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 www.thetaskforce.org .