JENNIFER CABUGAO - [X]PRESS Gordon Smyth, 77, comments ona short biograpical piece written by George Birimisa, 81, another member of the Intergenerational Writers Workshop at the LGBT Community Center in San Francisco.

By the look of him, you might not be able to tell that Birimisa leads this small group, which bridges generations of LGBT and non-LGBT people through the exploration and shared craft of writing. He’s just as involved, attentive, and eager to share and learn as everyone else present. Here, they don’t talk about the difficulties of aging. They just talk about writing.

“We have a magic thing going,” said Birimisa, an established playwright and a pioneer in queer theater. “People come to the workshops and just bloom. It’s almost like this spiritual experience. It’s opening my heart and it’s changed me tremendously.”

Birimisa assembles two different groups of writers every Monday and Wednesday, inviting them to read plays, stories, memoirs or anything else that they’ve written.
Programs like the Intergenerational Writers Workshop have arisen as the need to connect LGBT seniors with the community at large has grown.

“The isolation of the seniors of this community and in the world is incredible,” said Smyth. “It’s a youth-oriented world that we live in, and in the gay community it’s even more powerful because there’s the sexuality involved, and you’re no longer a sexual being.”

Gerard Koskovich, senior editor of newsletters at Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network, a division of the American Society on Aging, said LGBT elders were “often marginalized, if not outright made invisible. The high priority of one’s value in the sexual market place” contributes to this disconnect, he said, adding that the phenomenon was not specific to the LGBT community, but to American society as a whole. Seniors, having moved past their sexual prime, often find difficulty relating and communicating with a younger generation with youthful sensibilities.

At the San Francisco Pride Parade, for example, floats often feature drag queens, leather contingents, and dance clubs. Such groups usually involve younger, more sexually active people.

The disconnect between the older and younger LGBT community can be explained by the relatively short-lived history of the LGBT community, according to Moli Steinert, executive director of Open House, a nonprofit organization that offers LGBT-friendly senior housing services. To be openly gay wasn’t encouraged until the gay liberation movement of the 70s. The current senior population of people aged 70 or over matured in an environment that was less accepting of open homosexuality.

“The survival element of that generation has been not to disclose what they are … to be independent … to be survivors,” Steinert said.

But this will change in the upcoming decade when the Baby Boomer generation, considered to be America’s largest, reaches the age of retirement. This community, having matured during the sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s, will expect certain treatment in regard to its sexual and cultural identity.

According to a MetLife study titled “Out and Aging: The MetLife Study of Lesbian and Gay Baby Boomers,” more than one-fourth of LGBT boomers reported great concern about discrimination as they aged. The report also claims: “Almost 40 percent of respondents believed that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender has helped them prepare for aging in some way,” citing that many felt that their sexual status entitled them to qualities of “greater resilience.” The report found that about 75 percent of LGBT Baby Boomers are either “completely” or “mostly” out and expressive about their sexuality.

And as the average American life expectancy increases to 78, there will be more LGBT seniors leading longer lives.

To foster intergenerational relationships between the Baby Boomer generation and the younger LGBT generation, the development of “intergenerational structures of kinship that are not connected to sexuality but to shared fields of interests” will be essential, according to Koskovich. The Intergenerational Writers is a model for such structures.

And what do non-senior members of the Intergenerational Writers think?

Mickey Smedley, 40, came to the program because he was “looking for a writing group that didn’t hack my writing.” Through the program Smedley has learned a great deal about the older LGBT generation, especially “how difficult it was being a gay male, and how much work they actually accomplished from the 60s until now.” He has come to appreciate “how free we can be with ourselves about our sexuality.”

Smyth, 37 years Smedley’s senior, looked across the table at Smedley and said, “The parallels are so exciting to me to know that the way I experienced the first half of my life is very similar to his [Smedley’s]. It’s very satisfying to know that you’re not alone.”

Anthony Alba, the youngest member of the group, said: “I’m embarrassed to say that it’s ingrained in the American culture to be younger, stronger, faster. I came here and everybody is really accepting. It’s all about creativity and constructive criticism, whether it’s a story about science fiction, about your first kiss in a closet, whether it’s a memoir about your child sexuality, or a horror story about a crocodile.”

Kathleen Orloff, 52, is the only female and straight person who attends the workshop on Wednesday, serving as a reminder that the group is accepting of all people with a passion for writing and the time and consistency to arrive weekly. “Being intergenerational was important to me,” she said, adding the importance of the group “being open to any sexual orientation.”

Aging, according to Smyth, is like “ … a marker in your life. You’re no longer productive and you’re just shunted aside. People separate themselves out when they experience this kind of event in their life. They separate themselves out and begin to isolate themselves,” he said.

“Unless you do meetings like the Intergenerational Writer’s group, or do something to get yourself into the community,” Smyth said, “you’re dead.”