For aging transgender population, retirement can be bittersweet refuge

[DriftingCrow]

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/20/for-aging-transgenderpopulationretirementcanbebittersweetrefuge.html
Al-Jazeera; Ryan Schuesseler

At home, Alice can live as the woman she knows she is. But at work, she has to use her "boy name" — the one on her birth certificate. There's a co-worker that has joked about using "->-bleeped-<-s and trannies" as target practice. The day she goes to work as Alice would probably be the day she quits, or gets fired.

"The problem is, most of us who are older are looking at life after work," she said. "And we realize that it could well be lived in poverty. We can be true to ourselves, but at what price?"

Even though today's world is more accepting of transgender individuals, largely driven by younger generations, it doesn't mean the older generation is any more accepting,[and that] can spell trouble for transgender men and women as they age and enter end-of-life care.

[Another concern "is] the loss of the grandchildren," she said. "Oftentimes the adult children freak and cut off access to the grandchildren. And that is incredibly painful to these people."

[justpat]

  This is a fantastic article and it really hits home with me.Being 64 I know it is in my future hopefully later than sooner but you never know it could be tomorrow.Thanks for posting.  Pat

[helen2010]

These are important issues which don't  get a lot of coverage.  Another potential issue is that some retirement homes apparently choose to treat, group and accommodate folk by birth rather than according to affirmed gender.  May be need for protection or a legislative response.  After a life time of struggle tg folk should not be reclassified according to their birth gender

[Felix]

I wish we (Susan's) had some kind of academic or library license to read the peer-reviewed papers published about stuff like this. It has been written about a lot in the past decade or so, and it's hard to sit tight and be patient waiting for journalists to bring us interpretations that go beyond the free article summaries.

Thank you for the post and the link on this topic. I'm only 32, but I worry about the future, considering how many barriers transpeople face now. By the time I end up in a home, I doubt I'll be free of discrimination concerns.