New Logo Doc “Gen Silent” Tackles The Crisis Facing LGBT Elderly
Gen Silent is the critically acclaimed documentary from filmmaker Stu Maddux that asks six LGBT seniors if they will hide their friends, their spouses- their entire lives in order to survive in the care system.
Their surprising decisions are captured through intimate access to their day-to-day lives over the course of a year. It puts a face on what experts in the film call an epidemic: gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender older people so afraid of discrimination by caregivers or bullying by other seniors that many simply go back into the closet.
Unlike any film before, Gen Silent startlingly discovers how oppression in the years before Stonewall now affects older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people with fear and isolation.
Many who won the first civil rights victories for generations to come are now dying prematurely because they are reluctant to ask for help and have too few friends or family to care for them.
Gen Silent shows the disparity in the quality of paid caregiving from mainstream care facilities committed making their LGBT residents safe and happy, to places where LGBT elders face discrimination by staff and bullying by other seniors.
As we watch the challenges that these men and women face, we are offered new hope as each person crosses paths with impassioned people trying to change LGBT aging for the better.
Gen Silent’s recent screenings include Fortune 500 companies, the world’s leading colleges and universities as well as some of its largest conferences on aging, psychology and LGBT advocacy. We are even prouder of the community centers, places of worship and student groups using Gen Silent.
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Monday, November 9 at 8pm, the new Logo documentary Gen Silent takes a hard look at what’s happening with LGBT elderly people, many of whom don’t have the resources, family—and until recently the rights—afforded to their straight counterparts.
* Half of nursing home workers said their fellow workers are intolerant of LGBT people.
* 50% of LGBT elders live alone, compared with 33% of the general population.
* Guidelines protecting LGBT seniors were created in 2006, but have never been enforced.
Among those profiled in the film are KrysAnne Hembrough, a trans woman who has been estranged from her family since transitioning, and lesbian couple Sheri Barden and Lois Johnson, who worry about having to hide their relationship if they have to move into assisted living.
Lawrence Johnson, a gay man in his 60s, is struggling to find a nursing home for his 86-year-old partner where they can hold hands without fear.
