Ageism Take 2

Last week (was it really that long ago?), I talked about an encounter with ageism at a conference on multiculturalism. That particular experience felt especially awful coming as it did in a setting where the appreciation of difference was explicitly the topic of the conference. Granted, the presentation that troubled me was conducted by white, mid-life academics. But they might have called on their experience as women to notice that talking about people without including those people in the conversation might feel yucky. Heaven knows women have had plenty of those experiences (recall “Women’s bodies have a way of shutting down during legitimate rape,” spoken by a man who presumed to know).

Anyhow, this past weekend, I had another such experience. Again, it was in a context where I would hope it wouldn’t happen: the annual “Creating Change” conference sponsored by the (to my mind) premier LGBT rights organization, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF, a.k.a. The Task Force). In my happiest fantasies, LGBTQ people would be so sensitized to oppression that they would never participate in it themselves. Especially folks attending this conference, the most politically active, politically sensitized, broadly progressive conference I know. But there it was. Subtle, mostly, but recognizable—at least from my hypervigilant perspective. The sort of ageism that made me ask myself, “Wait, was that ageist or not? Am I being too sensitive? Where’s my sense of humor?” All of which must sound familiar to feminists, queer folks, people of color, working class people, people with disabilities … all of us who find ourselves questioning whether mistreatment is “real” or “imagined.”

It’s not the first time in my life I’ve had these experiences, the daily barrage of what psychologists call “micro-aggressions.” I first became aware of them during my feminist awakening, then got re-acquainted as I sorted through my sexual orientation and then engaged the world as an out lesbian. I’ve also learned about them through the stories of people in other oppressed groups. But I still expect (or maybe I simply hope) that these micro-aggressions won’t happen when I hang out with the very folks who have been the targets of so many of them. Somehow, I expect them to recognize bias when it happens, to challenge it in others and refuse to engage in it themselves. And that was my expectation of folks at Creating Change.

Unfortunately, few of us are as skilled in this sensitivity toward others as we wish others were toward us—I’m certainly not. For instance, although I try not to say or do things that are racist, classist, adultist, etc., I sometimes find myself saying or doing those things anyway. Heck, I even say or do sexist and homophobic things sometimes. I’m actually happy when I catch myself doing this—enjoying what a friend calls “another god damn learning experience.” For one thing, I’m happy to realize that I was at least conscious enough to catch it (or to “get it” if it’s pointed out to me). Besides, it’s a reminder of how deep this stuff goes and how hard it is to root it all out. When I remember that, I can be more understanding of other folks’ “slips.”

So, bummed as I was about encountering ageism at Change, as we call it, upon reflection, here’s what I realized. One of the great joys of Change is that it is full of youth and their exhausting, limitless energy. That makes for noisy nights in the hotel, but it also infuses the conference with this buzz of possibility and a sense of wonderful forward momentum. When I’m at Change, I don’t worry at all about the future of this movement.

At the same time that I love this youth-drenched energy, I realize that the movement and Change itself increasingly belong to generations that have had little contact with old people and little opportunity (much less encouragement or requirement) to think about ageism. So, the perspective that they bring to this conference is shaped almost entirely by this culture’s pervasive ageism. By the stereotypes and biases that float around in the air, the images we've all  taken in during our lives—and that most of us only begin to really, deeply challenge when they apply to us. These gut-level, ingrained beliefs and attitudes are usually not spoken out loud. Often, they’re so widely accepted and unquestioned that we don’t even know we have them. Psychologists call them “implicit attitudes” exactly because they’re not explicit. We could even call them unconscious.

So, folks working in this area (like, as a random example, my partner) point out that people can’t change these attitudes until they become aware of them and actively work on changing them. Despite our best intentions, these things are so well learned, so … implicit … that unless we take active steps to recognize and change them, we’re basically stuck repeating them. For me, this means that if I really want ageism at Change to change (what a convenient double meaning!), I have to do something about it. These young folks who are flooding into the movement haven’t had any means of learning about this issue. They likely have no idea what ageism is, much less what it looks like in everyday practice—and even less awareness that they are practicing it, big time. It’s not only youth, of course. I heard plenty of ageism from grown-ups (even old ones), too. So, if I want these well-intentioned, generally progressive folks to look at their ageism, I need to try to give them some information that will help them do that.

