SAGE and the LGBT Elderly - Essay Example

?Invisible No More: SAGE and the LGBT Elderly Campaigns to generate support for LGBTQ rights proliferate in the mass media -- beautifully-crafted andmoving messages celebrating equality, diversity and pride have seared itself into the national consciousness and have helped America take big strides towards eradicating a culture of hate and intolerance. The legalization of homosexual marriages in New York and the long-overdue abolition of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the United States military are in a large part the results of campaigns generated nationwide by lesbian and gay activists. The images in the campaign are often of gays and lesbians in the prime of their lives, enjoying and celebrating their sexual choices and the freedoms to exercise these choices. But while campaigns such as these surface important and urgent issues that society needs to know about, it also obscures an important narrative: that of the aging homosexual, rendered forgotten and made invisible by a youth-obsessed society that refuses to see and acknowledge the sexual agency of its more elderly members. This where the organization SAGE (Service and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders) comes in. It is the largest and oldest organization in America devoted to promoting the welfare of LGBT senior citizens and make sure that their voices do not get lost in a cacophony of voices. It seeks as well to address the particular vulnerabilities that affect the LGBT elders, who are often socially isolated and find themselves at the hands of culturally-insensitive medical practitioners. To quote their website, “With LGBT older adults twice as likely to live alone than heterosexual older adults, more than four times as likely to have no children, the informal caregiving support we assume is in place for older adults may not be there for LGBT elders.” Seeking to address this need, SAGE formed itself in 1978. It delivers services to LGBT elders in New York City but also pushes for policy reforms at the national level, and provides technical assistance to similarly-minded groups all over the country. It is not however a simple issue of sterile technical assistance. Considering the historical marginalization of LGBT communities and their susceptibility to the hate agenda of conservative groups, SAGE employs a radical organizing component as well (Reisch, 2005: 288) – that is to say, “the replacement of oppressive institutions, conditions, systems and practices with ones that reflect principles of justice, equity and respect for human diversity.” (ibid.) How does anthropology come into the picture? Anthropology is a useful tool by which we study how the concepts and constructs of homosexuality evolve over time. To quote Weston (1993: 339), The same socio-historical conditions that facilitated the development of a gay movement in the United States, combined with the efforts of a hardy few who risked not only censure but their careers, allowed homosexuality to move to the center of scholarly attention. Though the field of lesbian/gay studies in anthropology has been slower to develop than its counterparts in literary studies or history, by the 1990s ethnographic analysis of homosexual behavior and identity, ‘gender bending’, lesbian and gay male communities, transgressive sexual practices and homosexuality were flourishing. It is also helpful here to discuss the notion of intersectionality – that which looks at the multiple, socially-constructed categories that interact in complex and multidimensional ways to produce and reproduce structures of inequality. It is hinged in the idea that themes of gender, race, class, and indeed age, should be perceived not as independent from each other, but as overlapping structures of oppression and exploitation that must be addressed and resisted together as it “shapes those upon whom it bestows privilege as well as those it oppresses.” (Frankenberg: 1993: 131).” In their website, SAGE enumerated three specific fundamental problems that they wish to address. They are the following: LGBT concerns and perspectives are nearly absent from local and national policy discussions on aging. The increasing number and needs of LGBT seniors require the rapid growth of dynamic and creative program responses. New generations of LGBT seniors require information and resources (currently non-existent) to carve out their own places in the world. (SAGE Website) SAGE is able to maintain its funding from government agencies such as the New York City Department for the Aging, the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Governor’s Office. It also gets private funding from private foundations and individuals. In its strategy plan (2011), SAGE outlined some of its key strategies for 2012. These are (1) transforming the national landscape on LGBT aging, (2) Providing leadership for the LGBT community on aging, (3) introducing new service programs for the LGBT elderly, (4) providing information to LGBT seniors in order to empower them. (ibid.) In order that these priorities be fulfilled, SAGE emphasized organizational partnerships, effective national leadership that supports and is supported by local interventions, and synchronization of goals to resources. The organization also has a steady stream of supporters that give not only monetary support but also can be mobilized to volunteer for its various activities. A big part of the strategy is to partner with other organizations to form coalitions that make advocacy strategies more powerful.  For example, SAGE is one of many organizations that advocate for older Americans of particular groups.  