by Janet Nguyen
The month of May is celebrated by community, governmental, and academic institutions alike as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM). In Minnesota, Governor Walz officially declared May as APAHM in 2019.
We’re halfway through May and heading into June, which is nationally recognized as Pride Month, a month to commemorate the Stonewall Uprisings. The Stonewall Uprisings has been credited as the first steps to gay liberation in the US, and celebrate queer people across the world.
May 16 is also National Honor Your LGBT Elders Day, a day that honor and thank those who came before us for paving the path and leading the way for queer folk today.
What does this mean? And why does this matter?
We must recognize the intersections of our identities. As feminist poet Audre Lorde says, we do not live single issued lives and therefore we must be able to recognize and name how being People of Color, queer, poor, mentally ill, and other identities affect the way we live.
According to the Diverse Elders Coalition, conservative estimates suggest that there are “more than 3 million LGBT people age 55 and older in the U.S.—1.5 million of whom are 65 and older. This over-65 segment will double in the next few decades as millions of Americans enter retirement age.”
Asian American and Pacific Islanders also represent one of the fastest growing populations of older adults in the United States. Over the next 50 years, the number of AAPIs aged 65 and older is expected to grow more than 350%, from 1.6 million to 7.3 million people. The number of queer AAPIs will also increase and unfortunately, due to a lifetime of discrimination and systemic oppression, many queer people age without the community support, access to healthcare, and financial stability needed to live a long and healthy life.
We must begin by remembering how much our LGBT elders have experienced and survived, and also honor those who’ve lost their lives for us, whether they knew it or not. They fought through decades and centuries of witchhunts, violence, bigotry, government-sponsored discrimination, criminalization of homosexuality (which was not decriminalized in MN until 2001), and conversion therapy (which has been banned in Minneapolis, but there is currently no statewide ban in MN). During the AIDS epidemic, LGBT elders organized themselves to provide care and public health resources for one another when government failed to respond to the crisis. Our LGBT elders have created one of the most transformative movements for equity and justice.
We can support our LGBT elders by
- Donating to organizations that provide services to LGBT elders
- Sharing our LGBT elders’ stories to increase awareness and shift public narratives of queerness. Stories can be found here
- Take a stand against state-sponsored discrimination against LGBT elders by taking pledging here