Given the demographics of the baby-boom generationas well as wider social acceptance leading to burgeoning numbers of out LGBT peoplethe institutions that the LGBT community relies on to meet its needs are having to adapt to an inevitability: the aging process.Howard Brown Health Center has partnered with a number of Chicago agencies to create Aging as We Are, a program intended to comprehensively address the needsmedical, emotional, socialof maturing LGBT people.
Amber Hollibaugh, who was hired last year to spearhead the initiative, envisions Aging As We Are as a model for queer institutions across the country as they struggle with an aging clientele. "In America there's a real resistance to agingperiod," Hollibaugh said. "This is not a country that knows how to manage aging."
Particularly with regard to the LGBT communitystill in many ways in its political infancyHollibaugh said, "We haven't created services and institutions for our life spans. We couldn't imagine ourselves [ aging ] ."
Nonetheless, the time is ripe: "We've become strong enough to create our own services, not in desperation but as alternative."
Howard Brown's program, Hollibaugh said, aims to "make it possible for people to really be themselves in their own aging bodies."
As part of the program, Howard Brown last year hired a specialist, Dr. Magda Houlberg, whose focus is geriatric medicine. And, Hollibaugh added, clients have access to case managers who can answer their questions about issues ranging from rent to Social Securityas well as help them address their medical needs.
Howard Brown also employs five peer outreach workers who are 50 or older; they try to bring older patients into the fold. The outreach workerswho by virtue of their own demographic makeup are meant to reflect the diverse needs of a diverse communitygo to senior citizens' homes, faith-based institutions, health fairs, hospitals and pride events to pass out the Aging As We Are newsletter and engage potential clients on issues they're struggling with.
The idea for a collaborative aging program for Howard Brown came out of a town-hall meeting held in 2007. Hollibaugh, who previously worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce and Services and Advocacy for LGBT Elders, attended the meeting and became involved in the planning process. It was agreed that Howard Brown would lead the concept; partnering with local agencies such as Rush University Medical Center and Heartland Alliance, Hollibaugh said, "made it easy to do something more ambitious."
In particular, it enabled Howard Brown to offer an array of medical servicesincluding primary care, HIV/STD testing, counseling and legal assistancein a way that clients might experience as less alienating than mainstream medical services. "Our job," Hollibaugh said, "is to try to figure out how to create an easy access at the intersection of aging, sexual orientation, maybe HIV status, and gender identity."
Take the idea of a non-traditional family, she said: "That's complicated to explain to a mainstream provider. You have to take care of yourself with more vigilance." Or the example of a trans person whose longtime doctor retires: "It's not like you can call a doctor and interview them about being trans-friendly.
For a queer clientele, she said, "Are the issues going to be different? Well, actually they could be."
More information about Howard Brown's Aging As We Are program can be found at www.howardbrown.org/hb_services.asp.