Concerns expressed for aging LGBT community

Glorianne Leck pours a cup of coffee for her partner as they sit down at the kitchen table, the smell of fresh cornbread muffins filling the tiny room.

Her wrinkled hands clear aside the half-finished puzzle on the rainbow-patterned tablecloth.

A T-shirt quilt above the table shows decades of Glorianne’s involvement feminist campaigns.

A shirt from the 1978 March on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment.
A gold shirt from the National Organization for Women with the words, “Out of the mainstream, into the revolution.”

Glorianne, 71, has been a community activist her whole life.

As she ages in a different community, in a different era, Glorianne continues to speak for a group she said is underrepresented.

She stands for the 65-year-old gay man estranged from his family, living isolated in Owen County. For the 80-year-old woman who worries that when she dies, her partner might not receive the necessary benefits. For the elderly gay couples that simply cannot find something to do on a Saturday night in a college town.

Although Bloomington may be LGBT-friendly, Glorianne said, its residents are not addressing the challenges faced by a distinct demographic: the aging LGBT community. They lack support systems, social activities and legal and medical resources to plan for their future, she said.

One year ago, after attending Bloomington’s PRIDE festival, Glorianne came up with an idea. She envisioned an organization that would address the needs of the aging LGBT community and provide them with a social group they could feel comfortable with. 

The recently formed LGBT Aging and Caring Network is carrying out Glorianne’s vision. Due to her age and recent medical issues, she said she hopes to let others take the reins on leadership of the group.

Its three-part mission consists of building support networks, providing educational assistance with medical and legal issues, and seeking out suitable social activities for the aging LGBT community in Bloomington. 

“They need places to go,” Glorianne said. “We need to reach out to them.”

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A woven plaque on Glorianne’s lavender-colored bedroom wall reads Sept. 8, 1994. It was on that day, flying in a hot air balloon over Taos, N.M., that Glorianne and her partner, Susan Savastuk, made their commitment.

The couple met in Youngstown, Ohio, where Susan grew up. Glorianne taught as a philosophy professor for 35 years at Youngstown State University, where she was always known as “the lesbian professor,” she said.

Glorianne was an LGBT advocate in her community, and was selected as a delegate for presidential nominee John Kerry during his 2004 campaign.

In 2006, Susan decided she was ready to leave the crime-heavy city for a calmer living environment. She suggested the couple move to Bloomington.

“I said ‘what? I’ve always thought of it as this redneck state,” Glorianne said.

Their first night in Bloomington, Glorianne and Susan went to the Player’s Pub and after dinner, they danced. That was the night they realized they were in the right place.

“We were used to everyone staring, but it was just so natural,” Susan said. “You had to search for it in Youngstown. Here, everyone was so accepting of us being a lesbian couple. We looked at each other and said ‘Wow, we’ve died and gone to heaven.’”

Susan and Glorianne said they feel comfortable in Bloomington, with its liberal-leaning college community.

But even in comfort, Glorianne said, many members of the aging LGBT community are falling through the cracks. 

In a town where most LGBT resources are targeted toward the college-aged demographic, finding ways to socialize with similar people becomes difficult for members of the aging LGBT community, Glorianne said.

The LGBT community has access to support groups through IU GLBT Student Support Services Office, but these groups are targeted to individuals aged 18 to 25.

Events like PRIDE are also focused on the younger population, Glorianne said. Last year’s PRIDE festival included a late-night dance as one of the main events. Glorriane and Susan said most people their age might not like staying out late or are unable to drive after dark.

Meanwhile, social activities catered toward the aging population might not resonate with the local LGBT community, Glorianne said. Even in places dedicated to the aging demographic, such as senior centers, Glorianne said she feels it is harder to be herself.

“When I first went to the senior center, you could just feel the heterosexual interaction,” Glorianne said. “These old guys hit on you. I just felt like an outlier.”

In rural areas or even in nursing homes, members of the aging LGBT community often go back in the closet, due to the stigma that remains from earlier, more conservative generations, Glorianne said. Many of these individuals are estranged from their families or rejected from traditional support systems, such as churches, she said.

Chuck Peters, 55, a new member of the LGBT Aging and Caring Network, is a cataloguing librarian at the IU Music Library. Since he has no spouse or children, he said the thought of growing older and possibly being alone is on his mind.
“It’s hard to be old and not straight, just because of our culture’s tradition,” Peters said. “Support systems haven’t automatically included people who are different. You have to forge your own way.”

Glorianne said she realizes the potential the LGBT Aging and Caring Network has for providing much-needed resources, for getting students involved in the cause and for addressing the challenges facing the aging LGBT.

“If we do this right, in 10, 15 years, we won’t have to talk about it as an LGBT problem. It’ll be an elder problem,” Glorriane said. “But because of our history and our discomforts, there are unique features in the older LGBT group that just require a bit more attention right now.”

Because Indiana does not recognize domestic partnerships as a legal union, same-sex couples are not provided with the tax, inheritance and retirement benefits that are automatically given to spouses, IU law professor Aviva Orenstein said.

However, both Bloomington and IU offer health benefits to domestic partners, Orenstein said. LGBT individuals have the ability to seek out power of attorney, granting one partner the right to make medical decisions for the other if he or she becomes unable to. They can include their partners in their will and in their retirement benefits, but it is both expensive and time-consuming.

“If you’re motivated it’s not impossible to come close to the benefits of marriage, but you never get the same social benefit or legal benefit,” Orenstein said.

These are concerns the average 25-year old lesbian couple does not have to think about as much as Glorianne and Susan do. 

Glorianne and Susan are well prepared for their future. They understand the benefits available to them as a same-sex couple. But the same cannot be said for many members of the aging LGBT community, Susan said.

“People don’t get living wills, they don’t get power of attorneys,” Susan said. “They don’t ask, ‘What am I going to need when I’m 80, and I’m a lesbian, and I’m by myself?’”

In the corner of Glorianne’s living room stands a poplar-wood bookshelf built by her cousin.

There are handles on both sides.

“It’s my coffin,” she said. “I wanted to figure everything out for when I die so that Susan doesn’t have to.”