Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

San Francisco is one of the few U.S. cities that retains some rent control protections for tenants. It is situated on a peninsula so sprawl is impossible and the beneficiary of what seems a permanent tech boom and subsequent real estate boom, rent controls are what keeps the city somewhat affordable for ordinary working people.

Two-thirds of San Franciscans are still renters making this expensive place very unlike most U.S. cities.

Naturally, real estate speculators have long sought to find ways around our rent control provisions. They usually lose politically in the local arena so they went to the state legislature and won something called the "Ellis Act" which allows them to evict all tenants - even long-standing, older/disabled, legally "protected" tenants - if they will swear up and down that they are taking the building out of the rental market for at least five years.

We don't let them sell it off as condos but they can create "Tenancies in Common" in which multiple owners hold a multi-unit property together. (Full disclosure: I've been part owner and occupant of such a property - just two units - for more than 20 years.)

Recently Jeremy Mykaels found himself on the wrong end of such an Ellis Act eviction and he is fighting back. He has been speaking at community events and has created EllisHurtsSeniors.org which includes a boycott list of 31 San Francisco properties not to buy because the owners recently used the Ellis Act to evict one or more senior or disabled tenants.

Since he is gay himself, he's particularly conscious of the danger to older gay men living with HIV on fixed incomes. They have spent a lifetime creating a network of social connections and medical services they will never be able to duplicate in a new locality.

Here's some of Mykaels' story:

”We just had a big election in this country choosing between two distinct views of government - the 'we're all in this together' view where we don't abandon the vulnerable among us and the 'you're totally on your own' limited government approach.

“California, and San Francisco especially, voted for, and for the most part agree with, President Obama's 'we're all in this together' view of government which is why years ago we put in place rent control laws to begin with.

“Shouldn't we act accordingly and do our best to protect our senior and disabled long-time residents and keep them from losing their homes just because someone else wants to make a windfall profit?

“...I think using the Ellis Act to evict seniors and/or disabled tenants who have lived in their apartments for 10, 15, 20, 25 years or more, most times just subsisting on fixed incomes and who may be forced to move out of San Francisco altogether because they won’t be able to afford a new apartment here with rents at least 2-3 times higher than they have been paying under rent control, is simply WRONG!

“This is not how a compassionate community or city should treat its seniors and disabled residents and it is my goal to outlaw using the Ellis Act by owners and real estate speculators to evict senior and disabled tenants from their rent-controlled apartments.

“On a personal note, I have always been a very private person not prone to sharing information regarding my problems publicly with people outside of my small circle of friends and family and I have always tried my best to handle these problems on my own.

“But now, faced with the loss of my home and the real possibility that I will be forced to leave my beloved city of San Francisco forever, I have decided to publicize my eviction - even if that includes having to make my health problems and financial limitations public as a result of this effort.

“I am not looking for pity. I just want to shed a light on a growing problem in this city for many senior and disabled tenants like myself and hoping for a little justice. I may eventually lose this fight, but at least I will know that I took a stand and didn't fall prey to the intimidating tactics of real estate speculators and their lawyer to get me to vacate my home.

In December, Tommi Avicoli Mecca from the Housing Rights Committee told the Chronicle about the rising epidemic of evictions:

"'They are motivated by greedy landlords and speculators who want to make a ton of dough selling' the buildings. His group has tracked at least 26 buildings where Ellis Act evictions have been filed this year…”

Median rents these days in San Francisco are $3000/month. According to federal government suggestions, your housing costs should be one-third of your income. At the current rent level, that means San Francisco renters would need to make $108,000 annually to live here. Many don't, of course. And the city is not (yet) willing to become nothing more than a boutique playground for the extremely rich.

Along with Mr. Mykaels, I find myself asking: can't we capture some of this wealth coming into our community to preserve the life styles and lives of our long-time residents?

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Jacqueline Herships: Forced to Sell Your Home? Relax

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

This is the tale of how I enrolled in Medicare while lying to the government. They made me do it. Really. Here's the story:

One of the nicer byproducts of our becoming an internet society is that when you reach three months before your 65th birthday, you can fill out an online form to sign up for Medicare. No making an appointment at the Social Security office, no finding postage stamps. Just sit down at the computer and fill out a simple form.

The Social Security Administration even knows how to welcome my age group. The page leads with the headline. Boldly Go Online To Apply For Medicare and includes a video starring Patty Duke and George Takei in Star Trek uniforms.

So I tackled the form. And the process really is easy. Just five screens to fill out asking simple stuff like Name, Date of Birth, SS number, citizenship, enrolling in Medicare Part B only? (yes, I'm still working), etc.

Until I got to Group Health Plan Information. That's where it gets tricky.

Fortunately, I'd done my homework and knew the right answer. The right answer - the only answer I'm allowed to make - is "No."

Considering that I've been enrolled on my domestic partner's excellent group health plan for years, this is counterintuitive. I mean, who do they think has been paying for the dermatologist who removes my benign skin cancers and for my occasional pneumonia meds?

You see, under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Social Security Administration is not allowed to recognize that I belong to a group health plan because they are not allowed to recognize that I am in a spousal relationship. And that matters: if I entered what a married heterosexual would in answer to this question, I'd end up paying extra for Medicare for the rest of my life.

Here's how Gay and Lesbian Legal Defenders, a New England rights advocacy organization, explains the sort of situation in which I find myself:

”When you turn 65 you must enroll in Medicare Part B or face a 10% lifetime penalty for every year you fail to enroll. So if you wait until age 70, you will be paying an additional 50% premium in addition to the regular Part B premium for the rest of your life. However, Medicare does allow two exceptions to this rule.

“First, if you are still working and are covered by either your employer’s or union’s group health plan, you can opt to enroll in Medicare Part B anytime while you are still working or during the 8 months after either your employer’s insurance or your employment ends WITHOUT incurring any penalty.

“There is a second exception that involves being on a spouse’s health plan, but because of the discrimination that same-sex married couples face because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), this benefit will not apply to same-sex married couples until either GLAD wins one of its lawsuits against DOMA (more information on GLAD’s cases here) or Congress repeals DOMA.”

So the only right answer to the "Covered under a Group Health Plan?" question on the Social Security form is "No."

I found this upsetting - so upsetting that I got on the phone and worked my way through a series of automated choices until I managed to reach a person. She actually was nice enough, willing to be helpful.

After explaining my situation and existing coverage, I asked: "Am I really supposed to lie on your form?" She said I must enter "No," even though the true answer is "Yes."

So I did just that. This made me nervous - we've all heard horror stories about insurance companies denying claims because of minor discrepancies on applications. Could I get in trouble for entering something that was manifestly untrue?

Besides, I believe in Medicare. I'm ready to lobby and struggle to keep it for all of us. I don't want to start my relationship with this vital program by telling an untruth. So I didn't completely restrain myself.

The last screen of Social Security's online form has a section for "remarks." Here's what I wrote:

”I have entered incorrect information under the previous screen because I HAVE BEEN covered under my partner's group health plan, but because my coverage is as a domestic partner, not a "married" spouse, the SS Administration apparently cannot recognize my existing coverage.

“This required me to enter information that is factually incorrect - after all, my partner's group health plan has been paying my health bills…But I was so instructed by your agent.”

Apparently this didn't have any effect on my paperwork. Does anyone even read “remarks" I wonder? Yesterday, a letter announcing that I am eligible turned up in the mail.

Look out Mitt! Look out Barack! You've got another elder chafing to hold your feet to the fire to preserve our Medicare.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mary B Summerlin: Ordinary Day

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

TGB readers will have figured out that I've been an "out" lesbian activist for decades. Much of that time, the long slog toward full gay inclusion in U.S. society has not been my main political focus, but I've always kept track of our uneven progress.

I'm from the gay generation for whom "coming out" - insistently announcing our presence in the world - was a crucial step toward winning general acceptance.

As folks will also know if they saw the recent Harvey Milk movie, one of the milestones on the path toward mass coming out and gay rights was the defeat of a ballot measure called the Briggs Initiative in California in 1978. This would have made it illegal for gays to teach in the public schools.

The movie makes it look as if it was all Harvey's charisma that won that election, but there was also a huge grassroots movement that canvassed door-to-door to reach voters who didn't know they'd ever met a gay person.

Back in those days, many peoples' ideas about homosexuals were pretty one-dimensional; we were emblematic of one thing - perverted sex.

We, gay people and our many allies, defeated the Briggs Initiative. I remember attending a post-mortem meeting where activists chewed over what had worked and hearing a woman talk about how she knew her canvassing was effective when the voters she met started sharing with her their anxieties about their own marriages and sex lives.

Helping people become more comfortable about talking about their own sexuality was just part of what our strategy of coming out meant we had to do. I knew she had expressed something very true: at that time and place, gay people's social function was to catalyze everyone to become a little more open and honest about sex.

Maybe it still is, although we've acquired a more rounded profile in subsequent decades.

That brave speaker I remember from 1978 was Amber Hollibaugh who moved to the east and went on to take part in the numerous LGBT struggles and organizations since. These days, she is executive director of Queers for Economic Justice in New York. When I heard she would be giving the keynote speech at a recent Berkeley conference on "Faith and LGBTQI Aging," I had to go. Here's a report:

Hollibaugh laid out some pretty dire facts about what aging is likely to look like for most gay folks now over 65. Today there are some three million of us; by 2030, there will be six million.

