Critical research exploring the dynamics of aging and sexual orientation is in its infancy. To date, we know that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face a number of challenges throughout the life course, particularly as they age. Difficulties accessing adequate health care and relevant social services, enduring homophobia and heterosexism, and having a fear of intolerant residential care often force older LGBT adults to hide their sexual identity. This in turn reinforces their ongoing invisibility and isolation within an aging society. Moreover, the personal life histories of older adults are often unrecognized within LGBT communities owing to the communities’ focus on youth. This creates intergenerational gaps and mentorship challenges.
Ten More Good Years, produced and directed by Michael Jacoby, is a documentary that highlights the unique challenges of aging LGBT adults. This film reviews the history of the American gay rights movement as well as available social resources relative to four older adults whose lives are chronicled. They discuss social and economic conditions experienced throughout their respective life courses including employment and living situations. The film illustrates that LGBT older adults who are not entitled to survivor benefits or social security insurance due to insufficient contributions experience notably poorer economic outcomes than those who receive benefits.
The precariousness of this aging group was demonstrated by the group’s invisibility at the White House Council on Aging meeting, a task force that meets once per decade to set national aging policy recommendations, in 2005. Although our human rights are progressive on an international scale, Canada also has difficulties proving that this sub-group of older adults warrants social attention due to challenges with enumeration (Brotman, Ryan, & Cormier, Reference Brotman, Ryan and Cormier2003). Thus Ten More Good Years, in examining the lives of and difficulties experienced by four aging LGBT adults, aptly demonstrates an ongoing necessity for grassroots-type support as well as supportive “families of choice”.
In general, the film was well produced with minor technical oversights. During talking segments, we found the volume of background music somewhat distracting. This could also make it increasingly difficult for someone with a hearing impairment to follow the conversations. Otherwise, this film is well constructed and easy to follow throughout the breadth of issues it addresses. In many cases, the term LGBT is used without specific discourse relating to bisexual or trans-identified people. Ten More Good Years did succeed in portraying an African-American biological male who lived the majority of her life as female. Drawing upon her life’s events, “Ms. Major” spoke of her struggles with poverty, housing, and chosen support networks as well as her challenges accessing relevant health care services. The experiences of aging people who self-identify as bisexual were not addressed, however, and women who self-identify as lesbian were under-represented, thus the film missed a range of issues specific to women and aging.
While the many concerns highlighted in this American documentary are relevant in Canada, the extent is questionable. For example, in Canada social insurance support in the form of survivor benefits are in place. Bill C-23, which became law in 2000, granted same-sex survivor benefits for partners who died before January 1998. This stipulation was challenged with the argument that the 1998 cut-off should extend back to April 1985 when sexual equality became protected in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In November 2004, Ontario’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of retroactive pension benefits entitling same-sex survivors to the same pension benefits as heterosexual couples, who are automatically granted these benefits. (CTV.ca News Online, 2006). Since other countries, including the U.S. have yet to legislate this support, this key topic area of the film may have limited applicability to international audiences.
Housing challenges is a key area addressed in this film and which has also been examined by Canadian researchers (Brotman et al., Reference Brotman, Ryan and Cormier2003). This study also found that older LGBT adults often distrust or fear entering residential care facilities due to heterosexist policies and homophobic attitudes. Although Canada and the U.S. both offer private accommodations appealing to affluent LGBT clientele, in 2005 Toronto announced plans for the development of an LGBT-friendly supportive housing complex and the opening of a cluster of rooms in two pre-existing long-term care sites. These were the first publicly subsidized beds of their kind in North America (We’re here!, 2005).
The film successfully reflects current research and expert opinion concerning aging LGBT issues drawing from prominent researchers such as Brian de Vries of San Francisco State University, professionals, and grassroots representatives. Some supporting statistics, such as income of gay men, are cited but without reference to their source. By including sources in caption format, the film-makers could have strengthened their credibility.
Reliability is another area of concern. Researchers have outlined a number of problems collecting representative data on the LGBT population including variable sampling (Shankle, Maxwell, Katzman, & Landers, Reference Shankle, Maxwell, Katzman and Landers2003). Apart from educated, middle-class, Caucasian individuals who live in urban centres, who self-identify as lesbian and/or gay, and are members of social organizations; many sub-groups of LGBT older adults are under-represented in research concerning aging. Sampling limitations like these can influence the quality and quantity of data, increase the variance among research, and make it more difficult to draw meaningful comparisons.
In addition to limited representation of various LGBT communities, this film missed relevant topics including LGBT adults aging in a rural environment and those with dementia and other mental health issues. Conflicting evidence has been reported that individuals who self-identify as gay and/or lesbian are more likely than heterosexuals to find life stressful (Statistics Canada, 2003), while other research has suggested that older lesbian and gay adults have increased crisis competence when faced with aging-related challenges (Dorfman, Walters, Burke, Hardin, Karanik, Raphael et al., Reference Dorfman, Walters, Burke, Hardin, Karanik and Raphael1995). The influence of chronic mental illness on the health and aging of LGTB adults was loosely highlighted in the film with the introduction of a man who suffered an acquired brain injury from a hate crime. Other intra-group differences unrepresented in this film were the experiences of people from ethno-racial communities. Researchers have limited knowledge on the social situations and health experiences of LGBT adults from ethno-racial communities.
Finally, Ten More Good Years corrects the common stereotype that all older LGBT adults are affluent by presenting the stories of low-income earners. We know that older adults with low socio-economic status are more likely to experience greater health difficulties and depend less on social supports. The extent, however, to which this applies to LGBT adults of other socio-economic backgrounds is not addressed.
The film’s website (www.tenmoregoodyears.com) lists two versions available for purchase, a home use version and an educational use version that is accompanied by an in-depth educators’ guide written by the Department of Gerontology at San Francisco State University. Although the intended audience is not made explicit, this movie would be useful to researchers, librarians, educators, health care practitioners, policy makers, and people of all sexual orientations/gender identities and their caregivers.
