SXMCV AXN QLP CHERRIE BLAZE GAYTAS GAYNT ACTGAY CANVAS FT EVOLUTION

Media Partners

Sponsors

Banner

Subscribe to Newsletter

Please register on this site to receive the weekly Evolution Online newsletter.
Evolution Newsletter
Please register to the site before you can sign for a list.
No account yet? Register
Gay ghetto for seniors?
organ-250.jpg News of a planned retirement community for GLBT people has renewed talk about segregation and assimilation. Will a GLBT retirement village create another gay ghetto?

According to Dr Chris Chamberlain, Director of the Centre for Applied Research at RMIT University, the answer is no.

Chamberlain, who is the co-author of a 2002 ALSO Foundation report exploring the needs of older gay, lesbian and transgender people, says that accommodation is established for people from particular ethnic groups all the time.

“So if you set up accommodation for non-heterosexual people, only those who want to go there will do so,” he said. “And that’s fine.”

Lyn Morgain, CEO of the ALSO Foundation, which has worked extensively with senior GLBT people, welcomed any initiative that provided people with more options.

“This is not an arrangement that will suit everybody. But that’s not the point. The point is, it is the start of a diversified range of options that obviously will cater for more members of our community,” she tells MCV.

When asked whether she believed a retirement village had the potential to create a gay ghetto, she replies: “I think that ‘ghetto’ tends to be understood as a pejorative. Whereas in fact I think a better word might be ‘community’.”

Perhaps the final word should go to Peter Dickson, the managing director of Linton Estate, the village billed as Australia’s first retirement haven for gay, lesbian and transgender people.

“My response to that is that Linton Estate is an option for people,” Dickson says. “It’s not going to be for everybody. But as my slogan says, ‘a retirement haven for everyone’. And haven is a safe place."

 

Comments (1)add comment
feedSubscribe to this comment's feed
...
written by Jameslb , August 11, 2008

Single gay men/women living in the outer suburbs of our major cities or in small country towns should have the luxury of living the last decade or two of their lives in a community free from bigotry and fear. When you see 'biker vigilantes' wearing black T-shirts emboldened with words to the effect 'eliminate paedophiles kill a gay' spurred on by a bible bashing PM giving the impression he's only supporting gay reforms because it's in the party platform (his Q&A answers on the ABC), the Henson reaction and emulating Howard warning the Act against going 'too far', is it any wonder gays still feel vulnerable out in the 'real world'?
report abuse
vote down
vote up

Votes: +0


Write comment
smaller | bigger
password
 

busy