Seventy to 80 percent of gay elders do not have children. Many have been estranged from their relatives and have located themselves far from kin. These realities lead to big problems says Hollibaugh because "access to unpaid family labor provides what we have for a structure for getting old in America."

The gay movement, like so much of U.S. society, is youth-centric. Like many young people, young LGBT folks can't form a picture of what aging will mean for themselves because their lives don't include elders. So gay institutions are only slowly developing to assist our elders.

Working in New York City, Hollibaugh has observed a frightening trend. We know that older workers laid off in the Great Recession have a hard time getting new jobs and are seeing their savings dwindle. But for some isolated, working-class, older gays, the downturn has pushed precarious lives over the brink. She is seeing a wave of newly unemployed LGBT people ages 47 to 55 turning up at New York City homeless shelters.

As low income urban gays age without children, they are very likely to end up in what she calls "nursing home dump sites," the least desirable institutional arrangements where they have no advocates to fight for them. The "families of choice" they've built up over the years tend to be of the same aging generation; these networks will no longer be able to care for each other. And the institutions often don't recognize or honor such relationships.

Playing the role of the organizer as she always has, Hollibaugh offered a vision for how we create better possibilities for gay elders. Her premise is that "we will all be more and more dependent eventually - we need community."

And there are still places in our society whose mission is to foster community, even if they have not always been friendly to gays: these are the various faith institutions. Churches and other religious bodies make counter-cultural affirmations that dovetail with the needs of aging gays:

• They affirm openness to people throughout their entire lifespan, young and old
• Instead of sweeping reality under a rug, they assert that we live through a lifespan and they recognize the inevitability of dying
• They usually claim to be communities of welcome and compassion.

Sure, religious congregations present problems for gay elders (and many others). They are often divided by class and race. They frequently are better at "loving" the other than sitting next to her/him at a table. Gay people still remind them of sexuality and that seems to make many religious folks queasy.

But the ostensible values of faith institutions - what they say they stand for - push them toward creating broad community when the chips are down.

LGBT elders need to access what churches have to offer and, while we have the energy, to use our lifelong movement experience to urge them to create "best practices" that meet the needs of our elders.

Working with churches on creating models of good elder care makes sense to Hollibaugh. Maybe those models can even spread beyond church institutions.

She's not pushing God (I have no clue from her speech how she does or doesn't relate to a deity.) She points out that in getting the needs of gay elders on the table, we don't have create institutions from scratch. "Remember - churches already have nursing homes! We need to work with them."

Do I buy Hollibaugh's vision? Not completely, but as usual, she's on to something.

This is made easier for me because I have already found connection within a little Episcopal Church congregation that provides a vital, if fractious, multi-generational, multi-class and sexually diverse community. And I've worked for inclusion in the national religious institution, getting to see how holding people to their values can effect amazing changes.

But I also know that many LGBT people and others have been hurt horribly by judgmental religion and would hate the idea of aging in a setting colored by religion. Still, there are possibilities in that arena and poor elders are going to need help wherever they can find it.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Herchel Newman: Forever Glow

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

The beginning of legal same-sex marriages in New York State draws me back to my roots. Nearly 50 years ago, as soon as I was able to get away, I high-tailed it out of western New York state for more accommodating parts of the country.

Buffalo was no place for a lesbian to grow up in the 50s and early 60s. My high school mates intuited that I was different, very likely "queer," as well as socially awkward. A few tolerated me, but some were downright cruel to the lanky misfit I was in those days.

With this background, I'm following with interest gay developments in the far western part of the Empire State. We all know that New York City will be fine, but what about the boondocks by the lake?

Very well, thank you! Here are a few items from that often neglected part of the country.

• Western New York Republican State Senator Mark Grisanti bucked his own previous position and his party to cast one of the deciding votes for legalization. My former neighbor, Jeff Simon, long time Arts Editor for the Buffalo News thinks Grisanti's vote and gay marriage signal a huge boost for the long suffering region:

“I just committed political suicide,” Grisanti is quoted as saying after his “yes” was one of the two crucial votes that gave New York State back its reputation for progressivism and a passion for human rights and made this the largest state to have a same-sex marriage law...

“Mark Grisanti clearly agonized over his vote. He told reporters that his own wife had doubts. What he wound up doing, despite his reservations, was becoming one of two Republicans in the New York State Senate to make New York State the biggest weapon, thus far, in the fight to universalize same-sex marriage.

“It is inconceivable to me that in the events of last weekend, Grisanti didn’t make some of the most important friends a New York State politician can make. He might have thought it looked like an open grave.

“Unless my sense of the political world is completely absurd (always possible), I’d bet anything it was just the foundation people have to dig before they put up a sign for a skyscraper that reads “watch this space for further developments.

“For those given to hand-wringing over [Buffalo's] reputation, it’s hard not to think that he, like Kathy Hochul, [a Democrat unexpectedly elected to the Congress recently in a special election in a Republican area] did quite a lot more: they have completely re-identified upstate New York, and especially Western New York, from the area that gave the state the gubernatorial campaign of Carl Paladino [an embarrassing knuckle-dragging right winger] to the area that put Hochul into Congress and proved decisive in legalizing same-sex marriage in New York State.

• New York State has six separate Episcopal Church dioceses and therefore six Episcopal bishops. I knew the one we had when I was young as I went to school with a daughter. I thought he was a pompous stuffed shirt.

The current one, the Rt. Rev. R. William Franklin, is one of three in the state who is allowing priests to officiate immediately (before the church rewrites its services) at same-sex weddings. Even the Episcopal bishop in New York City isn't doing that. Who'd have thought it?

• Most amusingly of all, the community of Niagara Falls, long a sad locus of tourism gone completely tacky, hopes to boost its fortunes as a magnet for gay marriages. The tourist bureau has gone all in.

In an effort to partner tourism related opportunities with the passage of the Marriage Equality Act in New York State, the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. (NTCC), unveiled plans Friday to hold a group wedding ceremony on July 25 in Niagara Falls, N.Y., as well as a new ‘Rainbow Romance’ package on the agency's Niagara-USA.com reservation system.

USAToday caught the flavor of the region's excitement:

”NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — New York legislators had voted just hours before to legalize same-sex marriage, and already the phone was ringing at the Falls Wedding Chapel. It was a lesbian couple in central New York, looking forward to an August wedding after 28 years together...

“Richard Crogan sees the new law from two perspectives: He's president of the Main Street Business and Professional Association in Niagara Falls -- and he and his partner, Michael Murphy, are thrilled to finally be able to marry at the falls.

“He's envisioning a homecoming for gay people who left to marry elsewhere, including across the river in Canada.

"Those gay kids that moved out to be accepted can come back," he said. "New York state is their state. They can come home and be themselves."

My delight at all this doesn't go nearly far enough to lure me back to the region. But how can I not rejoice as a tolerant and creative wind blows away some cobwebs in the old home place?

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Richard J. Klade: Dumb and Dumber

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

When I heard an interview by NPR's Terry Gross with filmmaker Mike Mills about his new film Beginners, I knew I'd run across a topic for this month's column.

This movie - still in quite wide theatrical distribution - is the charming story of an early middle-aged man (Oliver) whose 75 year old father (Hal) bursts out of the closet after the death of Oliver's mother.

The son always knew there was something a little off about his parents' 44 year marriage. Now he watches Hal, played by Christopher Plummer, blossom within a new circle of gay friends. Getting to know each other anew is not always a smooth process and Oliver has plenty of his own difficulties achieving an intimate relationship - hence the film's name.

The father soon develops cancer and eventually succumbs surrounded by his gay buddies. Viewers are left to wonder whether the son can engage in more complete relationships than the father achieved during most of his life.

Apparently the story of Hal closely parallels Mike Mill's actual experience. He told Terry Gross both how truthful that aspect of the script is and how challenging it was to live through.

”... the dad's part, I do like to call it a portrait because I feel like the word 'portrait' sort of implies this subjective nature of it, you know, and it's sort of my version of my dad.

“...so when he came out, it wasn't totally a surprise to me and you know, he was an art historian who wore cravats and bought all my mother's clothes. So on some levels, you know, it's not totally shocking.

“But yeah, wanting to have sex. It's just weird to think of your parent that way...You know, this is a man who sort of defused himself, who tamped down his desires and was very sweet, very kind, very conscientious father but kind of vague and distant.

“And when he came out, it was the beginning of his becoming so much more vivid and hot and like really present, which was all quite often messy but always wonderful.

I found the portrayal of Hal bursting out of the closet extremely believable. The raw joy with which the Plummer character leaps into gay culture is very much how coming out often looks. Within a short time, he is dancing the night away when not earnestly promoting a gay candidate for office and insisting that his son appreciate gay culture.

All that is very sweet. Also all too believable are the scenes in which his gay friends support Hal as he is dying. That generation of gay men has seen a lot of death; they were winnowed by AIDS. They often know how to nurse the sick and how to keep laughing in the midst of pain and inevitable decline.

