Hi all, hope I do the panelists justice in recapping their key points. Guess we´ll find out.
The Equality Forum panelists were:
Terry Kaelber opened by welcoming the panelists and audience, and thanking us for attending. He then jumped right into the reason we were there, and gave us a little background info on SAGE.
SAGE serves the five boroughs by focusing on four main areas:
In the interest of keeping this recap to a reasonable length, I would suggest learning more about these by visiting the website.
Terry then proceeded to discuss the two major issues affecting the LGBT community as they age--the duel impact of agism bigotry (invisibility/being regarded as obsolete) and aging alone, with the latter being the more frightening. Aging alone, he says, is an almost-debilitating fear among gay men and women. In explaining this, he reasoned that assuming as we get older, care is provided by our children, it´s easy to see that because very few gay men and women are parents, and because current legislation denies them adoption privileges, it significantly decreases any assurance of elder care.
The statistics are sobering.
A study conducted by the Brookdale Center on Aging found that:
From these statistics you can see how dire the situation is, and that SAGE is hardly exaggerating when they say that the LGBT community is in the middle of an aging crisis.
To further compound the situation, the fear of growing old alone, and indeed the very act in some cases, leads to:
In San Francisco, a survey conducted by the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights showed that 67% of the gay elderly receive sub-standard care, and even more disturbingly, 50% of 'gray gays' surveyed by the Area Agency on Aging reported that they feared they would not be welcomed at elder centers because they are gay! (Vince Grimm gives more detail on this)
Terry Kaelber believes the greatest needs for the LGBT community are Housing and Social Programs. He stressed the importance of 'community,' of giving gay seniors the assurance that they are NOT alone, and that there are people that support them and love them. There are, of course, hurdles. One of the major problems is the LGBT's "almost-complete invisibility to main stream providers." Insurance companies either don't know, or don't WANT to know that there are gays and lesbian men and women in their nursing homes. This in turn leads to a very real fear that 'gray gays have of being 'outed' in these establishments, and that this will lead to sub standard care.
Mention was also made of SAGE's 3rd National conference on LGBT aging issues. "Aging on Our Own Terms" will be held at New York University, on June 18-19, 2004. For more information, go HERE.
Terry also spoke about the 'White House Conference on Aging' and the fact that only 5 delegates out of 2400 are openly gay, and fighting for gay issues! More on this when I recap Peg Cruikshank.
Vince Grimm had the audience right where he wanted us even before he made his opening remarks. In telling us a little about Vince, Terry said that Vince lists two of his major personal accomplishments as his 43-year relationship with his partner, and the fact that he slept with 24% of his high school class! The audience immediately dissolved into gales of laughter, not to mention applause. That set the tone for Vince's segment--warm, funny, passionate, yet very endearing and motivating. It was a welcome change from Terry's statistics, which while VERY educational, had left us all feeling slightly despondent.
After teasing the organizers on their insistence that opening remarks be kept to 7 minutes--"Whatever happened to having fifteen minutes of fame?"--Vince got serious. I definitely heard some sniffles as he recalled an event he spoke at in a nursing home, where the residents were observed buying 2 hot dogs, and putting one in their pockets so they could have something for dinner.
"If this is what is happening in the straight community," Vince reasoned, "one can only imagine what would happen at a nursing home that housed gay residents."
The fear of sub-standard care is very real! In speaking to gay friends who currently live in nursing homes, but refuse to 'come out,' Vince realized that, for those involved in relationships, they are terrified that their partners wouldn't be allowed to visit! In 2004! In America!
Observing all these things has made Vince thankful for a full life--family, friends and Will (his partner). He said three things that stayed with me.
"We never have a bad day; simply days that are better than others."
Vince and Will don't watch television. (Will later apologized to Robert for that lol.) Vince relishes community activities and spending quality time with those he loves. He said,
"We turned off our television 25 years ago and turned onto living."
He closed with a quote from his father: "You have two choices. You can be the 'elderly' with all the negativity that that entails, or you can be an 'elder', and enjoy the positives."
We were lucky enough to spend some quality time with the panelists after the forum, and after dishing 'Latter Days' with Will, he and Vince regaled us with stories of their youth. As Donna said before they came out when they were 13 years old, and had the full support of their parents, friends and schoolmates! This was in the 50s! Everybody at the table, including Robert, was shocked! Will talked about being openly gay in high school, and having the jocks in his class help hold his hands so he could hit the baseball . According to Vince, the closest he ever came to a bashing was when five girls held him down near the swimming pool and threatened to drown him if they EVER found out that he was sleeping with one of their boyfriends. Everyone at the table burst out laughing but according to Vince, it was anything but funny at the time.
What is VERY evident is how much this couple loves life, how much they make every day matter, and how much they count each year as a blessing. THAT is the message that Vince tries to share. He understands that not everyone is as lucky as he was, and is, and that's why he's a firm believer in community building. He wants everyone to HAVE someone, and to know that old age can be a wonderful experience if we let it.
"I've earned every one of these wrinkles," Vince said.
Robert started by answering the question "Why am I here?" His answer? He wants to "wake up." "I was very focused on giving me back to myself," Robert said, and went on to explain that in trying to overcome the insecurities and feelings of self-deprecation instilled in him as a young gay man (albeit a closeted one) he had become too self-involved. He wanted to step outside of himself and focus on the community as a whole.
Heads nodded in agreement as Robert spoke of the dire state of the elder gay community, and the 'collective internal belief that we are unlovable;' a school of thought perpetuated by the gay community's focus on youth and beauty. "Wrinkles can be another form of beauty if we allow them to be," he said, "but first we must heal ourselves."
Robert supplied a few tips for doing just that:
Robert called for something akin to a rallying of troops. He feels that we've done it to battle the AIDS epidemic (especially in the 80s) and we should adopt a similar strategy for aging since it's the only issue that has 'true universality'.
Something Robert said stuck with me because I found it so profoundly beautiful.
"Aging is an organic part of life's flows, no matter how many inorganic products (i.e. drugs) we consume."