Project Gray Pride with the Center for Psychosocial Health Research at the University of North Texas (Denton).
In 2010, the US Department of Health and Human Services helped to establish the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, providing support for the notion that the growing communities of older LGBT individuals have unique needs and barriers to those needs that deserved greater attention. These populations are of considerable interest due to the historical relevance of their personal growth; many of
these individuals came out during the modern gay equality movement and have lived through major events in gay history (Manthorpe and Price, 2005), including the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder and the decriminalization of homosexuality. These events likely influenced their characters as well as shaped this particular cohort of people in a specific way that may set them apart from their younger counterparts. However, while there is significant literature regarding the care and well-being of senior citizens, scant literature exists addressing the needs and concerns of older LGBT people (Concannon, 2009). Some of those concerns, including discrimination and heteronormativity in healthcare (Harrison, 2004) are specific to their sexual and gender identities, while others such as lack of support and isolation (Hughes, 2007) are general concerns for older adults. Project Gray Pride seeks to fill in this gap in the literature by assessing and identifying the needs and concerns for the older LGBT populations.