Developments like New York State's recent legalization of gay marriage probably mean that we're in the last generation in which stories like this - stories of gay parents of either gender coming out to their children - will continue to be lived. As stigma and practical obstacles to our relationships are overcome, there will be fewer heterosexual marriages undertaken by people whose core orientation is to their own sex.

We live today in a moment when such stories are quite commonplace. I've known people in the midst of at least half a dozen of these jarring changes. Sometimes the younger generation takes the gay eruption well, but sometimes it can be terribly painful to envision their parents in such a different way.

What seems to make all the difference is whether the parents are able to reach an amicable, respectful parting and re-orientation. If one of them feels deceived or wronged, it can be awfully hard for their (usually adult) children. If, on the other hand, when there had been honesty throughout the relationship (and I've known a couple of those), the younger generation may be less surprised and more able to welcome the sight of their parents maturing in their full selves.

It's not just kids who "grow up." I believe we're all still at it until the day we die! At least that's how I want to live.

Here's the trailer for Beginners. If you don't enjoy anything else about the movie, I'll wager you like the dog!

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Joanne Zimmerman: Tissue Issue

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

While chasing an elusive great blue heron around a small lake in Golden Gate Park, I came across a long granite bench. Close up, I could (barely) read the inscription on the seat.

On the base at the rear, barely visible above the grass, there was more lettering:

Who were these women? What's this "salvaging the old" stuff? What is this long stone bench doing in an obscure corner of the park?

These questions sent me to Google. Here's what I could discover of these two women's story.

Though enjoying pride of place on the stone bench, Fidelia Jewett has left little online record. I found an unsourced reference claiming she was born in Vermont, another to her serving as a teacher in San Francisco as early as 1870, and a few newspaper mentions.

The most interesting described an attempt by teachers at the city's Girls' High School to win what we'd call "equal pay for equal work."

”The Daily Alta California, San Francisco, Sept. 14, 1886 - The Committee of the Board of Education on the Adjustment of Salaries met last evening to hear teachers of the Girls' High School on their application for an increase in salaries to a par with the salaries paid to teachers of the same grade in the Boys' High School...

“Mr. Swett said the work of teaching in the Girls' High Schools was somewhat different from the labor in the Boys' schools, but it was fully equivalent...He was of opinion that discrimination in the two high schools should not exist...

“Miss Fidelia Jewett, one of the petitioners, said that the textbooks used in the two high schools were nearly the same and there was very little difference in the work...

“The Chair thanked the ladies and gentlemen for their attendance and promised that the committee would take the petition under consideration.”

I could not find out whether the women got their raise.

Lillien Jane Martin was a more documented public figure. She was born in Olean, New York into a family that lost its money and gave up on educating a girl in favor of her brothers. So at 16, by then moved to Racine, Wisconsin, she began teaching, aiming to save enough for a college education.

She soon won a scholarship to Vassar College and then taught science in Indianapolis, breaking ground as a woman was considered unfit to teach physics. In 1889, she attended a teachers convention in San Francisco and landed a job as vice principal and head of the science department at the Girls High School.

There she met Miss Jewett. And here their story runs into the conundrum of all gay history.

If we think about it, we know that we can't simply read backwards the understanding of same sex relationships that gay people have forged over the last 50 years. We've invented our present self-definitions and they seem to fit our lives.

But people in the past who lived in ways that would now be described as "lesbian" or "gay" didn't - couldn't - think of themselves quite as we do even though homosexual sexuality and same-sex affection seem to be universal elements in human society.

So, with that caveat, I'll share an account I was able to find of the relationship between Miss Jewett and Miss Martin.

”... Jewett taught mathematics and botany without a college degree [in] the 1880s at a San Francisco girls' high school. [Lillien Jane Martin] and [Fidelia] Jewett had been intimate friends almost from the moment their paths crossed in San Francisco in 1889, and they remained friends until Jewett's death in 1933.

“In 1894, Martin resigned from the girls high school to earn a doctoral degree in psychology in Gottingen. Apparently Jewett joined her there the following year.

“Back in San Francisco, Jewett resumed her teaching at the same high school. When Martin returned to the United States in 1898, she was immediately offered a position teaching psychology at Stanford. But between the time she returned from Germany and her job began at Stanford, Martin had no source of income.

“Jewett gave Martin half her salary until Stanford paid Martin. Martin, an equally supportive friend, encouraged Jewett to earn a college degree.”

That's all we know about the connection between these two forceful, unmarried women but on the basis of it, I'm willing to appropriate them for lesbian history, knowing I may be indulging my imagination.

Martin taught psychology at Stanford where a woman professor in a science was still a figure of wonderment. In 1916 she was forced into retirement at age 65 and didn't like it one bit.

At first she felt "old, lost, and lonely and discouraged." Drawing on her own distress at being cast aside as she aged, she opened a private practice to help "salvage the old." In this context, she formulated a set of ideas about aging later published as a book that comes across today as both observant and a little brutal.

It helped me to remember she was describing a world without pensions or Social Security, where old people depended on the charity of relatives and needed to make themselves agreeable and helpful simply to survive.

She divided elders into types:

”Broadly speaking, one comes to see that old people fall into three groups. The first, and by far the largest·group is made up of individuals who have not only peculiarly disagreeable physical characteristics but even more unpleasant mental peculiarities. They have either the expression of forced resignation or the more alert one due to finding new reasons to substantiate their belief that the world is going to the dogs...

“The second group, far smaller than the first in number, is made up of those who rebel against the onset of old age and try to overthrow the traditional opinions on the subject, to substitute a self deception that will give the world the impression that they are post-adolescent...

“The third group of old people, and this is so small in numbers that one thinks of it in terms of individuals rather than as a group, is composed of those old people who are not body-worshippers but are putting their best efforts into living.

“Some of them are thanking God that they are rid of the emotional tyranny of youth and look upon the joy of old age as a compensation for the storm and stress of the life through they have lived.”

Martin's practice aimed at helping elders join the last group. She believed we all need to figure out what we love and work at this, even if others think our pre-occupations are trivial or foolish.

”Our newspapers have a great habit of interviewing happy septuagenarians and octogenarians and those of even more advanced years on their birthdays, endeavoring to learn by this means to what the individual attributes his long life.

“For years I have been carefully reading these interviews and if they are faithfully presented one sees that there is seldom anything of value to be gained from them. The reason for this is that the really happy old are too concentrated on their life work to be aware of what makes them happy. They are going from level to level of achievement in that which gives them joy, mastering life with enthusiasm, and so life seems good and zestful to them until the end...

“Generally considered, the individual with marked preferential interests is apt to be happy and successful all his life, while he who lacks a strong urge within himself will happen along the road of life, half alive in his mental activity, substituting physical excitement for intellectual growth, "getting by" in the business of living and killing time remorselessly.

“Is it any wonder that such a one evolves into the dissatisfied, grumbling, demanding, tyrannical old person from whom all who are able will flee? These are the ones who stand in dire need of help, help that will give them courage and faith to live the latter part of life more worthily than they have ever lived before.

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the company of this somewhat puritanical old fury, but I'm glad to have recovered her explorations of aging. Martin followed her own advice in old age, learning to drive at the age of 76, visiting her New York State birthplace to considerable acclaim, and venturing on to Russia to investigate further "Salvaging the Old."

Oh yes, what about the stone bench?

Apparently the bench was originally a monument to Jewett in downtown San Francisco's posh Union Square where it was placed in 1933 for $2000. It was considered no longer in accord with the Square's decor in 1946 and moved to the park, presumably acquiring its inscription about Martin during that decade.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Nancy Leitz: Charlie Solves a Grave Problem

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

We are living a strange moment in the ongoing struggle to win full marriage rights for same-sex couples. We're clearly making progress.

Full marriage, with the same rights and obligations as heterosexual couples, is currently available in five states and the District of Columbia. Some ten or so other states maintain registries of domestic partnerships which give partners various legal rights depending on local laws.

The federal government is barred by the Defense of Marriage Act (1996) from recognizing any of these couples, but President Obama has said the Department of Justice should cease defending DOMA in court. However the Republican House of Representatives has hired its own law firm to defend the law.

Meanwhile, several national polls including one just this week from CNN say majorities now approve of gay marriage. This is a stunning, happy turnabout in the last few years.

What I want to share here are a couple of stories about some of the strange anomalies gay couples encounter because of the legal flux we are living in. Here's a bit of what it is really like to get older as part of an LGBT couple in this betwixt and between time.

A lesbian friend of mine recently reached the magic age of 65 - the moment so many of us anticipate with anxious hope - when Medicare eligibility kicks in. Her partner (they are registered with their city) has good health insurance from an employer so they have both been on that.

Mary visited the Social Security office and was told that yes, she would be put on Medicare Part A, but she didn't need to sign up for Medicare Part B because she could stay on her existing group plan without penalty as long as her younger partner was able to qualify them both. Great - that's settled.

Except then she got a letter saying that she would be penalized for failing to sign up for Medicare Part B. Huh? The clerk had made a mistake, a natural one.

It turns out that because of DOMA, the federal government can't recognize the health insurance she was already getting through a partner whose existence the Feds aren't allowed to notice. It took some work and several months delay to get that fixed and Mary onto Medicare Part B.

