National
SPECIAL REPORT In their own words: elders facing poverty, ageism
Older LGBT adults on unemployment, fears for future
‘They never say ‘you’re too old.’ They say, ‘we want someone who graduated more recently,’ said D.C. resident Mary Paradise of her prolonged job search. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part look at how poverty affects elder members of the LGBT community and part of a yearlong Blade focus on poverty. To share your ideas or personal story, visit us on Facebook or email [email protected]. Click here to read previous installments.
Today — and every day for the next 16 years — 10,000 baby boomers, members of the generation born between 1946 and 1964, will turn 65, according to the Pew Research Center. About 1.5 million gay, lesbian and bisexual elders in the United States are gay. By 2030, that number is expected to increase to nearly 3 million, according to a report by Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), the Movement Advancement Project and Center for American Progress.
One in six Americans over 65 lives in poverty, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“For LGBT older adults, a lifetime of employment discrimination, among other factors, contribute to disproportionately high poverty rates,” the SAGE website states.
LGBT elders living in or near poverty aren’t just statistics. The Blade interviewed several LGBT elders, aged 50 and older, from St. Louis to Chicago to New York City to Washington, D.C. Here are their stories:
A little peanut butter, maybe some pizza or Ramen noodles is a typical meal for Robyn Sullivan, a 57-year-old transgender woman living in New York City, who struggles to pull together $25 a week for food. In the past, she’s lived in homeless shelters. Now, she lives in a cockroach infested third floor walk-up with four gender non-conforming struggling artists.
“This is the hardest place in the country to live if you don’t make tons of money,” said Sullivan, who suffers from clinical depression and arthritis. “They wanted me to work one day a week for eight hours at a construction site with my limitations to qualify for $190 of food stamps. Working there would be too dangerous.”
Her plight is common among transgender people, Sullivan said. “Dealing with transphobia is nothing I can win at.”
In the 1990s, Sullivan was a skilled software project manager. “I used to make six figures,” she said. “When I was living as a white male professional, I was getting privilege far beyond what any human being deserves. Then I needed to transition and there was the downturn in Silicon Valley.”
After a couple of years, her savings were gone.
“As you go along into poverty, there are things that make people avoid you,” said Sullivan, who now works part-time as a receptionist for SAGE. “I wasn’t hired for a job around the corner from here. They said I wasn’t trustworthy because I lived in a homeless shelter,” she said.
Sullivan encounters not only transphobia but ageism. “When you’re past 50, no company with a retirement plan will hire you,” Sullivan said.
Even with all that she endures, Sullivan says she doesn’t harbor regrets. “When I came out as a trans woman, I felt like I was the woman I was,” she said. “I chose to stop living a lie. Knowing what I know now, I doubt I would have done anything differently.”
It’s not always been as good for him as it is now, 70-year-old Roger Beyers of Chicago told the Blade. But “nobody ever said, life’s going to be a bed of roses,” he said.
Beyers, who retired at 66 after working for 40 years for Jewel, a Chicago area grocer, is HIV positive.
“My income is less than $12,000 per year,” he said. “My housing is subsidized by Chicago House. Before I was admitted to Chicago House, I was on the verge of homelessness. I’m on Medicare and Medicaid.”
Medicaid pays for his HIV medication, Beyers said. “If I had to pay for it, it would cost $18,000. I couldn’t afford it,” he said. “If it were to collapse, I’d be in a fragile position.”
Though he struggles with issues of economic insecurity, he feels that he’s overcoming some of them, Beyers said. He recently started a part-time internship with the Center on Halsted in Chicago.
“My financial situation has dramatically changed,” Beyers said. “There’s a world of difference between living on Social Security and having money left over at the end of the month.”
For one day a week at the Center, he assists with an HIV counseling hotline. “I love it,” Beyers said. “I can say to an HIV-positive person: ‘I’ve been there, done that and survived it all.’”
He finds strength and joy from his boyfriend Eduardo. “A shout-out for my boyfriend! I may end up marrying this man,” he said.
Mary Paradise, 62, a Capital Pride board member and Washington, D.C. resident, has been looking for work for more than a year. She worked as a nurse for 42 years. Paradise, while working as a health marketing consultant, was laid off due to downsizing. Throughout her job search, she’s often encountered ageism, Paradise said.
“They never say ‘you’re too old.’ They say, ‘we want someone who graduated more recently’ or ‘you’re over qualified,’” she said. “I say to them, ‘you must want someone who’s younger.’”
It gets discouraging, Paradise said. She’s used up her savings and in three months her unemployment benefits will run out, unless Congress extends the benefits. “It gets scary,” Paradise said, “it’s a humbling experience. I’ve worked all my life. For Congress to think I’m lazy is insulting.”
But Paradise is optimistic. She volunteers at her church. “My faith is such that I believe I will be taken care of if I just keep moving forward,” she said. “I have friends who are wonderfully supportive. I have some job leads. Something will come my way that’s a perfect fit.”
Barbara Woodruff, 64, of St. Louis says she gets by on her $633 Social Security check each month.
Like many baby boomers, Barbara Woodruff, 64, of St. Louis thought that she had plenty of money put away for retirement. But like far too many people, especially lesbians, she found herself with no savings when she reached retirement age, Woodruff said. She gets by on her monthly $633 Social Security check. Fortunately, Woodruff says, she has Medicare and Medicaid.
“Thank God, that paid for my medication when my thyroid went haywire,” she said. “I’m fortunate. I pay $202 in rent for a nice one-bedroom apartment. It’s HUD-subsidized through the Cardinal Ritter Senior Services housing program.”
Woodruff’s partner of 20 years died in a boating accident in 1988. “When she passed, I lost the house. It was in her name. We didn’t think about those things then,” she said.
Over the years, Woodruff has done everything from working in a nursing recruitment office to running, with a business partner, an event designing business to clerking at a convenience store. “You do what you have to do to put food on the table,” she said.
For several years, Woodruff stopped working to take care of her now deceased mother. “Her Social Security was very little. But I’d do it again,” she said.
Because of her low income, Woodruff doesn’t go out to eat much. “The LGBT community is very supportive here. There’s a great lesbian hangout. I like to see my friends there. I can’t afford to go there now,” she said. “I eat less meat and a lot more fresh fruit and veggies for my health — meat’s expensive.”
Without the social safety net of health insurance and her housing subsidy, she doesn’t know if she’d be alive, Woodruff said.
“I wouldn’t do myself in,” she said. “My friends would make sure I’d have a place to live. I’d be grateful to have a room in their house. But it wouldn’t be my home.”
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD
A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.
Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
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