You can see where  this is going. I guess my task is to develop some sort of program for Change next year that will address ageism. Not that I can single-handedly rescue the movement—or even Change—from ageism. But doing something on this order will serve at last two purposes. First, it may begin a conversation that will help some segment of my fellow Change-rs to notice, think about, and work to change their ageism. That would be way cool. Second, it will help me take some control over my own response to this issue. After a couple of these encounters, I was on the verge of deciding not to go back to Change. That would be a huge loss for me. Doing something positive about my discomfort would be so much better.

I told my partner earlier today that sometimes blogging gets me in trouble (which she reframed  as “holds me accountable”). Last week, it made me commit to writing to the lead panelist from the earlier conference (which I have now done). This week, it leads me to commit to developing a program for next year’s Change conference. 

My response this week is the same as last: thanks for the nudge. Stay tuned ...

The changing landscape of equality

Today’s New York Times carried the story: Just after midnight yesterday, marriage equality arrived in Maine. It became legal earlier this month in Washington State, and marriage equality will begin in Maryland on Tuesday. On the same day that these three states legalized same-sex marriage at the ballot box, Minnesota voters defeated a constitutional amendment that would have added a ban on marriage equality to that state’s constitution.

Prior to this November, same-sex marriage had been on the ballot 31 times, and it lost 31 times. This year, marriage equality was on the ballot in four states, and we won in all four.

Actually, to be precise, Arizona pro-equality voters defeated a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2006, largely by “de-gaying” the campaign. They did this by arguing that their opposition to the amendment wasn’t about same-sex marriage, which was already illegal in Arizona. Instead, they opposed the amendment because it would result in the loss of benefits for many of the state’s seniors. Underscoring this position, ads against the amendment featured older heterosexual couples instead of same-sex couples. Just two years later, voters undid the “win,” handily passing an amendment banning marriage equality.

This year’s wins are testimony to how far we’ve come—in changing voters’ attitudes and in crafting successful campaigns that actually foreground marriage. And it speaks volumes that in this election, LGBTQ issues were not successfully used as a wedge issue on the national stage.

Those of you who are interested in these things might enjoy this excellent Atlantic Monthly review of the campaign for marriage equality since Proposition 8, the 2008 initiative that overturned Californians’ right to marriage equality. In it, Molly Ball outlines the ins and outs of the story behind this amazing shift from persistent losses to dramatic wins. Among other things, she discusses the “breathtaking epiphany” that began to shift the argument for marriage equality from a discussion of rights to a discussion of love and commitment. I first learned about this shift-in-process at the NGLTF Creating Change conference last year. And here it is, in the news, as the strikingly new narrative of the suddenly successful marriage equality movement.

In some ways, marriage equality now seems inevitable and even imminent, like it may become the law of the land even in my lifetime. But there are still major obstacles ahead, not the least of which is a fundamentally conservative Supreme Court, whose rulings on the cases it has chosen to hear may set the movement back rather than forward. Even a favorable ruling in the case of Prop 8 could leave Californians no farther ahead than if the Court had refused to hear the case, and no other states may be effected. The other case has to do with whether the federal government can withhold federal benefits from married couples in states that already approve same-sex marriage. In this form, the case will have no effect on states that already ban same-sex marriage, as most states do. In fact, some 31 states (including my home state of Colorado) have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage—which are far harder to overturn than simple legislative acts.

But even if marriage equality were achieved, this is only one issue that the LGBTQ community needs to address. In fact, many folks argue that we have spent far too much time, far too much money, and far too much political capital and citizen good will on marriage. Marriage, after all, will benefit only that slice of the community who want to marry; who have the social, professional, and physical safety to take such a step; who have a partner to whom they choose to make this very complicated social and financial commitment; and who believe in marriage in the first place. (This may not seem obvious, but that last item actually cuts out a fair number of folks.)  

Besides, while we have been focusing on marriage, other burning issues have been largely ignored—or at best, inadequately addressed: the invisibility of transgender people and their issues in the mainstream LGB(T) rights movement; the relatively high proportion of LGBTQ people (especially lesbians and their children and trans people) living in poverty—particularly LGBTQ people of color; legal and practical problems around parenting and adoption; continuing discrimination in employment and housing as well as in mainstream organizations like the Boy Scouts; persistent racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice and discrimination within the LGBTQ community. And more.

I may have told this story before, but it fits so well: Some years ago, when I was grousing about these things, my partner said to me, “But imagine it were any other group—people of color or poor people or a particular religious group—who were trying to achieve marriage equality. Wouldn’t you support them in that cause?” Of course, I had to say yes. And on that level, as a group seeking equality in one of society’s major institutions, I support the marriage equality movement. I have donated both time and money to the groups who are pursuing this end. But I’ve never stopped feeling uncomfortable about it on another level. At the level of all the issues left aside by this movement. The level where I resist the notion that the government should have any say in my relationships, in what sort of relationships should and should not be privileged (e.g., by eligibility for social  recognition and financial support—insurance, Social Security, parenting rights, health care, all of it).