Interestingly, AARP has the best explanation I've seen of this wrinkle in the Medicare rules:

A domestic partner - someone who is not formally married to the employee but covered under his or her insurance as a family member — is also entitled to a special enrollment period. But this applies only to domestic partners of the opposite sex, according to the Social Security Administration.

Under the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex partners — even those who are legally married under the laws of their state or country — do not get the same consideration.

The covered employee can delay Part B and later qualify for a special enrollment period in his or her own right. But his or her partner, though covered as a dependent by the same insurance, is not entitled to a special enrollment period and must therefore sign up for Part B at age 65 to avoid late penalties.

This Medicare wrinkle has nothing on the conundrums related to filing taxes.

Last December, after 32 years together, my partner and I decided we had better get registered with the state of California. Having grown up and grown older without any expectation that the state should be involved in our relationship, we'd never gotten around to this. But the experience of her lying in a trauma center waiting to see if she needed emergency brain surgery after a bicycle accident convinced us that we should reinforce our existing powers of attorney with everything we could find to assure we were treated as connected in any emergency.

So, without any particular romance, we trotted off to a notary public to fill in domestic partnership forms. Yhen we learned that the IRS had made a rule change last year that threw our tax preparations into complete confusion.

We had each always simply filed separate returns, paid up or gotten our refunds and that was that. But the IRS has decided it must take into consideration domestic partnerships in the community property states of California, Washington and Nevada even though domestic partners are still required under DOMA to file individual returns!

So domestic partners must also file joint returns as well even though those joint returns don't count. Or, at least, that's the best I could make of this rule. And better financial and legal minds than I didn't do much better.

I can convey the level of confusion this development caused gay couples by sharing what TurboTax, the tax prep software, advised.

Accurate tax return preparation for couples in this situation relies on the review and analysis of each couple’s individual agreements and related state law, within these new guidelines. Decisions on how to split income and expenses are based on a state’s community property law and the individual legal agreements made between couples at the time of their registered domestic partnership or same sex marriage. Given this, we can’t provide a fully guided federal experience in TurboTax at this time.

At this time, you have 3 options:

Option 1 – Manually prepare your individual federal tax returns in TurboTax by reporting your community income. We recommend this only if you are a couple with income just on W-2s, you don’t itemize deductions, and you are 50/50 partners. You will need to file these individual returns by mail.

Option 2 – Get help preparing your tax returns from a tax professional, especially if you have investments, rentals pensions or a business.

Option 3 – File an extension before April 19, 2011 and deal with this after that date when we expect to have more functionality and guidance built into the TurboTax experience.

That is, even the tax professionals are punting on the complications introduced by this federal decision. A New York Times blog had a good post on the various complications, some of which may end up beneficial to some gay couples, as well as unquestionably to tax preparers.

It turned out we didn't have to figure it out, for this year. In mid-March, while we were researching the rules, we received a notice from the California Secretary of State indicating that though we had submitted the papers in December 2010, they hadn't gotten around to filing our domestic partnership until 2011.

Rescued by official negligence! Our accountant friends assure us that by next year the Feds will have made some sense of the rules. We hope so.

Meanwhile we do get one tax benefit from having made our relationship legal. My health benefits used to be taxed by the state of California as income to her. Now she can deduct them on her California taxes. It's not a huge amount but every little bit helps.

Understand, I'm not really complaining. When gay couples finally do share in the legal structures that govern marriage, our lives will be more secure, just a little bit safer. In the long run. And we want, like most people, to be able to stand before the world and say, "This is the person who I love and we are making our lives together."

And I sure hope we get through this transition period on the way to legal marriage as soon as possible so we can stop dealing with the strange set of extra hoops that gay folks now have to jump through.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Marcia May: Felicity and the Birthday Cheese

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

When I think about topics for these Gay and Gray columns, I always worry a little about whether I'm failing to look adequately for material about or of relevance to gay male elders.

In my generation of LGBT people - a generation in which most of us began our lives in the closet and many of us emerged in public only in mid-life - there's often a pronounced cultural separation between the genders, perhaps especially in larger cities.

Many old lesbians know mostly other old lesbians; they have made intentional families with other lesbians and evolved a woman-centered culture. Old gay men have their own sub-culture; many saw their friendship networks devastated by the AIDS epidemic; they spent a life in peril and sometimes hiding and tend to stick with their own.

I feel very lucky that I happen to belong to a church community where we have quite a few of both genders of gay people - and lots of straight people too. Truly mixed communities are somewhat rare in our age group. That's too bad. We can enjoy each other.

So thinking about this month's column, I went looking for something from a gay male elder to share. I think you'll enjoy David. At 70, this expressive, British, working-class man decided his life story might be something younger people, especially gay men, could appreciate.

He got a lot of positive responses to this introductory piece, so he made four more video clips, carrying forward the story of how he grew up, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), voluntarily left the service so he could be more open about his sexuality and in retirement has apparently taken full advantage of the protected legal status gays now enjoy in the United Kingdom.

They are way ahead of the United States. Britain long ago allowed gays to serve openly in the military, protected us from employment discrimination and the police campaigned against gay bashing.

In Part 2 of David's story, available here, he talks about his early youth, about realizing at age 12 that he was different. By 15, he was out of school and working.

He had some encounters including in movie theaters and "people [men] took an interest in me; I was always particular and very careful."

Yes, the young David was a looker. In Part 3 (here), he describes joining the Royal Air Force and realizing for the first time that he was not alone.

"There were thousands of airmen and among them, there were 100s and 100s and 100s of gay men, like me...it was instant dismissal if you were caught...but we lived in huts, sometimes there was movement between beds at 2 and 3 in the morning...it happened."

David loved the RAF. He served in various isolated Middle Eastern posts in an all male environment. He thrived. No one asked any questions because there were no women on the posts. He had one or two serious affairs, but the guys were always posted away and the romances died.

In Part 4 (here), David follows up with the story of his civilian life - the United Kingdom had decriminalized homosexuality and he was able to do the same job he'd done for the RAF as a civilian! He urges gay men to come out.

"If you are wondering how to approach your friends -- if someone asks you if you are gay, just tell them...I say that because, once you come out, you will then find out who your friends are!"

He discovered he had a lot of good friends.

Finally David recorded what he calls a Postscript. He thanks all the people who have thanked him - and speaks directly to young people who have been sending comments. "You'll be okay...you will start to believe in yourself..."

This wonderful sequence of videos makes me wish that more elders of all sexual orientations would record their stories. David is saying very much the same sort of thing as the folks who recently responded to bullying of gay teens by recording "it gets better" messages.

Even though these times are hard and sometimes frightening, I suspect that most readers here can agree that we've more and more lived into the solid essence of ourselves as we age. We've got life wisdom to share with younger folks. Maybe we should record more of it.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, William Weatherstone: Alzheimer's - Our Final Chapter?

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

For this month's Gay and Gray post, I want share some writing from a young friend of mine. Renee currently has an internship through Americorps with the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

According to their website:

”Gay-Straight Alliance Network is a youth leadership organization that works to empower youth activists to end harassment and discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

A few weeks ago, Renee sent her friends a happy email - she was learning a lot while working in this volunteer service program and she wanted to tell us about it.

Along with other young staff, she'd noticed how few resources existed for students that highlighted LGBTQ (lesbian-gay-bi-trans-questioning) heroes during Black History Month and she set out to remedy the omissions. Here's what she posted at the organization's blog:

“BlackedOUT History
Like many people, I thought I knew all that happened during the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, I went to a school named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Experimental Laboratory School from kindergarten through eighth grade! I was taught about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and a tiny bit about Malcolm X. I thought I knew it all!

“When I went to college, I started learning about Bayard Rustin, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde and countless others who made huge contributions to the movement. Who were these people? Why were they not mentioned in my grade school classes? Is it because they were gay and lesbian? Why, as a black student, am I not learning my own history?

“To learn more, I watched Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin. I was very inspired by his life and the film, so I started researching more of his story.

“He was a non-violent activist who worked behind the scenes to create the non-violent Civil Rights Movement through the mentorship of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1963, Bayard Rustin, along with A. Philip Randolph, organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was where Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Due to Rustin being openly gay, the NAACP chairman did not want Rustin to be credited for organizing the march. After the success of the March on Washington, Rustin went on to organize The New York City School Boycott, write as a columnist for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) newspaper, and create change for many other Civil Rights and LGBTQ issues.

“After learning so much about Bayard Rustin, I was still eager to learn more. I, along with Geoffrey (GSA Network staff), began to compile information about Black LGBTQ figures in history so that the students of today don’t have to read the watered down version of their history. We encourage you to stand up, TAKE ACTION and partner with other school clubs and organizations, such as Black Student Clubs...

“”As Bayard Rustin said, “We are all one. And if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way."

GSANetwork posted more resources for students here.

Sometimes we elders encounter young people who think they know it all and nothing we bring to them could possibly teach them something. It's always heartening to meet a young person like Renee who wants to retrieve what history can teach - and find a way to use history as a springboard toward contemporary action.

This week I got another email from Renee. Apparently our new Republican Congress wants to eliminate funds for her program.

