Rod Hensel: It’s Time for New York State to Step Up for LGBT Seniors
By Rod Hensel
The Gayging Advocate
Our LGBT seniors who are still out and about and active need to be willing show they know how to post on Facebook and use a phone when election time draws near. We’re not even asking for money, just the right to live with dignity and pride.
On the west coast, California gets it. Washington state gets it. It’s time for New York State to take a leadership role on the east coast and show they “get it” too.
The “it” is legislation requiring professional caregivers — especially those in nursing homes and senior housing facilities — to take a course on the special needs of LGBT seniors so their charges can be out, open and comfortable in their senior years.
You can call it “cultural competency” or “sensitivity training” or whatever you wish, but the fact is LGBT people of my generation are scared to just be themselves and are going back into the closet in their autumn years.
Think of it for a minute. You are aging and alone and you reach a point where you need home care assistance. So you are letting a stranger into your house help you in your daily activities. Do you take down the artwork that clearly establishes you are gay? Do you put away the photos of you and your now deceased partner taken during you Provincetown vacations? Do you explain why you never married or why you have no children to assist in caregiving? Do you tell why you have a beef with organized religion when they ask what church/temple you go to?
I once spent two weeks in a nursing home here in Buffalo, getting rehab after surgery. I was openly gay and told people so. One day I heard an aide telling the nurse on the floor that I was gay, and the nurse’s reply was”I will have to pray for him.” Soon I found my pain meds were getting to me hours behind the scheduled time and hours behind the other patients, leaving me in serious pain. Things changed when I wheeled myself into the middle of the lobby and shouted I want to see the charge nurse and I want her here now. I declared discriminatory practices, cell phone in hand, and was assigned a different nurse for the rest of my stay.
Another time I spoke to a group of administrators of senior housing facilities to talk about our Silver Pride LGBT seniors group. They listened politely, but then one volunteered she didn’t think they had any LGBT residents, and others quickly agreed. I assured them if they had more than 30 residents they could pretty much be assured they had LGBT residents.
It’s a real fear. In a 2011 survey, 89% of LGBT seniors predicted that staff would discriminate based on sexual orientations and/or gender identities, and 43% reported instances of mistreatment. Moreover it’s not just the employees that can discriminate, but fellow residents.
Imagine spending your most vulnerable elder years sharing a room with a homophobic roommate and not feeling comfortable in even complaining about it. It is the very definition of social injustice as well as elder abuse.
In Washington state, legislation is being considered that would require state nursing home workers and other long-term service providers to be trained in the needs of LGBT seniors. Last Fall in California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a “Bill of Rights” for LGBT seniors requiring similar training.
Here in Buffalo, the Pride Center of Western New York has been offering training on LGBT senior issues for well over a year, and the reception has been good, even among religiously affiliated providers. But you can’t count on people reaching out to address a problem that is so hidden many can’t even see it exists.
So it’s time time to get to work. We need our state and local LGBTQ organizations, like Stonewall Democrats, to make training legislation a top priority when they go to their annual Albany lobbying day this year. And it’s an issue that should be on the agenda when candidate endorsement time comes around for state legislators and statewide elected officials like the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
On a national level, we need groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the National LGBTQ Task Force to put this on their legislative agenda, and use it as a factor in their rankings of LGBTQ affirmative communities.
Our LGBT seniors who are still out and about and active need to be willing show they know how to post on Facebook and use a phone when election time draws near. We’re not even asking for money, just the right to live with dignity and pride.
Rod Hensel is based in Buffalo, NY where he was a gay activist and Mattachine Society chapter president in the ’70’s and ’80’s. He later co-founded Stonewall Democrats of Western New York. He is currently helping to organize the SIlver Pride Project of the Pride Center of Western New York to address issues of concern to LGBT seniors, and writes on LGBT senior issues for Buffalo’s Loop Magazine. You can find him at facebook.com/rodney.hensel.