June is Pride month, and all over the world LGBT people are celebrating with their communities. In San Francisco, huge rainbow flags are flying all the way down Market Street, there is a general sense of merriment in the air, and datebooks are filling up with parties and events to celebrate.
This year, I hope that we can all spend some time thinking about the pioneers in our community and all of today’s LGBT seniors, on whose shoulders we stand with our rainbow flags held high. When you see our trolley go by in the Pride Parade on Sunday, June 27, give us a big cheer! Stop by the Elders Tent at the Pride Festival to say hello. And consider supporting LGBT seniors by making a generous gift to openhouse today. Click here to donate now!
This year at our 6th annual Spring Fling, openhouse honored Phyllis Lyon who in 1955, with her late partner Del Martin, formed the Daughters of Bilitis, a pioneering national lesbian organization. A few years earlier, in 1951 Harry Hay had formed the Mattachine Society, the very first gay rights organization in the country. And forty one years ago a group of drag queens and other patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village fought back during a police raid, sparking three days of riots. This event helped transform the gay rights movement from one limited to a small group of activists to a widespread campaign for equality and acceptance.
The people who started the LGBT civil rights movement are the LBGT seniors that openhouse serves today. We know that their paths were not easy and they endured incredible discrimination, intolerance and bigotry along the way. But without them, we’d have little to celebrate today.
Unfortunately, as today’s LGBT seniors seek support services, housing and the care they need to age with dignity and grace, many feel forced “back in the closet” because they fear renewed judgment, discrimination or compromised care. A study by the U.S. Administration on Aging showed that LGBT older adults are only 20% as likely as non-LGBT seniors to utilize senior centers, housing assistance, meals programs and other services. LGBT seniors approach this kind of community support with trepidation because their life experience differs so greatly from the non-LGBT seniors who embrace these programs. Even today’s Baby Boomers identify discrimination as their greatest concern about aging.
openhouse is working each and every day to change the culture of care for LGBT seniors. We’re building housing that will be welcoming and affordable to LGBT seniors. We’re working with existing housing providers and care givers to ensure that LGBT seniors are welcomed and supported. We’re reaching out to isolated LGBT seniors to bring them into community-based services, like senior centers and meals programs. Through these efforts, openhouse helps hundreds of seniors each year find the LGBT-welcoming housing and support services they need.
This month we are proud to have published From Isolation to Inclusion: Reaching and Serving LGBT Seniors. This comprehensive curriculum, training program and DVD is designed to help care givers at every level—from in-home support workers to CEO’s of large housing developers—better serve our community.
This work is critical to our future…none of us are getting any younger and the time to make a difference is now. Please make a difference in the lives of LGBT seniors with a generous gift to openhouse. And if you or someone you know needs our services, please call our office at (415) 296-8995 or email us.
Yours in Pride,
Seth Kilbourn
Executive Director
Tags: LBGT Seniors, LGBT Pride
