fi 22
gay&grey -—
MAY 6, 2011
W W W .JU S T O U T .C O M
►
Neil Heilpern, 68, is not your typical senior
citizen. H e’s not even your typical gay senior
citizen.
You may have seen him around town. He
has long, white hair, and sometimes, he dresses
as a woman. He dons a skirt, a blouse and
perhaps jewelry in the shape o f butterflies. In
this persona, “he” becomes “she,” and she goes
by Nikki.
He also goes by Little Fdf, as he’s called by the
Radical Faeries, that informal network of men
with a focus on spirituality and a near limitless
perception of queer identity.
“Here’s my label,” Neil explains, “I’m a nice,
Jewish, bisexual, transgendered male-to-female,
old, married queer.”
That’s right. Neil is also married—legally, to
a woman.
In fact, he and his wife Veronica celebrate
their 38th anniversary this year. They met in
1969 in Santa Cruz, Calif., while Neil was try
ing to start a general interest magazine. Veronica
worked with him. But Neil actually got engaged
to another woman first—one of his students in
his photojournalism class. Then she dumped
him. That’s when Veronica told him she had
been in love with him since she met him. She
asked him to marry her.
“It took her four years,” Neil says.
So Neil is certainly unique, and he celebrates
his uniqueness. But his example can be a stark
contrast to the experience of many queer seniors.
The unlucky ones enter senior homes where staff
or residents aren’t accepting of LGBTQjreople.
ally part of a larger program run by Cascadia
Behavioral Healthcare, but the Gay & Grey
group is focused on LGBTQ_seniors.
“I don’t date or go to the bars anymore or any
of that kind of stuff,” Neil says, “but I still want
Heilpern b y a a r o n s p e n c e r
to be around gay people. I need someone to un
derstand what it’s like to be my age and be gay.”
Neil says the meetings help him stay positive,
a trait he’s tried to develop during his life: He
was once forced to resign as an officer in the Air
Force when a spurned lover outed him. And
what does Neil say he’d do if he saw that lover
on the street today? Give him a hug.
“I’m a very positive and uplifting person, and
I have a very positive influence on everybody I
meet,” Neil says. “I’ve had lots o f challenges, but
I figure I can’t always relive the negative mo
ments in life.
“I don’t even want to live in an apartment,” he
“I go to VIEWS because even though I’m a
says. “I want a house. I want a place that feels positive person, I still have my own feelings and
like a home.”
need people to talk to, people who share my
Friendly House helps Neil and Veronica to background,” he says.
have that. The nonprofit’s case management pro
Neil says hearing from gay seniors who are
gram provides assistance to seniors to help them older than him gives him an appreciation of how
live in their homes independently. The service is things used to be for the LGBTQ_community
important to Neil and Veronica, neither of whom and how they have changed.
has children to take care o f them.
“You can’t live in the past,” he says. “Most
But since Neil is queer, he can also tap into people in the GLBT community have had hor
Friendly House’s Gay & Grey program.
ror stories or negative things in the past. You
He goes to weekly meetings for a group called can’t dwell on that. You have to say, ‘W hat do I
VIEWS, an acronym for Volunteers Involved want to experience now, in this part of my life?’
for the Emotional Well-being of Seniors. The
“You have to visualize what you want rather
point of the group is to give seniors a place to than what you don’t want. W hat you keep in
discuss issues that are relevant to them. It’s actu your mind— that’s what you become.”
Label Shaker
Senior focus on Neil
Remember, many senior home residents grew
up in a time when attitudes toward sexual mi
norities weren’t as favorable as they are now. Gay
men in senior homes often go back into the
closet—forget about putting on a dress.
Neil, on the other hand, lives with Veronica.
She knows he is bisexual and transsexual, and
she supports that. They both live in their home
with the help of in-house services from the non
profit Friendly House.
This isn’t to say that if Neil were to go into a
senior home that he would be anyone but him
self. As he puts it, “The more you let yourself be
molded by the outside, the more you forget who
you really are.” But he definitely does not want
to live in a senior home.
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