”I have had the most amazing experience here in San Francisco and I have learned so much over the past six months. Without AmeriCorps and Public Allies (the direct program I am with), I would not be able to serve all of the amazing middle and high school youth that I work with and I would not have had the opportunity to clean up parks and rehab schools with the 40 other Allies in Public Allies with me.

“I truly treasure the experiences that I have had so far and I hope that others are able to have the same experiences in the years to come. Please help us keep this amazing opportunity alive.

“I really hope/urge you to call your Congressperson to tell them not to cut AmeriCorps funding. Please take a couple minutes and call (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Representative's office or send them a quick email.”

There's something elders can do for the young.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Joyce French: Alzheimer's Disease

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

The first sentence of James Carroll's January 17 Boston Globe column almost leaped off the screen at me:

All citizens share the shock of violence aimed at public figures, but Americans of a certain age hear such news with a particular shudder, having youthful experience of assassination as nothing less than the interruption of history.

I suspect that sentiment might be widely shared here. Those of us for whom the murders of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy are not historical events but part of our lives, are likely to have felt the news of the Tucson shootings differently from our younger friends. (And that even before we knew that one of this blog's community was among the injured.)

Carroll goes on to point to what he says is a common pattern in the wake of such political violence. First people pull together in solidarity against the wound to the body politic but then, often soon, societies experience a "destruction of solidarity."

”A shocking public discord can quickly follow after the first rush of collective feeling fades, and that, too, has been seen in America these days. The broader history of assassinations is a terrible warning of what can follow in their wake, as societies have again and again been thrust into new levels of conflict with themselves.

“That, more than anything, may explain the shudder of those who came of age in 1960s America when political murder plunged the country into a self-contradiction that still poisons politics.”

He insists that we must remember that some political killings "succeed" in derailing hopeful possibilities, instancing how post-Civil War Reconstruction carried out without Lincoln's wisdom left white Southerners embittered and blacks re-subjugated. He believes the assassination of Israeli prime minster Yitzhak Rabin was destructive of that country's good hopes.

I feel for the citizens of Tucson. Yes, the rest of us are going to be suspicious of your city for a long time. Been there; seen that. Political murder scarred my city in the 1970s.

I've written, probably too lightly, about free-floating madness and political violence in San Francisco in mid-decade. Then, in 1978, our mayor and a member of the board of supervisors (city council) were shot in their city offices by another office holder. The murderer could be thought of as just a lone, disturbed Vietnam vet - except that he was at political odds with the men he killed.

Mayor George Moscone was a progressive in the Roman Catholic social justice tradition who had worked in the state senate for legislation benefiting poor and working people. (Yes, there is a progressive Roman Catholic social justice tradition; California's excellent Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi comes out of the same intellectual stream.)

I think it fair to say, following Carroll, that the mayor's murder derailed the trajectory of politics in San Francisco. We've had only one genuinely progressive mayor since and he lasted only one term amidst our contentious politics.

(By progressive I mean a mayor who prioritized the concerns of workers and renters who are two-thirds of the population, and transit users over those of the downtown financial powers. These mayors were all Democrats - we don't do Republicans here.)

The other San Francisco office holder murdered in 1978 was Supervisor Harvey Milk, at that time probably the most visible gay politician in the country. He was a hopeful visionary among a population who were accustomed to hiding their lives from their fellow citizens, to feeling themselves permanent outsiders. The 2008 film about his life, Milk is worth renting; it rang true to this gay San Franciscan.

Thinking about this history, I am left to wonder why Milk's assassination had so little effect on the trajectory of the gay movement. In my lifetime, despite setbacks and injustices, we've made steady progress toward full equality without regard to sexual orientation.

While other political killings too often seem to have derailed history, this one did not. I guess the answer is that Harvey was more a symbol of a rising wave of social changes than a practical leader. He wasn't going to write the legislation or even conceive of the strategies that would win gay liberation. He was, as he said himself, about giving people hope.

Effectual assassinations remove from the scene people who carry both the dream and the practical instruments of power.

In the wake of the Giffords shooting, I hope we don't see real damage to our democracy. Political violence is an attack on democracy itself. It creates fear among office holders of putting themselves in the open, of meeting constituents.

I hope people interested in running for office won't take the lesson that they are endangering themselves and their families. It's hard to believe that the massacre will not have those consequences.

I hope Congresswoman Giffords, and the elder blogosphere's own "Ashleigh Burrows" and all the other survivors of the Tucson shootings recover well. And I hope we all recover well, refusing, in whatever ways we can imagine, to let violence win.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Nancy Leitz: Where's Harry?

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

This morning President Obama is signing the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy that has forced gay and lesbian U.S. soldiers to hide their private orientation if they wished to stay in the military.

In force since 1993 and considered a moderate compromise when first enacted, the gay ban made honest troops to live a lie and caused horrible anguish to gay families, especially as war deployments became long and frequent.

Good riddance to a stupid and cruel policy - defended by Republicans to the end, I might add.

The struggle to serve openly in the military is not some new-fangled innovation. Gay people and friends have been working for this day for a very long time. The photo above shows a 1965 protest at the Pentagon asking for the right to serve. My, weren't we careful to try to look conventional in those days!

Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich carried on a long legal battle in the 1970s to stay in the Air Force after coming out. Though his exemplary record stirred much support, he eventually lost his case. He ended up running a restaurant in the resort town of Guerneville north of San Francisco. (We often ate there when passing through.)

Like many gay men of his generation, HIV/AIDS killed Matlovich. His tombstone in a Washington D.C. cemetery reads "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

One of the collateral effects of the ban on gays in the military was to make the ROTC program in which the military trains officer candidates while they are still in civilian colleges seem deeply illegitimate to more progressive academic institutions. The students above were protesting in 1990 at the University of Wisconsin.

Though in recent years many institutions that once excluded ROTC have allowed it to return, repeal of the ban almost certainly will lead to restoration of ROTC at any institution so inclined - though the program will continue to face protests that it is feeding illegitimate, ill-defined wars.

Like many (most?) groups that supported President Obama's election, LGBT activists have often questioned his commitment to advancing our concerns without compromising them fatally. Members of the advocacy group GETEqual organized veterans to handcuff themselves to the White House fence to push for repeal last April.

There was little trust that the President would get this done if gay people and friends let up for a minute. So they didn't.

Today we thank the president, Senator Harry Reid who worked all the ins and outs of the Senate for this, Speaker Nanct Pelosi who has been right about this for a long time and above all, the activists who insisted that the ban on gays in the military undermined our full citizenship in the country of our birth and affection.

This change had to come; brave people made it so and our leaders have followed.

This is never been my highest priority issue, Though I understand why winning equal treatment for gay people in the military is a necessary part of my full citizenship, I worry more about the uses that irresponsible (and sometimes stupid) political leaders make of our military, invading other people's countries without cause or rational plan and failing to disentangle when the going would be good. But that's about the politicians.

I also worry more about all veterans - the least we could do as a country after we use them up is take care of them when they come home.

It has just been revealed that the Pentagon Health Plan is balking at providing brain damage therapy to returning troops. It costs too much, they fear.

Vets I know say just about everyone who saw combat comes back with some brain impairment these days - human beings aren't wired to endure ongoing, massive explosions even if their limbs come out intact.

But today, let's celebrate one small victory for full inclusion that brings our country more in accord with its ideals - and then we can regroup to pursue other causes!

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Lyn Burnstine: Christmases Past

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

The horror of the bullying some gay youth experience busted out of the closet for many folks in the past month with the story of Tyler Clementi's suicide. When fellow students covertly broadcast the young man's make-out session with another boy over the internet, the Rutgers student concluded it was better to be dead than gay and jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

Suicide claims entirely too many gay teenagers, especially young boys. Clementi's death made The New York Times, but these unhappy events happen without much more than local notice much far too often.

In response, Seattle gay advice columnist Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better YouTube project, asking older folks to record messages to young people encouraging them to hold on through the difficult teenage years and to hang on to hope of a safe and free future as open gay people.

Savage challenged his readers:

“... gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay - or from ever coming out - by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

“Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids. So here's what you can do...Make a video. Tell them it gets better.”

The response has been huge; the site now includes more than 2000 clips.

Most of the videos, naturally, are from folks not so far in age from gay teenagers; many are from college students who are reveling in new freedoms, in meeting more diverse people, in living away from home.

But I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find a few by people we'd consider elders and near-elders to share. Here are some that I think you'll find interesting and moving.

Fashion designer Tim Gunn talks about his teenage attempt to kill himself and promotes a resource for kids who are thinking about suicide:

"Please don't leave...it's worth it. Stick around."

Deb Adler says, "You don't have to put up with someone else's crap." I can relate to that. This is a little longer than most of these, but adds a different dimension about some ways young people can push back.

Grace Rogers spoke out as a parent supporting gay children:

"Things happen to us all...it's not always easy...talk to us...we're all in this together."

The fellow from Lubbock who made the video above speaks about being abused by a priest as a boy and, later, finally finding a church he could be fully himself in.

Looking through these videos with older speakers, I was surprised by how many were made by religious people who had struggled through being raised to believe that God hated them and much later found peace in a church or belief system that reassured them that they were lovable and could be loved. It was a rejecting faith system that made them so desperate as young people - and often, it was an inclusive, affirming religious community that helped them become more whole.