Still, this is the movement we have at this moment, and I do celebrate the wins. Yet, I try to keep in mind that other issues are just as (or more) burning for many in our community. Some of these are linked to marriage—e.g., many parenting issues would be eased if same-sex couples could legally marry. Others wouldn’t be helped at all.

Looking for a way to reconcile these perspectives—the joy and the discomfort—I realize that we have learned some very important lessons in this process that may serve us well as we (hopefully!) turn to other issues. Here’s one lesson:

As the Atlantic article explains, a large part of the shift we saw this November from all losses to important wins was a shift in the message LGBTQ campaigns used in arguing for marriage equality. At some point, some activists realized that the LGBTQ movement had been appealing to people’s minds (“Let me give you some statistics about inequality”), while the anti-equality movement was appealing to their emotions (“Let me tell you a story that will move you”). It turns out that stories and feelings trump numbers and minds and when it comes to voting on complicated and confusing wrinkles in the cultural fabric. So these recent, successful campaigns focused not on data but on LGBTQ people and their allies telling their stories. Door-to-door canvassing didn’t involve peppering voters with facts. Instead, it involved having conversations about shared values and personal lives.

I was reminded of this lesson about the importance of stories this morning when I read this article about a lesbian couple’s attempt to adopt a child. I was moved by this article, and I imagined that others, even those who have not thought about such things before, might be as well: the simple fact of wanting a child made far too complex and fraught. This couple could have been heterosexual, and many of the same events might have transpired. But the limitations on their options for adoption and their inability to fully support each other stemmed from nothing but persistent prejudice and discrimination. Since I have lesbian friends with a new baby, I couldn’t help but think of them and of all the thought, hope, fear, excitement, anxiety, uncertainty, and joy they experienced waiting for their child.

In all of the many ways that children may come into one’s life, sexual orientation ought to be such a non-issue. As we turn to other issues of equality, stories like this one may be what changes hearts.

Sending light to North Carolina

Today, the citizens of North Carolina are going to the polls to vote on a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage—which is to say, an amendment prohibiting marriage equality. The amendment is expected to pass.* There’s been lots of coverage of this as a political issue. But I’m thinking today about the LGBT folks and their allies in that state. I’m thinking about how this day feels to them—the day when their rights are being put to a popular vote. And about how tomorrow will feel, the day when they wake up wondering who voted to deny those rights. It takes me straight back to 1992.

I remember waking on the morning after Amendment 2 was passed by Colorado voters in November 1992.

For those who don’t know about Amendment 2, a short primer: A2 was a citizen-initiated ballot measure that would overturn all existing legal protections for LGB people and prohibit the passage of any such protections in the future. Simply, it would legalize discrimination against LGB people. A2 was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court—but not before it had profound effects on LGB individuals and communities and their allies. (My apologies for the absent “T.” We weren’t addressing trans issues at all at this point.)

Like lots of other folks, I believed the polls that said A2 wouldn’t pass. I was prepared to be outraged that many of my neighbors, co-workers, even my family would have voted for it—and against me. But I expected it to fail, and I expected my life to go on as it had, with barely a ripple of notice given to the issue.

Then I heard the morning news on the clock radio by my bed: A2 had passed. Tears sprang to my eyes.

I hadn’t given the amendment much attention, hadn’t been at all involved in the campaign against it, wasn’t at all prepared for this moment. The truth is, in my contented, complacent, comfortable life, I didn’t give much thought to LGB issues at all. I was generally pretty closeted—totally so at work, although out to my family and close friends. I had a wide circle of lesbian (and a few gay male) friends, occasionally went to LGB events. I was content with this. I knew A2 was on the ballot and had vaguely noticed the campaign ads—especially from A2 supporters. I’d wanted to scream at the radio as I heard the lies being told about me and my life, but I didn’t actively do anything about it.

And then, on Tuesday, November 3, 1992, people in my state voted to actively prohibit all guarantees of legal protection for me and my community. I was stunned, hurt, angry, dumfounded, tearful. And frightened: would this grant permission to people (who might have held back out of social propriety) to see us as legitimate targets—of discrimination, harassment, or worse? I was also confused and outraged: How could they? Do they really hate us that much? How can they misunderstand us so badly?

