On Being Gay and Gray

Our Stories, Gifts, and the Meaning of Our Lives

De: Brian McNaught

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

"How is growing old as gay any different than growing old as straight?" a good, old, straight friend asked me.
"In many wonderful, but also challenging ways," I replied.
We gay Baby Boomers are a most remarkable generation of seekers, survivors, and saviors. We have modeled the Hero’s Journey by coming out into a torrent of fire and brimstone, creating an immutable identity around what was considered a “lifestyle choice,” have endured on our own the ravages of epidemic sex-related death, faced down the Church and State to create loving, long-term relationships, redefined “family,” expanded our cause to include all sexual and gender minorities, and now face old age as the first group of homosexuals to do so defiantly out of the closet.
My most successful book, On Being Gay – Thoughts on Family, Faith, and Love, (St. Martin’s Press 1988) was a collection of previously-published columns in the gay press. It appealed to a large audience of gay men and lesbians, and their families, who hungered for role models and guidance on how to be a happy gay person at a time when there was little public acceptance of homosexuality, or of a gay identity. Thirty-plus years later, this new book, also a collection of previously published columns in the gay press, with original introductory essays, is aimed at gay Baby Boomers who face their senior years without many satisfying role models, support, or mentoring on how to create happy, satisfying lives in their final years.
The issues facing gay seniors are not unlike those dealt with by aging heterosexuals, such as bodies that are breaking down, finances that are dwindling, the need for meaning, the hunger for community, and the fear of death and the unknown. But lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Baby Boomers often face these issues isolated from their biological families, and children, and in a culture that continues to discuss and debate the normalcy of their sexual attractions and gender identities. Case in point is the Catholic Church’s statement that they won’t bless gay unions because “God cannot bless sin.”
In the many years of our becoming whole, we've learned how not to be defeated by such ignorance and fear. We bring to the experience of aging many unique gifts, some innate and others learned in our lifelong fight for survival and identity. We may worry about going into a retirement community in which the staff hasn't been trained on how best to make a gay person feel welcome, but we also often have very strong networks of friends who are our families, and who help take care of us when we're in need.
This book, On Being Gay and Gray, is intended to be that friend who helps take care of the senior members of the gay community by validating their experiences of courage, mirroring their strengths, and celebrating the significance of their unique contributions to the world. The thems of the book are: Our Stories, Our Loves, Our Families, Our Challengers, Our Gifts, and the Meaning of Our Lives.