In an interview with CNN Radio on CNN No Plural+, the president of the NGO Eternamente Sou, Luis Baron, explained the challenges of aging for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“This aging itself has many tangencies, which are common to all people, but within the community there is the issue of sexual identities and orientations, which are quite mistreated throughout life, that sexuality diverges from the heterosexual norm”, he said.
In the expert’s assessment, there is, therefore, “a double complexity”, of “having to deal with the issues of old age at the same time as you deal with your own sexuality, since our culture treats old age as asexual.”
The NGO Eternamente Sou deals with this issue in depth. “It arises from the need to make visible those people who get older, over 50, and ‘disappear’ socially.”
“Today, we have legal and psychological assistance, distribution of basic food baskets”, he said.
Baron also believes that people who are 50, 60, 70 today “come from a complex reality”: “They went through a dictatorship, an HIV outbreak, they are people whose existence is marked by prejudices and painful issues.”
For that reason, “it’s very different being a young person today than being LGBTQIA+ 50 years ago.”
He sees that, if, on the one hand, young people today find more positive references about homosexuality, on the other hand, the way in which young people deal with the issue is an example for their elders.
Source: CNN Brasil