For example, gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson made one such a video.

It was a nice surprise when working my way through hundreds of these to discover two acquaintances had filmed one that I think can best be described as utterly charming. They explain:

"Harry, a composer, and Wayne, an Episcopal priest, live a cholesterol-lowering life-style in mid-Michigan. Even as some of the body stuff does get a little harder to put up with, it still is getting better."

Enjoy - and remember there are still confused gay kids who need to be reminded, "it gets better!"

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mary B Summerlin: The Squirrel's Nest

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

I'm sick of having my rights treated as something to kick around for political gain. It just keeps happening.

Last week, a Republican filibuster, supported and initiated by such "moderates" as John McCain and the two Republican senators from Maine, prevented addition of language to the defense appropriation bill that would have ended the military's ban on gay soldiers 60 days after a study of troop attitudes was concluded and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the President approved the change.

This is not a hasty or ill-considered process! There are easily more than 50 votes in the Senate for the provision (already passed by the House), but not the 60 needed to get things moving.

In February, polls showed that 75 percent of the country want to end the ban -- but Republicans think they get an advantage by gumming up the Senate so nothing gets done. The issue of gays serving openly in the military provided a pretext. I've never had any desire to join the army; I have opposed most of our wars. But this is just cheap political grandstanding and I am sick of it.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ruled the "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" (Do Persecute) policy unconstitutional. There will be years of appeals unless the Senate somehow manages to act.

In August, a different federal judge ruled that California's Prop. 8, a state constitutional amendment that bars gay marriage, is unconstitutional because it denies gays equal protection of the law for no compelling reason.

That decision is awaiting appeal, a tortuous process since neither California's Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is running for governor, nor termed-out Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will file the papers.

Republican candidate for governor Meg Whitman has no such scruples. To prove her allegiance to right wing prejudices, she promises to stick up for Prop. 8 in the courts if her megabuck campaign succeeds in November.

Away from the political heat, opposition to same sex marriage seems to be dying down. There have even been national polls that showed majority support for gay marriage.

Though the Tea Baggers don't usually focus their wacky wrath on gays, getting a hate on about us is often just under the surface. For example, on learning of an ACLU lawsuit to try to win some domestic partnership benefits for gays, Montana Tea Party leader Tim Ravndal wrote on FaceBook:

"Marriage is between a man and a woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my rights."

A commenter thought this confused thought hadn't gone far enough. Someone named Dennis Scranton responded:

"I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."

The comment recalls exactly what happened to Matthew Shepard, left to die strung up on a barbed wire fence outside Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Scranton could have been dismissed as a loony commenter if Ravndal hadn't replied, "Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"

Perhaps no one should be too surprised that the news media have recently noticed that the Montana Republican Party platform calls for making homosexuality "illegal." Some Montana Republicans seem a little embarrassed by the discovery. Good, they should be.

I feel relatively safe as an old, comfortably off, white woman - but this sort of vicious bigotry is still dangerous to young gays who don't conform to conventional stereotypes.

It's a strange time to be gay - on the one hand, there's a lot of both real hate and politically motivated bigotry that can slap one in the face when least expected. On the other hand, positive changes are coming faster than I ever imagined possible. I am reminded of this saying, attributed (possibly erroneously) to Gandhi:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, D. Sugar: Revivalist Rant

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

There's a lot of involuntary retirement happening in this awful economy. I'm sure some readers here are finding themselves out of work sooner than they anticipated or hoped. Ageism has always pushed older people out of work before we wished. Long time readers know Ronni started this blog when staring at this reality.

What I want to offer here is the story of a different kind of involuntary retirement that sometimes happens to gays and lesbians, in particular those trying to serve their country. The Service Members Legal Defense Network has published this letter from the spouse of a retired U.S. Navy officer as her contribution to the ongoing discussion of repeal of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" policy (DADT) which effectively prevents open and honest service by LGBT people in the military.

The author wants it publicized, so I am simply sharing Lynne Kennedy's letter to military authorities who are currently assessing the potential impact of repeal. [Emphasis is mine.] - Jan Adams

In 1990 - while working as a reference librarian at the Library of Congress - I met Joan Darrah, an active duty naval officer. I already knew about the ban on open service, but I soon woke up to the harsh reality that loved ones of gay and lesbian family members are forced to serve in silence, too.

Over the years, Joan had adjusted to living two lives - in the closet at work and out after hours. For me, it was a bit of an adjustment as I had been fortunate to work for an employer who valued my skills and expertise and realized that my being a lesbian in no way detracted from my ability to do a great job.

I knew that Joan could be deployed at any moment. She may be away from home for two or three years. I realized that being with an active duty military officer was even more constricting than I could have possibly imagined and I worried constantly about Joan’s well being. Yet, through it all, I knew our relationship was worth the compromises. I knew we had to make it work for Joan to continue to serve our country.

There were so many things that we had to be careful about. For example, Joan had asked that I not call her at work unless it was truly an emergency. When we were out in public, if Joan saw someone from work, I learned to “disappear” until Joan’s co-worker moved on. We didn’t dare go to nice restaurants on Valentine’s Day or even Saturday nights. We could not show any familiarity while out in public. I went to parties at colleagues' homes alone lest a guest I didn't know learn that Joan was in the Navy.

The events of September 11, 2001, caused us both to appreciate more fully the true impact of DADT on our lives and the reality of our mutual sacrifices. At 8:30AM that morning, Joan went to a meeting in the Pentagon. At 9:30AM she left that meeting. At 9:37AM, the plane flew into the Pentagon and destroyed the exact space that Joan had left less than eight minutes earlier, killing seven of her colleagues.

In the days and weeks that followed, Joan went to several funerals and memorial services for her co-workers who had been killed. Most people attended these services with their spouses whose support was critical at this difficult time, yet Joan was forced to go alone, even though I really wanted to be with her to provide support.

"As the numbness began to wear off, it hit me how incredibly alone I would have been had Joan been killed. The military is known for how it pulls together and helps people; we talk of the "military family," which is a way of saying we always look after each other, especially in times of need. But, none of that support would have been available for me, because under DADT, I didn’t exist.

In fact, I would have been one of the last people to know had Joan been killed because nowhere in her paperwork or emergency contact information had Joan dared to list my name.

Whenever I hear Joan recount the events of that day, I relive it and realize all over again how devastated I would have been had she been killed. I also think of the partners of service members injured or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are unable to get any support from the military and they must be careful about the amount of support they offer to their closeted service member loved ones.

The events of September 11th caused us to stop and reassess exactly what was most important in our lives. During that process, we realized that this discriminatory law was causing us to make a much bigger sacrifice than either of us had ever admitted.

Eight months later, in June 2002, Joan retired from the U.S. Navy, and I retired from the Library of Congress. If it wasn’t for DADT, we might both still be serving in our respective positions.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Lyn Burnstine: Sensory Summers

The documentary film, Stonewall Uprising, is currently showing in many places around the country. I think many elders, especially those of us with vivid memories of the 60s and early 70s, might very much enjoy it.

Why? Because filmmakers Kate Davis and David Heilbroner have framed the story of the gay riot in 1969 in Greenwich Village during which sexual outcasts fought police repression in a way that catches the spirit of those exciting times.

The Stonewall eruption was about the crazy-making dissonance between a youth culture that was exploding with exuberant sexual liberation (and some commitment to peace and racial justice) and the still repressed condition of gay, lesbian and transgendered people.

In enclaves around the country, young heterosexuals were breaking all the old rules, living together other without marriage, taking advantage of readily available contraception, scandalizing their parents. Not surprisingly, homosexual people of the same age wanted the same freedoms. The moment was ripe for rebellion and the fags, drag queens, trannies and other riffraff at the Stonewall Inn acted it out in a two day riot.

All of this is not the message we emphasize through our contemporary, and necessary, gay civil rights movement. These days, we usually seek respectability, not exuberant freedom. And we should be able to join the military and get married if we wish. But first we had to just BE in all our raunchy excitement! The film, Stonewall Uprising, tells that tale.

Full disclosure: Kate and David - straight folks, by the way - are (comparatively young) friends of mine. We've been hearing about the making of the film for a couple of years.

This movie carries me back into my young self. I wasn't in New York then, but I was living that cultural explosion. I wouldn't want to live in that time again; but it sure is fun to visit.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, D. Sugar: Sell the Condo! The Grandchildren are Coming!

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

In this month of Gay Pride celebrations, it seems good to raise up the story of a valued acquaintance, an unlikely hero in the international struggle for LGBT human rights who happens to be an elder.

Retired Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, 78, is a married, straight man. For 34 years he served the Anglican Church in West Buganda diligently, but without attracting particular attention. In 1998, he left office, but stayed active, starting a family counseling center in Kampala, the capital. He anticipated a quiet life.

Recently he visited the United States and explained what actually ensued to a reporter who wrote:

”In 2001, his life changed forever when he met several gay and lesbian young people who had been rejected by their churches. 'They had lost jobs and been expelled from school. Some of them were on the verge of committing suicide.'

“Senyonjo gave them a radical message for their time and place: 'If you are gay or lesbian, God made you and loves you that way, and you should accept yourselves.'

