By Mabel Pais
Our LGBTQ+ mothers were advocates for equal rights, and they are now forging a challenging path as they age. Many seniors are forced to live their golden years in confinement, hunger, and poor health as a result of a lifetime of discrimination and a lack of legal and financial safeguards in their younger years.
Visit NJPAC’s in its virtual “Standing in Solidarity” discussion series on structural and cultural barriers to good aging. Gen Silent (Stu Maddux, 2010), a documentary about the difficult choices LGBTQ+ elders are faced with when navigating long-term care, is the subject of this PSEG True Diversity Film.
Participation
How to attend:
See Gen Silent for completely at home.
Visit the section for a 7-PM digital panel discussion on Monday, April 15.
Panelists
Peter Oates
Peter Oates has spent 52 years of his career in the healthcare industry, which has given him the chance to work with and benefit various communities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. He has been a member of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC) for 28 years and sits currently on the ANAC National Board of Directors. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Mary Eliza Maloney Health Center for the City of Newark.
Beatrice Simpkins
Beatrice Simpkins has been the Newark LGBTQ Community Center’s Executive Director since 2019. She previously served on the boards of Newark Community Health Centers in New Jersey and Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2016, Simpkins became a Rutgers 250 Fellow — receiving a medal at “A Day of Revolutionary Thinking”, the culminating event of Rutgers University’s yearlong 250th birthday celebration. Simpkins is a cisgender African American lesbian, mother of two daughters (Evita and Cicely), and Granny B to Darius, Demetrius, and Vivienne. She is also a priest in the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, serving as part of the UFC Newark church.
Jahmila Smith
Jahmila Smith is a Project Manager and Trainer at Garden State Equality, where she is in charge of the Older Adult Efforts and Health & Wellness. Smith has experience helping young people and young people who have had negative experiences, helping them achieve their educational and professional aims, and providing emotional support to help them develop into content, successful adults. She worked at Phipps Neighborhoods in the Bronx as a student activist and system coordinator, where she concentrated on the running of an after-school program. At Graham Windham, she even worked with younger people. Smith is excited about emotional health and wellness, women independence, interpersonal-personal learning, literacy, nutrition, and community activism.
Gary Paul Wright
The African American Office of Gay Concerns was founded by Gary Paul Wright, who is also its CEO. The organization runs T.G.I.F., the just state-funded initiative designed to attract and keep transgender women of color in HIV prevention. It also provides solutions to gay and lesbian men of color. In 2011, he was elected to the LGBTQ Advisory Board of the Essex County Executive. Additionally, Wright even served on the Newark LGBTQ Community Center’s Charter Board. He sits on the Board of Trustees for Broadway House for Continuing Care in Newark and the New Jersey Governor’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Another Blood-borne Pathogens.
Moderator
Terri L. Wilder
Terri L. Wilder, MSW manages the HIV/aging plan advocacy investment at SAGE where she implements the group’s federal and state HIV/aging policy objectives. Wilder served on the New York president’s “Ending the Epidemic” work pressure. She now serves on the Minnesota Council for HIV/AIDS Care and Prevention and the New York State Department of Health AIDS Advisory Council Subcommittee. She has received honors from the NYS Department of Health AIDS Institute, AIDS Survival Project, and Bridging Access to Care, Inc. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University where she teaches Human Masculinity, Gender and Sexuality, Queer Theory, and medical coverage.
