Intimacy and Sexuality Reflection, Week #4

       There are already several ways that the elderly are discriminated against and this becomes worse when you look at LGBT elderly. Aging is hard enough already, how much more when there is a negative stigma attached to who you love and who you want to spend those later years with? Yes there is activism and advocating happening for the LGBT population but for those elderly, it's almost too late. Not much is known about this population and their experiences because they "came out" in a time of terrible persecution and fear. In a lot of ways homosexual couples are actually stronger because of these hardships. Hillier and Barrow (2011) state, "They found in general that division of labor to be fairly equally shared, and that same-sex couples appear to have more effective conflict resolution behaviors than do heterosexual couples. Clearly, research on aging in lesbian and gay male communities lags behind that of research on heterosexual aging, and it is equally clear that the assumptions and theoretical frameworks used for one cultural group must be carefully challenged when applied to another". These are a strong group of people who have overcome a lot in their time. Hillier and Barrow (2011) also state, "In reports from older lesbians, although the respondents suffered from ageism, sexism, and homophobia, they did not regret their sexual orientation. They were able as are other groups of older adults, to make a healthy adjustment and live their lives with high self-esteem". I am a strong supporter of this population and I hope to see improvements in this research and improvements in their quality of life overall.