The Silent Generation: Long-term care is a landmine for LGBT seniors

From McKnight's: (click for full article)

Filmmaker Stu Maddux was driven to make a documentary about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender nursing home residents because he felt that, as a gay man, he did not have many role models who demonstrated how to age without shame or fear.

“It's not that they weren't there. It's that they were invisible. When I started to look at it, I found that they're silent. They're hiding. That bothered me for personal reasons,” Maddux told me.

Maddux's documentary, called “Gen Silent,” follows six LGBT seniors over the course of the year as they navigate the eldercare system and struggle to figure out whom they can trust. Fear of discrimination and bullying at the hands of caregivers and long-term care providers sometimes forces LGBT elders back into the closet, Maddux says. His film demonstrates just that. After years of living happily in their own homes or with their partners, many seniors opt to conceal their sexuality when they enter a long-term care community. But Maddux is hoping to change that with his film.