Can We Talk?

Media coverage about baby boomers continues to consume public attention, but as we’ve noted before, coverage about gayby boomers still lags behind. The flap over Tom Brokaw’s seeming omission of gay people from his book "Boom!" is but the latest example of this trend. 

In fact, gayby boomers share many of the same concerns about aging and the second half of their lives as their straight boomer counterparts. What’s different are the solutions. We don’t have the same legal protections for our partnerships and that means we can’t make the same assumptions about aging. We also don’t have the same financial protections in the tax code and we must develop custom solutions to ensure our financial futures. 

Our friends at Community Marketing Inc. have just released the results of a new survey they conducted among 40+ LGBT people – "Gay and Graying: Concerns for the Future." Their topline finding:

“More than 70% of lesbian and gay and respondents over age 40 reported concerns about losing the ability to care for themselves in a recent study conducted by Community Marketing, Inc. The majority also feared becoming sick or disabled, being dependent on others, and outliving their savings.”

The survey found that only 8% percent of respondents said they would place “significant reliance” on long-term care insurance, with larger numbers saying they would rely on health care insurance (22%), Medicare (20%) and personal savings (19%). As CMI put it in their release today, this fact makes them “wonder how prepared lesbians and gay men are for the kinds of health issues that often come with old age.”

Here are some other interesting findings from the CMI release:

“65% of respondents expect to provide care to a partner sometime in the future, 44% for a parent, and 34% for a friend. However, respondents were less certain of who would care for them – 59% said a partner would be there to help care for them, 29% a friend, and 20% no one.

“The majority of respondents have completed a Living Will and the majority have a Power of Attorney, but less than 50% have completed an Estate Will or set up a Living Trust. (Hospitals often require a visiting partner to present a living will in order to enter his or her partner’s hospital room.)”

As many of you know, I find this topic really interesting. We’re all going to get old (if we’re lucky) and when we do, we’re going to have to face these issues. But we don’t often want to talk about them. While the CMI study found that many gayby boomers have children that can be expected to care for them, there is still the concern about what those of who don’t have kids will do to protect our futures. I think this concern is what’s behind the interest in gay and lesbian-focused communities. Further, I think our hesistancy to think about these issues is what’s behind the troubles many of these communities seem to be having in attracting residents in ever larger numbers.

What’s the solution? Communication. We need to talk about these issues a lot more. An ongoing conversation about problems and solutions will foster greater engagement and make these topics easier to talk about. But, who will lead that conversation? Someone has to get it started and keep it going. I think that’s up to all of us. I’ll continue to do my part to raise these issues and I hope others will too.

What do you think? How do we both engage more people in this conversation and encourage media and others to pay more attention to the millions of gayby boomers who are dealing with these issues? I invite you to comment below and share your perspective.

Comments

[Annie Libby @ outLOUDstock.com]

Communication is indeed the answer. I agree that it is important that an ongoing dialog is established and maintained. For us at outLOUDstock, we encourage all of our photographic contributors to reach out and photograph the gay boomer and senior community in a positive and accurate manner. By turning our attention to this important issue through engaging imagery, hopefully we can keep the conversation moving forward.