After the tears stopped that morning, I resolved that I had to do something about this. I couldn’t just retreat farther into my closet (which some folks assure me was a glass closet anyhow). For my own sanity, as well as my wish to single-handedly change the world, I had to act. I have to admit that I didn’t suddenly wrest control over all I was feeling. The hurt and anger and fear remained in silent ways. I started to wonder, “who?” Who voted against my rights? Was it that neighbor I see walking up to his mailbox—did he vote against me? Was it my colleague in the next office? I had never talked to her about this, did she …? Was it the guy in the car next to me at the stoplight? My doctor? The announcer on the radio?

Still, even with this private backtalk, I realized that I was in a great position to do something active. I taught at a state college and I had tenure, a good reputation as a teacher, and the broad support of my colleagues (although I wasn’t certain it would extend to this domain). So I began a two-pronged personal campaign: I got active politically, and I turned the emotional intensity of my response to A2 toward educational ends. Eventually, I created a course in LGB psychology, which I taught to a full classroom several times a year, every year until I retired. I wrote a textbook to use in the class, because there was none available. And I began professional writing and research in this topic area, which remained my area of focus until I retired.

In this process, I also met my partner. She had actually worked (hard!) on the “No on 2” campaign, so she had been very directly in the line of fire from the “Yes on 2” folks. Also, she’s a therapist, and when A2 passed, she had seen its impact on LGB people and their allies among her clients. So she did a major research project to figure out what this had done to folks. From her, I learned that my response to A2 was not unique. Many people felt what I felt: stunned, angry, hurt, fearful, alienated, lost. And many turned those feelings into activism of some sort. Painful though it was, in the long run, the LGBT community and our allies used A2 as a springboard to amazing progress. In fact, the ultimate US Supreme Court ruling overturning A2 has served as a model for many pro-LGBT victories in the years that followed.

All of this comes to mind as I think of the folks in North Carolina. Today will be hard—hard, last-minute work to get LGBT-positive folks to vote, mustering volunteers to go door to door, to give folks rides, to make last-minute phone calls. And then the long wait … and finally the results, heard in campaign headquarters, seen in banners on evening TV, or heard on the morning news.

LGBT rights are expected to lose in North Carolina today. That means that tomorrow, lots of folks will be feeling what I felt that cold morning in November 1992.

In my days of learning everything I could about LGB psychology, I came across this notion that has stuck with me. It’s called the “affirmative assumption,” and it says this: if we look at LGBT people (or insert any other devalued group) from the perspective of what’s great about us (the affirmative view) instead of what’s damaged (the deficit view), we get a very different picture of who we are. LGBT people have faced so much awful stuff over the years—individually and as a community—and yet most of us turn out to be fine, healthy, normal, typical human beings. This suggests that we can be remarkably resilient, can have really excellent coping skills. The fact that A2 led not to the demise of Colorado’s LGBT community but to its growth and empowerment is a case in point.

Today, I want to send the LGBT/ally community in North Carolina a dose of faith in their own resilience, a hit of the affirmative assumption. A win would feel much better tomorrow morning. But, as we learned in Colorado, a “loss” can lead to great outcomes in the long run. Even though this doesn’t make it not hurt in the moment. Oooof.

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* There’s also a bill moving through the legislative process in Colorado that would endorse civil unions for same-sex couples. That bill has to get through the legislature by Wednesday, or it will die for this year … again. I’ll comment on that another time. Today, folks in NC are on my mind, probably because their situation seems so similar to ours in 1992—a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment limiting LGBT rights that has been put up for a popular vote. 

Volunteer travel log: San Francisco

My last entry in my volunteer travel log, which seems like a long time ago, had us leaving Michigan, headed for San Francisco. Now there’s a change—in scenery, in culture, in pace, in essence! 

San Francisco is a vibrant city with lots of culture, great small movie theaters, the ocean on one side and the bay on the other, streetcars, and Fisherman’s Wharf. But it’s a city. It’s crowded, congested, noisy, and hurried, and there are far too few parking places. Long-time residents say that when you go out for dinner in San Francisco, you find a parking place and then look around for a restaurant. SF is geographically small—7.5 miles square—which makes it an easy city to walk (if you don’t mind the hills). I walked more miles in the year we spent here than I have since my mega-hiking days some years ago.

