I watched a documentary recently featured on P.O.V. (an excellent program that airs on public television stations, and yes, in liberal Austin, Texas, this program seems to usually be aired after 9 p.m., or after 10 p.m.) that profiled the pretty awful plight of elderly GLBT members of our society. I'd no idea how many GLBT elderly people struggle so hard to make ends meet, how rare it is to find GLBT friendly nursing homes, assisted living homes, and general health care. AND, we are talking about a majority of retired GLBT members of our society, NOT just a few. A majority. It must be remembered that these folks grew up in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's and the world as we know it now, in this country, was very different. It was not always easy to find and hold decent paying jobs unless you lived a closeted life. There was a lot of discrimination. Few of these domestic partners knew to go to an estate planning attorney. Who would suggest that to them, and how many could afford it, and how many available attorneys were there at that time that dealt with such matters? Many have lost partners with whom they were in long term relationships, and find themselves being evicted from their homes because the title of the house was in the partner's name. There are no social security benefits to be had from one's partner, hence the exclusion of Medicare. Even today if you are in a long term relationship and do not have Durable Power of Attorney/Medical Power of Attorney you are not allowed to visit your partner in the hospital if anyone objects, and yes, families do object. You may be not be invited to speak at your partner's funeral, or have any part of that whole process. Horror stories abound, even today. So many of these folks are invisible, they are marginalized, they are disenfranchised. No rights or benefits in regards to their partners. Some companies are making exceptions these days, but these people have little to no governmental representation. We don't know who they are, or where they are. An interview with one young gay man said he feared older gay men would only want sex from him, but if he could be guaranteed that wouldn't happen, he'd welcome having coffee every morning with an elderly gay man. Unfortunately that paints a very sad picture in my mind, the fear of our elderly based on such assumptions and in my opinion, very unsupportive reasoning. Another young gay man said he didn't know anything at all about elderly GLBT people, they were indeed invisible. There is a great rift, a real chasm between younger GLBT folks and older GLBT people, and I find this very sad indeed. I can easily imagine a mentoring program between young and old. It has been an incredible blessing for me personally to have a gay yoga kula that is accepting, loving, and embracing, and to find myself accepted into the yoga community at large--in general they are a group of uniquely special people with great big loving hearts. This makes me cry with tears of gratitude. I'm also blessed to have a wonderful life-mate, and we are going on 34 years together soon!
I only recently became aware of Andrew Harvey, a gay writer, yogi, mystic, scholar, etc....he advocates "Sacred Activism"...not dissimilar in my mind to prayer in action. Getting out there in the world and doing something to help others. Really putting your beliefs into action. Reaching out to touch someone. Sometimes a smile given to a stranger on the street can work miracles. We are all connected.
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