Gay seniors face future including discrimination
Dr. Loren Olson nervously clutches a lectern at Des Moines University. It's lunchtime at the osteopathic medicine school, and students filter into the lecture hall to listen to Olson talk about a book he's writing. The 66-year-old could almost be a grandfather to these students: sweater vest and thinning white hair, ample belly and friendly laugh.
The book's title is scrawled behind him: "Finally Out: Unlocking the Closet in Mid-life and Beyond." It's filled with psychiatric research on mature gay men who come out later in life, a subject Olson - a semi-retired psychiatrist who lives on a farm near St. Charles - knows plenty about.
The members of this group are increasingly visible, but their situation is vastly different than that of younger gays. Gay seniors, after all, didn't grow up in a society at all accepting of homosexuality, and some who have been out for decades are now encountering discrimination when they move into nursing homes.