“Once word of his compassionate advice reached his successors in the Anglican hierarchy in Uganda, there was a firestorm. Senyonjo was asked to 'condemn' the people under his care 'and convert them to something else.' Senyonjo said he would not. 'I cannot see God where there is no love,' he said, 'I would rather go with the truth.'

“In reaction, he was expelled from the church he had served for 34 years. More significantly for his own survival, the church stripped him of his pension. 'The cost has been great,' Senyonjo said of his post-retirement ministry. 'It is by the grace of God that I have been able to survive. By the strength of God I have been able to stand.'"

The virulent panic about homosexuality currently raging in Uganda is largely imported from U.S. Religion writer Diana Butler Bass explains:

”Africa is becoming Stage Two of the American political and religious culture wars, a theater for religious imperialists to accomplish overseas what cannot be accomplished at home - like denying women ordination to ministry and putting LGBT people back in closets.

For the last two decades, right-wing Christians have been tromping all over Africa trying to appropriate native African experiential faith for their western theological agenda - making Africa a wedge issue - and African Christians spiritual pawns - in their seemingly endless quest to grasp theological power.

So today, gay Ugandans are denounced as Western decadents by their President. They are threatened with a new law that would, under some circumstances, call for the death penalty for homosexual conduct or rights advocacy.

LGBT people world wide have called on their governments to speak out against the planned legislation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama have both joined the chorus of protest.

Several times over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to spend time with Bishop Christopher, most recently in May when I volunteered to drive him to some of his appointments in my city. A more gentle, unassuming man of the cloth would be hard to imagine.

This is a person who saw an injustice and felt called to speak out against it, accepting with equanimity and humor the rejection and privation he has suffered in consequence.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Richard J. Klade: The Penguins are Gone

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

Last summer, my friend Pat turned 80. At her party she made available a memoir of her life compiled with the help of her friend Laura. It's a fascinating tale. It also reminds me, a lesbian now 62, just how much had changed by the time I came along, in part through the bravery of women like Pat.

For this column, Pat has given me permission to share some of her story (in italic type) and I'll counterpose to some observations about my age group to bring out the contrasts. The 18 years between us made for many differences. Pat begins:

I was born at home, with the help of a midwife, near Hayward, California, on July 12, 1929. That's exactly what my birth certificate says, "near Hayward...”

“...We were low class. Now I guess the word is working class. Everyone was poor, but everyone got by. Like many others in the neighborhood, my mother and her sisters worked at Hunt Brothers Cannery, which was only a block away.”

During Pat's childhood, the Depression and a semi-rural, neighborhood-centered life was the reference norm for many Americans. I grew up in a big city in the prosperous 50s - my reality included a strong sense that national well-being derived from industrial production. We would drive by the Niagara Falls chemical factories (think Love Canal) and the refinery by the river, burning off oil day and night. My parents looked at them proudly. Delight in sheer productive capacity was what World War II had taught my parents and their friends.

”I never did very well at school. I had a very hard time with learning to read. Looking back, I wonder if I had some hearing loss even then, or some kind of learning disability. Who knows? But I really struggled. By the time I was 16, just starting 10th grade, I was impatient to go to work, earn a living, have some money in my pocket. So that's what I did, I quit school and went to work in the canneries. Within a year, I'd settled into line work at Owens Illinois glass factory, although I'd had to fudge my age a little in order to get hired...

“No one would believe me if I told you how shy and quiet and serious I was when I started at Owens. I was a 'mind your own business' kind of person. It took quite a few years before I began to speak out and express myself...it was a slow process. But gradually I got more confident. I became active in the union, I was a shop steward, and even union president. Part of that 'growing up' included going back and earning my GED. Owens encouraged people to be educated and was very supportive about that.”

By the time I came along, anyone with the slightest aspirations had been convinced they had to finish high school. And the post-World War II G.I. bill had even made college imaginable for wide swathes of the population. Apparently the Owens Illinois company shared in the national push for more education in the 1950s.

”Owens was a community in itself - there were almost 2000 employees altogether and we did shift work, one week on days, one week on swing, then a week working graveyard; that's how they did it in those days, and that was my life for the next 30+ years. Owens had a women's softball team, and Owens had women like me! I made friends, buddies; I didn't feel so alone...

“My buddies and I were attracted to straight women. That's all that we knew; that's just how it was. We always hoped they would stay with us 'forever,' and some were lucky; my buddy Mick and her partner Erla were together about 30 years until Erla's death. Most of us, though, would end up with broken hearts. We all did the best we could.”

It wasn't much easier to be a lesbian teenager in the early 60s, at least as I experienced that time. The difference was that a kind of snickering prurience that characterized the 1950s had taught women who were striving uncomfortably to fulfill the feminine mystique that one of the ways they could flunk their female role was to be a homosexual.

Mary McCarthy's novel, The Group, was an artifact of that consciousness. There was a sort of dirty awareness that some people were homosexual - that those unfortunates would probably live a sad, lonely life and die a miserable death. No one wanted to be one of those people, even those of us who were gay.

Yet by the 1970s, there began to be visible gay people who were saying, “no! there's nothing wrong we me!" Gay visibility, "coming out," began to change attitudes, to make being gay just part of life, not a dirty secret.

Moreover, change was coming for women...

”I knew from my experiences at Owens that there was no reason a woman could not be a crew leader or even a manager. We were training the men, and they got the promotions. There had never been a woman in management at the Owens Oakland plant.

“A few years later I was finally promoted to management - no more shift work, no more hourly pay! My final position at Owens before retirement in 1984, was as a 'service engineer,' visiting our customers' facilities, mostly at that time wineries all over northern California, and trouble shooting whatever problems they might be having with the manufacture of our various commercial containers.”

My generation really got the benefit of women like Pat standing up for themselves. I can remember when the newspaper classified ads were divided into "help wanted: male" and "help wanted: female." But by the time I landed in San Francisco in the 1970s, it was possible - though sometimes difficult - for me to make a living in construction.

Sure, there were lots of guys who didn't think I could do it. Some women I knew were harassed on the job. But those guys could not stop me as long as I could do the work. And in less stereotypically male jobs, women were getting into everything. Times had changed.

Pat closes her memoir: ”I was almost 60 before I traveled anywhere outside the U.S. but since then, I've been lucky enough to see Australia including Darwin and Kakadu National Park, also Singapore, Hong Kong, also Paris, London, Portugal and Madera lsland where my family was from - and New York City, the Southwest and even Las Vegas.

“And every day I give thanks to the Creator; I give thanks for everything. I walk in my garden and every little growing thing is a miracle. There has to be something larger than a man or a woman, larger than 'God' to create all this! It's a shame we don't spend more time in awe about what's all around us, and appreciating it rather than destroying it. So I give thanks for life, for the life of every one and everything around me.”

I want to feel that kind of delight and gratitude for living when I'm 80!

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Claire Jean: ID Bracelet

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

Lots of people in the gay community find President Obama a frustrating figure. Most of us voted for him in 2008 (or at least his percentages of the vote in heavily gay urban enclaves topped 80 percent.) Yet, as in most other controversial areas, he sometime seems to talk a better game about supporting our rights than he delivers.

For example, he promised in this year's State of the Union speech that his administration would move to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy under which gay service people can be interrogated about their orientation and discharged if they won't lie.

Seventy-five percent of citizens think this law should go. But nothing much has happened and military gays are still being kicked out.

Democratic leaders are now saying this issue will have to wait until next year. Just today, several gay veterans chained themselves to the fence outside the White House to protest the DADT policy and administration inaction on its pledge.

With this background, it was extremely heartening to see the president move on an issue that is probably one of the most important to aging gays. On April 15, he ordered that nearly all hospitals must extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them.

According to the Washington Post, this was "perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans."

The Secretary of Health and Human Services has been ordered to write regulations to enforce this policy at any hospital that gets federal money (most all hospitals get some federal money.)

The new rules will not apply only to gays. They also will affect widows and widowers who have been unable to receive visits from a friend or companion. And they would allow members of some religious orders to designate someone other than a family member to make medical decisions.

This new policy really matters. Gay and lesbian people, especially older ones, often have formed alternative family networks not based on blood relationships. And, although gay couples can make legal arrangements in some states that create some recognition for their relationships, they never know if in a crisis a strange hospital or bureaucracy will honor their connections. (For many of us, this is why we want access to legal marriage in the vast majority of locales where this is not currently possible.)

Lately a rash of horror stories have come out about couples being separated when one got sick. We think these things don't happen anymore, but they do.

ITEM: Lisa Pond collapsed on a cruise ship and was taken to the ER in Florida. Her partner and their three adopted kids followed the ambulance. They were denied access to see Lisa for hours in spite of the fact that all the appropriate medical and legal forms were faxed to the hospital within 30 minutes. Lisa Pond died alone. President Obama was said to be moved by this case.

ITEM: Sharon Reed says she was denied access to her dying partner of 17 years, Jo Ann Ritchie, in Washington state in 2005. A "temporary night nurse" screamed at her, "you don't belong here," despite Reed and Ritchie having been previously recognized as a couple by the hospital and having the proper legal papers. The Pond and Ritchie cases were both widely reported including in The New York Times.

