A topic many in the LGBT community don’t think about often is aging. We can accept it, but American society, unfortunately, still isn’t comfortable with “the gays.” Thus, when gay seniors need to find a retirement home, they are often shoved back into the closet. Significant others of many years are torn apart as they aren’t legally recognized as a couple with rights. What happens to you if you’re in your 60’s or 70’s with no biological family? How do you find affordable living arrangements that don’t muzzle a major part of your identity or life?
A Place to Live: The Story of Triangle Square is a documentary film that investigates this problem. The film won the Audience Award at OUTFEST in 2008. The film follows seven older adults as they try to secure places in the first affordable LGBT housing facility in the U.S.—Triangle Square Hollywood. A lottery was set up to select the first residents, since the applicants overwhelmed the number of units in the facility.
A Place To Live Trailer - LGBT Seniors in Crisis
The nonprofit Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing (GLEH) was founded in 2001 with the goal to build and operate a safe, affordable, multicultural housing development specifically for LGBT older adult. They called their initial project Triangle Square. Producer Cynthia Childs saw the construction site for Triangle Square and recognized the project’s cultural significance. She and director Carolyn Coal found people willing to talk about themselves and how they came to Triangle Square.
The 104-unit development opened in 2007 in Hollywood and has become a nurturing and safe home for gays and lesbians of all ethnicities, all socio-economic levels, and all ages. The movie looks at both the construction and planning behind Triangle Square but it also embraces the stories of residents before and as they joined this community.
A cultural misconception sees all “the gays” as young, wealthy, and buff; that’s far from the truth for an aging population that needs their own places to live out their years without hiding who they are. If you think you’re marginalized or ostracized, imagine how it is to be a LGBT senior. Even among other LGBT adults, the seniors are not always embraced as they should be.
A Place to Live is making the rounds at many LGBT film festivals. No matter how old you are, make it a point to find and watch this important and moving film. After all, you’re not getting any younger yoursel. [Source]
( produced by Bittersweet Productions and NoCo Media, is the recipient of the Audience Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature at Outfest 2008: the 26th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A PLACE TO LIVE, named "Best Bet of the Fest" by LA Weekly, screened its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 12 and July 20 as part of Outfest. Directed by Carolyn Coal and produced by Cynthia Childs, the documentary follows the journey of seven individuals as they attempt to secure a home in Triangle Square, the nation's first affordable housing facility for LGBT seniors. A Place to Live is both a moving portrait of gay & lesbian seniors on the fringe of our community and the triumph of the opening of this historic building. Outfest is a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization dedicated to showcasing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer media. -- "a heartwarming story to which anyone can relate to" – GLAAD/Cinequeer.
"Old Age Is No Place For Sissies! " - Bette Davis
Thank you for your piece about Gay and Lesbian Seniors. It is true that old age is not for sissies. But the worst part is to be forgotten.
Posted by: Andre Boulanger | March 02, 2009 at 05:35 PM
Glossing over one huge issue: we are the ones who do this to each other. Not the rest of society. Gay men are notorious for throwing other gay men in the dumpster like a dirty pair of sweat socks the minute they hit 40. And that is partly due to the late 80's images of what gay men looked like dying from AIDS: many of us were not expected to live past 40; therefore it seemed as if you had to 'get him' way before he gets sick, that way afterwards you don't have to deal with him getting sick and looking at him. Some community we've got!
Recently someone commented on how far we have advanced. I disagree. I agree that heterosexual people have accepted us as human beings but gay people have a terrible superiority complex over other gay men that prevents us from socializing, having relationships that last, and even being able to find a date that might lead into a second date. We are still a very anonymous people; the internet has made that very much so.
Posted by: Jonathan | March 13, 2009 at 08:28 PM
This is such an interesting thing to think about, mainly because most people don't think about it; either they don't like to think about it, because they do glamorize and stereotype gays in the same way the mainstream media often does, or because they don't realize that the issue exists. Some people - the same people who believe that the "movement" begun entirely in the '70s, and before then there was no gay community to speak of - honestly don't understand that LGBT people have been around longer than Queer Eye, for thousands of years and certainly in the '30s and '40s. They may not have been near as visible as they are now, but they absolutely did and still continue to exist, and they deserve the same treatment - in a just world, the same respect - that anyone would afford a young, stereotypical gay man or lesbian.
The world tends to think of elderly people as asexual - seriously, when was the last time you wanted to picture your grandparents getting intimate? - but the fact of the matter is that they're not, and the above post makes it clear that they can't be shoved categorically into old-age homes and forgotten. They're not all the same, sexually or otherwise, and they're not all willing to relinquish their sexual identities - and their ability to be open about them - just because society doesn't want to think about it. Just as some members of the LGBT community are discriminated against because they don't look or act like the "typical" gay or lesbian person, these senior citizens are forced into hiding because they don't fit the public's "gay image", and that disregards their rights and feelings as human beings. It's great to know that GLEH is around as a safe haven, for their sake and for ours - after all, as remote as all of this may seem right now, you were right when you said we're not getting any younger.
Posted by: Katherine | September 29, 2009 at 11:24 PM