As someone who has been working in LGBTQIA+ activism for over two decades, I can speak about how often older adults are left out of these spaces. Whether for activism, social engagement, health or other facets of life, LGBTQIA+ spaces tend to centre around young people and sometimes middle-age individuals, leaving out older adults, to the detriment of the community at large. I embarked on a video project, funded by the Rose Community Foundation, entitled ‘Protecting Our past: LGBTQ Jews and social justice’, with the express purpose of interviewing LGBTQ Jewish elders to ensure their wisdom and experiences were not lost. It was an incredibly engaging and heart-warming experience to listen to their stories of running underground lesbian switch boards to connect one another and marching with Martin Luther King Jr in Alabama, because all of our liberation is tied together.
However, while the field of gerontology has grown exponentially, and research on and with trans communities has exploded in the past few years, there is still an incredible dearth of information on the experiences of transgender older adults, and there is even less available research on older adults who are gender diverse. Most of the extant work speaks only to trans and gender diverse elders going back into the closet or detransitioning for safety as they go into communal living spaces or explores all of the incredibly terrifying rates of discrimination, harassment and victimisation that this group faces in healthcare settings. Trans and Gender Diverse Ageing in Care Contexts: Research into Practice serves to bridge some of these gaps by inviting a plethora of authors from around the world to share their research findings and practice experiences in supporting trans and gender diverse older adults in a variety of care contexts. Importantly, this book features many authors who are themselves older adults, trans and/or gender diverse, or both, centring the voices of this community rather than speaking over or for them.
From centring the need for providers and community members to more intimately understand trans history and its impact on trans and gender diverse older adults in today’s society to sharing what trans and gender diverse older adults have to say about surgery, hormones, aging bodies and end-of-life care, Michael Toze, Paul Willis and Trish Hafford-Letchfield have created a wonderful resource for social service and healthcare providers alike to truly understand many of the nuanced needs facing those at the intersection of a marginalised gender and aging. Whether you opt to read this from cover to cover in a linear fashion or start where you are most interested and go
In solidarity,
Shanna K. Kattari
