Gay and lesbian retirement

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Affectionate male Valentine couple, circa 1870

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Many retirement issues for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and intersex people are unique from their heterosexual counterparts and these populations often have to take extra steps addressing their employment, health, legal and housing concerns to ensure their needs are met.

In 1969, the Stonewall Riots marked the start of the modern gay rights movement and increasingly LGBTI people have become more visible and accepted into mainstream cultures.^[1] LGBTI elders and retirees are still considered a newer phenomenon creating challenges and opportunities as a range of aging issues are becoming more understood as those who live open lives redefine commonly held beliefs and as retirees newly come out of the closet.

LGBTI individuals are less likely to have strong family support systems in place to have relatives to care for them during aging. They are twice as likely to enter old age living as a single person; and two and a half times more likely to live alone. Because institutionalized homophobia as well as cultural discrimination and harassment still exist, they are less likely to access health care, housing, or social services or when they do find the experience stressful or demeaning.^[2]

Joel Ginsberg, executive director of the Gay Lesbian Medical Association, asserts "only by pursuing both strategies, encouraging institutional change and encouraging...and empowering individuals to ask for what they want will we end up with quality care for LGBT people."^[2]

Across the United States, retirement communities catering to LGBT clientele have begun to appear.^[3] However, LGBT people living in nursing homes or assisted living centers "increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide."^[4]

In response, LGBT Aging Centers have opened in several major metropolitan areas with the goal of training long-term care providers about LGBT-specific issues. Legislative solutions are available as well: "California is the only state with a law saying the gay elderly have special needs, like other members of minority groups. A new law encourages training for employees and contractors who work with the elderly and permits state financing of projects like gay senior centers."^[4] Twenty states prohibit discrimination in housing and public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation.^[4]

A gay senior couple at same-sex marriage rights rally in Massachusetts

The General Accounting Office (as the GAO was then called) identified 1,049 ^[5] federal statutory provisions in which marriage rights are contingent on marital status or in which marital status is a factor (married being defined as a male-female couple only). An update was published in 2004 including new statutory provisions involving marital status as well as statutory provisions repealed or amended yielding a total of 1,138 ^[6] provisions in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges. For LGBTI retirees the implications transcend almost every aspect of retirement planning if they are in a same-sex marriage or long-term romantic relationship that is not legally recognized as a marriage.