Coming from the political work I’d been doing elsewhere, it's not too surprising that my first foray into San Francisco volunteering was in LGBT politics. No particular anti-LGBT politics were afoot at the time (this was before the courts declared same-sex marriage legal and then Prop 8 then rescinded that right). But the local LGBT-rights group was very active anyway. I loved this idea: there were other issues of oppression happening in the state, and if we were committed to equality, we should be working for other groups’ equality, as well. So Equality California (EQCA, for short) was working hard on other issues. I joined up for the usual tasks of street corner voter ID, phone banks, and door-to-door campaigning. As a fundamentally shy person, I hate these activities. But organizers who are far wiser and more experienced that I am say these things work. So I devoted an afternoon a week to the street stuff and supervised a phone bank one evening a week. EQCA's work contributed to some great successes at the ballot box and forged alliances with other groups who stood by us when our turn came to be the targets. A good start to being involved in SF.

My next project, and the one I was most invested in here, was a totally new undertaking for me: teaching literacy to English-speaking adults. I heard about a training offered by Project Read, a literacy program at the SF library, and spent several weeks learning how to do this work. I had completed their training and was between learners when I decided to pursue an additional volunteer position that unexpectedly gave me a chance to put the training to good use.

There’s this program in SF called Delancey Street. It is sort of a half-way house for people coming out of prison or off the streets. They can choose to come here instead of other places of incarceration. This program is entirely run by the residents/inmates. In fact, residents designed, built, and are responsible for all maintenance of the block-sized residence hall where they all live. 

They run a restaurant in one corner of that building and a coffee shop in another. They perform all the duties required to operate these facilities—planning, ordering, cooking, serving, cleaning up, book-keeping … everything. They also have a moving business and do all the jobs required to run that business, from truck maintenance to booking jobs and record keeping to pick-up and delivery. At the holidays, they run Christmas tree lots, and residents do everything needed for those, too. Their income from these businesses helps to fund the program. The residents can’t leave except by earning the privilege and with supervision, but their days are filled with the things that fill working folks’ days on the “outside.”

The Delancey Street building with the Bay Bridge in the background

When I learned about this program (by visiting the restaurant with my partner, who knew the story), I was so impressed by the idea, that I decided I wanted to volunteer there. I met with the woman in charge and discovered that volunteering there wouldn't be so easy to arrange. They have no volunteers because the residents do everything. The one thing they were interested in was someone to teach a literacy class. Bingo! A perfect fit! So, for the rest of our time there, I did a weekly literacy class with a group of guys earning their way back into free society.

Both the teaching and the interpersonal parts of the task were challenging. These were guys who had grown up with minimal reading and writing ability. Their spoken language was fine, but they couldn’t read instructions for their work, couldn’t write a letter to the child they hadn’t see for years, couldn’t answer a letter from an old friend who had tracked them down, were concerned about getting out because there would be no one to translate the signs, the menus, the newspaper, and the instructions, on one to help them write letters (or emails), complete forms—all the things that make life in a print-laden world possible. On top of that, they had had minimal contact with people other than their fellow residents (and before that, fellow prisoners), and they were not very attuned to everyday social graces. Also, they had had virtually no contact with women. Boundaries were a huge issue here.

Challenges and all, this was a great experience. It felt really worthwhile and kept me thinking hard about how to be helpful. The classes were wrapped in a lot of laughter, like about the confusing maze of rules in English. And they brought many very gratifying moments, like helping that guy write a letter to his daughter. I don't know how much it helped because I had no contact with any of them outside class. Well, except for one letter, probably a result of my failure to be totally clear about that boundary thing. But that was quickly handled, and the rest was pure satisfaction.

I also did a couple of rather short-term volunteer gigs during that year. I worked for a while in the LGBTQ history archives, sorting and filing boxes and boxes of old documents, newspapers, flyers, and assorted memorabilia from decades of LGBTQ life in the city. This was a fascinating job just for the exposure to these old records. On the fun side, I learned (but was not at all surprised?) that there was a very active women’s touch football league in the 60s and 70s. On a more somber note, I also sorted through records from the 1980s, early in the AIDS epidemic. San Francisco (along with NYC) was ground zero for that disease in this country, and the impact on this city was immeasurable and tragic.

For a short period toward the end of our SF time, I volunteered with the health department, working at street fairs (of which there are many in SF) to disseminate safer sex information and provide free HIV and hepatitis testing. This felt like an excellent service to provide. It was also a pretty fascinating introduction to communities I usually wouldn’t encounter. Expanded my horizons, for sure!

And then, after a year of “sharking for parking,” in a friend’s words, we were off again. The next move brought us home to Colorado. For me, it was truly coming home—to the place of my childhood and virtually all of my adult life. To the mountains, the open, complicated skies, and the smell of rain (I never knew that rain doesn’t smell like this everywhere).

And then, the process of finding my place started all over again.