SAGE is a member of  Leadership Council of Aging Organizations (LCAO), which includes the following organizations:   National Asian Pacific Center on Aging (NAPCA), National Caucus and Center on Black Aging (NCBA),  National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA),  and National Indian Council on Aging  (NICA).” This strategy fits well with the academic perception of coalitions pushing for progressive change – Changing culturally entrenched structures of prejudice and discrimination is a paramount focus in social change activities. The success of a coalition to effect broad change depends to a great extent on its efforts to break down these barriers. (Roberts-de Genarro & Mizrahi: 2005: 306). It is therefore no wonder that SAGE works in tandem with other organizations in order to further the shared goal. After all, theirs is a shared commitment towards addressing the needs and uplifting the well-being of LGBT elderly and pushing for equality and tolerance, regardless of age differences. It is through the consolidation of their voices that change can be sought and demands can be made to reform policies or introduce new ones. Coupled with this, SAGE is also following the strategy of pushing for their advocacy on three levels: city/local, state and federal level. This is a sound strategy in that it acknowledges that policy is generated in multiple fulcrums of power an if one is to push an agenda, then pressure tactics must be applied on the multiple fulcrums and not just one one. But the SAGE is also fraught with challenges. A major challenge being faced by SAGE, according to the interview, is the lack of information on the LGBT elderly. One major limitation is that there still lacks a lot of data on the older LGBT community in the country.  As may be imagined, it is difficult to ascertain how many older LGBT there are out there in the US, as the Census does not track such information. This makes it difficult to determine what the true need of the community is. It is also difficult to coordinate and communicate with those who should be beneficiaries of the services that SAGE provides. Having no accurate data on how many LGBT elderly exist can hinder research and advocacy, because you are not able to keep track of demographics, nor do you have enough data on your fingertips to make an effective pitch for their rights. An important challenge, however, that may have gone unnoticed is that pushing for changes in social policy always requires pushing for a change in social values, which is not always the easiest thing to do. To revisit Popple (335): “Social welfare policies are influenced much more by social values than they are by data from empirical research.” Policy analysis always means looking at deeper at the entrenched values, before beginning to change them. Quoting Yanow: Contending frames entail not just different policy discourses – different language, understanding and perceptions – and potentially different courses of action, but also different values and different meanings. The role of the interpretive policy is to map the “architecture” of debate relative to the policy issue under investigation, by identifying the language and its entailments (understandings, actions, meanings) used by different interpretive communities in their framing of the issue. (2000: 12-13) Ultimately, therefore, what SAGE is facing as its greatest challenge is pushing for a sector of the population that has remained largely invisible from policy analysis and social investigation: the LGBT elderly, whose gender choices and gender expression have been suppressed by a society that looks at age as proxy for agency.Its vision for the future is a world in which older LGBT people are treated equally under the law.  The ultimate goal is to have policies set in place in all three levels of government (local, state, federal) where older LGBT people are given equal access to the programs, resources, entitlements, and benefits that are given to non-LGBT older people.” Indeed, with the proper policy environment in the three levels (city, state and federal) and with a nurturing culture of tolerance and equality, the LGBT elderly can life the kind of life that they deserve: where their well-being is secured, their health is as valuable as the health of a non-LGBT elder person, they do not feel any sense of social isolation or marginalization and at the same time, they are free to celebrate the choices that they made and the identity that they have chosen for themselves. Ultimately, it is this choice and this identity that every community is constrained to protect, regardless of age and gender. When reflecting on what SAGE is doing and how it intersects with my life, there is no personal intersection as yet with my life or with my current context. But it does make me think about how American culture, despite perhaps being able to claim to lead the world with respect to homosexual rights and LGBT issues, often renders invisible a particular class of homosexuals: those who are aging. Whilst we have learned to be sensitive to LGBT issues and have taught ourselves to embrace diversity, and while we are respectful of ageing people and the requirements that their advanced years might have, we have never thought to put these two classifications together and we have failed to see how, when put together, these classifications produce special difficulties for the person. The ageing homosexuals are more unfortunate than their younger counterparts, not only because of health and energy, but because they were homosexuals and at their sexual prime when homosexuality was still considered taboo. We often think of gender, race, class as axes of differences and as means by which certain individuals or groups of individuals are marginalized and alienated. But rarely does age come to mind. SAGE makes us realize that even if we are not homosexuals, or have not attained old age yet, there are people who are and who have, and these people are as worthy of being protected by the rights and liberties conferred upon you and me, and the privileges that we enjoy and sometimes take for granted. Works Cited Frankenberg, Ruth. “Growing Up White: Feminism, Racism and the Social Geography of Childhood.” Feminist Review 45 (1993): 51. Roberts De Genarro, Maria and Mizrahi, Terry. “Coalitions As Social Change Agents.” Handbook of Community Practice. London: Sage Publications, 2005. Print. Popple, Philip. The Policy Based Profession: An Introduction to Social Welfare Analysis for Social Workers. London: Pearson, 2007. Print. Reisch, Michael. “Radical Community Organizing” in Weil. M and M Reisch(eds) Handbook of Community Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005. Print. Sage Strategic Plan. “SAGE Strategic Plan 2008-2012: Rising to the Challenge on LGBT Aging Summary.” www.sageusa.org. 2008. Web. 26 Nov 2011. Weston, Kath. “Lesbian/Gay Studies in the House of Anthropology”. Annual Review of Anthropology 22 (1993): 339. Print. Yanow, Dvora. Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. London: Sage Publications, 2000. Read More