Features
Amber Hollibaugh to Speak at RU12? Dinner
Amber Hollibaugh
to Speak at R.U.1.2? Dinner
Speaker to Address Elder LGBT Issues
by
Donna Iverson
There
are lots of unpleasant realities to face when you get old, as the baby
boomer generation is about to find out. But if you are a gay, lesbian,
bisexual or transgendered elder, the cultural deck is stacked against
you in ways you may not have imagined.
At the upcoming R.U.1.2? annual
dinner on May 13, Amber Hollibaugh, senior strategist for the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force, will be addressing this issue. The Task Force
has found that LGBT elders often do not have access to adequate health
care, affordable housing, and other social services due to institutionalized
heterosexism.
For example, the oldest and most frail
LGBT elders face a wall of intolerance if they are admitted to a nursing
home.
Homophobia among caregivers has been
well documented in studies of nursing home conditions. Faced with such
intolerance, if not hostility, many LGBT elders retreat into the closet,
reinforcing isolation.
On the federal level, the institutionalized
discrimination hits GLBT elders in their pocketbooks and hearts. Federal
programs treat same sex couples differently than married heterosexual
couples. The Task Force notes the following:
1. Social Security pays survivor benefits to widows and widowers but not
to the same-sex life partner of someone who dies.
2. Unmarried partners in life-long relationships are not eligible for
Social Security spousal benefits.
3. Medicaid regulations protect the assets and homes of married spouses
when one enters a nursing home, but no such protections are offered same-sex
partners.
4. Tax laws discriminate against same-sex partners, costing them tens
of thousands, and possibly more than $1 million, during the course of
a lifetime.
5. Hospital visitations rights are often denied same-sex partners.
Compounding these problems,
LGBT elders often experience social isolation and ageism within the LGBT
community itself. As they often do not have the same family support system
as heterosexual people, a disproportionate number of LGBT elders live
alone... the most invisible of all Americans, the Task Force reports.
Prior to becoming senior strategist
for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Hollibaugh served as director
of education, advocacy and community building for SAGE (Services and Advocacy
for GLBT Elders). For many years, she created national HIV and AIDS programs
and was the first director of the Lesbian AIDS Project. In addition to
her activism, she is an artist, writer and filmmaker. The author of My
Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, she also co-produced
and directed "The Heart of the Matter," a documentary about
women's sexuality and HIV risk, which won the 1994 Sundance Festival Freedom
of Expression Award and ran on PBS. Hollibaugh is also a founding board
member of Queers for Economic Justice. Hollibaugh specializes in activating
local LGBT communities to work toward economic and social justice on all
fronts.
A message of empowerment is what she
is expected to bring to the Burlington LGBT community on Saturday, May
13th, as the keynote speaker for the R.U.1.2? 8th Annual Queer Community
Dinner to be held at the Wyndham Hotel in Burlington. To learn more or
register, call R.U.1.2? at 860-7812 or email them at thecenter@ru12.org
Donna Iverson moved to subsidized senior housing in Winooski three
years ago. Her car with the only gay pride sticker in the lot, has been
vandalized twice, most recently a rock thrown through the window on the
driver’s side. A freelance writer and photographer and social activist,
she lives with her Abyssinian cat, Willow.