ITEM: Here in California, according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights a legal outfit that has filed a lawsuit for these men:

"Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place--wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

"One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

"...without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

"Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life."

So cheers for President Obama for ordering hospital visitation rights for "unrelated" people - and gay people will keep on demanding that he come through on all his other promises!

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Dani Ferguson: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

I enjoy being around mature transgendered people. When someone has fought their way through identity confusions, their own and other people's ignorance about and consternation in the face of gender elasticity, and the sometimes hostile or silly reactions they receive from others, the adult individual has usually acquired a rare self-understanding that is pleasant to encounter.

This isn't about chronological age, though arrival at this happy state of self-knowledge and acceptance sometimes accompanies getting older.

In light of this, I found it interesting to read, "Is Your 'T' Written in Disappearing Ink? A Checklist for Transgender Inclusion" distributed by the Transgender Aging Network (TAN).

This is a self-evaluation form for agencies that aim to serve L[esbian] G[ay] [Bi-] T[rans] people. Too often, this sort of resource bombards "helping professionals" with what come off as demands for a mechanical correctness. This particular specimen of the genre seeks earnestly to explain. For example, do you really mean to be available to the needs of the trans community?

If you only discuss "sexual orientation," you send a message to transgender persons and their partners that they are only welcome if they are perceived as lesbian or gay male, that you only serve transgender persons on issues related to their perceived sexual orientation, and/or that your program does not address the unique prejudices and issues faced by trans/SOFFA [Significant Others, Friends, Families and Allies] of elders.

If it is, in fact, the case that your program, publication, or policy is designed only for lesbian-identified or gay male-identified transgender persons, perhaps you should consider dropping the "T" from your materials and instead explicitly state that you welcome transgender persons who are lesbian- (and/or gay- ) identified. That way confusion is lessened and people are better enabled to find services and supports that fit their needs.

Or are you ready to deal with the complexities that arise among transgender persons and their families?

In contrast to lesbian and gay male couples, many transgender persons are coupled with someone who may not feel she or he is included under the LGBT umbrella. Such partners may be women who identify as heterosexual but who are partnered with an MTF [Male to Females], men who identify as heterosexual but who are partnered with an FTM [Female to Male], lesbians and gay men whose partner has transitioned (resulting in a couple that now looks like it's an "opposite"-sex couple), and others.

If your program strives to support, accommodate or address the needs of LGB couples and families, it needs to carefully and explicitly address how partners and families of transgender persons who are (or are perceived to be) heterosexual will be welcomed.

The life stages of trans elders can be a little different that those of lesbians, gays and bi-sexual folks. The handout continues:

It appears that a much higher proportion of transgender persons (particularly MTFs) than lesbians and gay men "come out" in later life. That means that older transgender persons may not only be dealing with all of the issues older lesbians and gay men deal with, but also with coming out at work, to the kids and grandkids, to the neighbors, to service providers, etc. If your program offers coming-out supports, make sure it has transgender- and SOFFA-specific materials on coming out, as some of the issues are different and some transgender persons and SOFFAs may not feel that LG-oriented materials adequately reflect their issues and needs.

Particularly look at whether you can support the partners of newly-out transgender persons. These couples, some of who have been together 30 or 40 years or more, may have no idea that other long-term marriages and partnerships have survived one partner's gender transition. Even if they do realize staying together is theoretically possible, they may be unable to conceive of how they, personally, will cope with the myriad social, professional, and internal changes involved.

There are a myriad of issues in people's lives that we don't automatically take into account unless they are our own issues.

None of this stuff is easy for any of us. We really want the genders to be clear cut, binary and obvious. Have you ever walked across a street, seen someone coming the other way whose gender you couldn't immediately place? Did you feel a little unease until you felt able to mentally assign a gender to the the person? I've had that experience as recently as yesterday.

I think we do this far more of than we are quite aware of, especially in big cities. Those of us who seldom or never have the experience of being the cause of others' gender unease do need to be aware that whatever momentary distress we feel is something the other people have to learn to live with. That's all just part of being human.

If interested further in this topic, here are links to a couple of recent posts I've done about trans people in my life: A Trans-Gender Eucharist and Switch: A Community in Transition.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Ernest Leichter: My Love Affaie with European Trains

Gay and Gray is a monthly column at Time Goes By written by Jan Adams (bio) in which she thinks out loud for us on issues of aging lesbians and gay men. Jan also writes on many topics at her own blog, Happening-Here, and you will find her past Gay and Gray columns here.]

One of the odd sensations I've gotten used to while growing older is the shock of realizing that the world is marking the 20th or 30th or 40th anniversary of events that were part of my life. I want to react - hey, wait a minute, that was just yesterday! I'm sure most elders feel that.

This past month, one such event was the 20th anniversary of the release of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela by South Africa's white-ruled apartheid regime. This momentous step portended the transition to majority rule in Africa's most developed nation and the fall of a system of racial domination unrivaled elsewhere in the modern world.

The dignified Mandela had been imprisoned for 26 years by the racist regime, yet when he stepped out of prison, he seemed the model of the free man, a head of state in waiting, while his jailers looked puny.

The release was televised live. My partner and I watched in California and marveled - something so long wished for was taking place before our eyes. Within the next few days we got an email from a technical assistance non-profit group seeking volunteers to work with a Cape Town anti-apartheid newspaper on its computer technology.

This was 1990 - "desktop publishing" was still something of a novelty then. We were only reasonably accomplished amateurs - but we were that. And we had numerous progressive friends who generously raised the funds to send the two of us for three months to support the South Africans. Within six weeks of Mandela's release, we were on a plane to Cape Town - to a country emerging from its global isolation and beginning together to imagine a non-racial, democratic future.

I have lots of South Africa and technical assistance stories, many funny, a few harrowing. But in my Gay and Gray mode, I want to share a bit about being gay in that time and place. You see, the American outfit that sent us, in a fit of political correctness, decided it had to tell our South African hosts that they were sending a lesbian couple. They thought they were being very progressive by sharing.

We two probably would have skipped this advance revelation; our South African friends would have figured things out pretty quickly. As it was, we arrived with the extra burden of being not only "girls" in a techie role in an unfamiliar country, but also a gay couple.

As it turned out, it didn't take that long for folks to decide we didn't have horns. Cape Town in 1990 reminded us of San Francisco in the 60s where every free spirit and weirdo in the country chose to congregate. It was imaginative and fun. There was no visible gay culture (as there had not been in 60s San Francisco either) but there was a great sense of openness to experiments with freedoms of all kinds. There was great snickering over anything that could suggest sexuality, but also toleration and, I suspect, experimentation all around us.

And so from this exciting perch, we had the privilege to observe something of how the African National Congress (ANC) - the political party that had led the freedom struggle and would easily win the eventual democratic election in 1994 - would deal with gay issues.

One of the first leaders of the ANC to return to South Africa from enforced exile abroad was the lawyer Albie Sachs. His assignment was to meet with groups that had worked for liberation throughout the country getting their views on what should be in a new constitution for a free South Africa. One of the groups he met with was the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Activists (OLGA).

The meeting was possible because OLGA campaigned not only for gay rights, but also was a recognized "nonracial," anti-apartheid group. Nonetheless, the quite open-minded journalists at the paper where we worked were surprised by this overture from the revered ANC to the gay community.

The newspaper we worked for got an invitation to a press conference held by Sachs and OLGA; our co-workers insisted we come along. We jumped at the chance, and were bewildered by the dirty looks we got from some of the OLGA people. Much later we understood. Every gay and lesbian in Cape Town had wanted to attend the event. OLGA members had to limit attendance; they thought we were some local lesbians crashing the party until informed that we were "press."

The statement Sachs issued that day still amazes me. Here's some of it as we recorded it at that time:

"The question of homosexuality has never been treated in an open and honest way in South Africa. The first thing that has to be done is get the question out in the open and for persons who stand to be most affected by any future dispensation to say themselves what they would like to see. This is part of a very extensive process of consultation and debate, based on the principle that people must write their own constitution...

"In the case of homosexuality in South Africa, there is a special pertinence in this phase where we are overcoming apartheid. The essence of apartheid was that it tried to tell people who they were, how they should behave, what their rights were. The essence of democracy is that people should be free to be who they are. Any full democracy in South Africa, in my view, should be such as to encourage everybody to be who they are...

"There is too much fear in South Africa in general. We want people to be free, to feel free. This is one more area, in my own view, where there appears to be oppression. We are against oppression and we want everybody to feel they are part of the nation, they are part of the new South Africa, as part of a general program against discrimination, against marginalizing people, against this idea of telling people who they are and what they are..."

Sachs and ANC were true to their principles. The new Constitution that came into effect in 1997, included equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 2006, Justice Albie Sachs wrote the legal opinion that required the country to recognize same gender marriage.

None of this is to say that today South Africa is a great place for its gay citizens. Lesbians are at risk for "curative rape" by men who think they know how to fix them; gay men are deeply stigmatized and sometimes beaten up. But the basic law stands for equality of rights.

This makes South Africa by far the most friendly place for LGBT people on its continent. An outburst of freedom was turned in that time and place toward freedom for all, not just some.

I've also written this story with a little more detail here.

At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Jan Adams: Bethany Center Senor Housing Murals