiatrist in Boston, is out, she said, but does not broadcast the fact, which would feel unnatural to someone of her generation. Dr. Perry, who uses a wheelchair, has spent time in assisted-living centers and nursing homes. There, she said, her guard was up all the time.

Dr. Perry came out to a few other residents in the assisted-living center — artsy, professional women who she figured would accept her. But even with them, she said, “You don’t talk about gay things.” Mostly, she kept to herself. “You size people up,” Dr. Perry said. “You know the activities person is a lesbian; that’s a quick read.”

Trickier was an aide who was gentle with others but surly and heavy-handed when helping Dr. Perry with personal tasks. Did the aide suspect and disapprove? With a male nurse who was gay, Dr. Perry said she felt “extremely comfortable.”

“Except for that nurse, I was very lonely,” she said. “It would have been nice if someone else was out among the residents.”

Such loneliness is a source of dread to the members of the Prime Timers, a Boston social group for older gay men. Among the regulars, who meet for lunch once a week, are Emile Dufour, 70, a former priest, and Fred Riley, 75, who has a 30-year heterosexual marriage behind him. The pair have been together for two decades and married in 2004. But their default position, should they need nursing care, will be to hide their gayness, as they did for half a lifetime, rather than face slurs and whispers.

“As strong as I am today,” Mr. Riley said, “when I’m at the gate of the nursing home, the closet door is going to slam shut behind me.”

‘Rainbow Trainers’ educate senior centers on gay issues (sovo.com, Friday, November 2, 2007)

The third town hall meeting for those interested in issues facing gay senior citizens in Georgia was held this week at Fulton County’s Helene S. Mills Senior Multipurpose Facility — a senior citizens’ center that is welcoming to gay and lesbian visitors.

“We are at the first time meeting in a senior center, and one that is excited to have us,” said Linda Ellis, member of an advisory panel on gay aging issues, as well as the executive director of the Atlanta Lesbian Health Initiative.

Working with the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Area Agency on Aging, the LGBT senior advisory committee is still trying to generate interest from gay Georgia seniors to make sure services and resources are available to them.

A Yahoo group is expected to begin soon to connect gay seniors with meetings and events. A website is also in development to help lesbians and gay men age 55 and older find resources on health, senior centers, independent living facilities, as well as deal with other issues faced by older residents. Volunteers are being sought to help with these initiatives.

“I’ve been part of the professional gay community for 13 years, and Atlanta is unlike many other [metropolitan] cities because it does not have a central community center,” Ellis said. “This creates different challenges for us, and we have got to develop stronger connections with gay organizations, faith-based groups and interested individuals.”

According to the ARC, there are approximately 834,000 Georgians ages 65 and older; of that, some 67,000 are gay or lesbian.

“There is a tsunami of aging coming,” said Doug Carl, a gay man and deputy director of the Fulton County Human Services Department.

“The aging population will change politics, social networks, economics — and this all happens at the grassroots level,” he added. “This is what we’ve been doing since 1969.”

Fulton County Commissioner Nancy Boxill appeared at Tuesday’s town hall meeting to show the support of the county to make sure gay elders receive the resources they need without discrimination.

One of the next major steps for the advisory committee is to engage and challenge current agencies to be educated and aware of gay and lesbian seniors needing their services, Ellis said.

Part of that strategy is a Rainbow Train program through the ARC. Gay people and allies can take a two-day class on sensitivity issues surrounding gay senior citizens. When a senior center or other agency approaches the ARC and asks for their staff to be trained on gay aging issues, the Rainbow Trainers then go into the facility and give a two-hour course, including sharing their personal stories.

In 2006, the first group of 12 Rainbow Train participants completed the class. The Helene S. Mills Senior Multipurpose Facility staff in turn was trained to be sensitive and aware of gay clients. Jennifer Curry of the ARC added she is seeking recruits for another training program tentatively slated for early January.

Phillip Rush, a 53-year-old gay man, said it is important for individuals to start speaking out — to their elected officials, their places of work, their friends — to let them know gay seniors need to be cared for. “We are going to have to stand up and make change,” he said.

Rush compared today’s movement on taking care of gay seniors as the movement gay activists took up some 13 years ago when gay youth were underserved.

“At that time, we were being told there were no gay youth. Today we have a gay youth center and numerous gay youth groups,” he said.

“The power of the individual voice is much more amazing than you might think.”

Agingcare.com an online community for caregivers (901am.com, Sunday, November 4, 2007)

Agingcare.com is a new website focused on the needs of caregivers to the elderly while providing a forum for connecting caregivers with expert information, resources, products and each other.

It will also provide an empathetic community to exchange advice, ideas and emotional support. The site editors will bring together relevant information on the critical issues associated with caregiving while providing easy, direct access to answers.

The caregiver market represents one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. As advances in healthcare continue, the over-65 population is projected to grow exponentially.

“My passion for this website was the result of personal experience in caregiving for a family member. Though there were many websites that provided assistance and information, navigating, researching and sorting through the mounds of information was a long, difficult task. Finding individuals in a similar life situation became a source of comfort and a way to identify important information sources,” said Katie Brennan, VP and Publisher of Agingcare.com.

Agingcare.com (agingcare.com, 2007)

Agingcare.com will enhance the lives of caregivers by creating the most expansive community of support, easy access to scrutinized resources, cutting edge product information and unique, original content to assist them in making the most informed choices for the elderly. Our website provides an independent editorial voice that assures the caregiver that subjects covered are not influenced by outside entities with specific agendas.

    Use your browser's  BACK  button to  RETURN  to this point!