Issues & Trends
Whitman-Walker’s Silver Pride: Celebrating a History of Resilience
June 17, 2024
Whitman-Walker has supported the District of Columbia’s LGBTQ+ community for the past half-century, offering
medical care, health-related legal services, and other support to D.C. residents.
This Pride Month, Whitman-Walker will celebrate LGBTQ+ seniors and their allies at a free tea dance on Thursday, June 20, at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery. Themed “Silver Pride: Joy in Justice,” the event honors the importance of civic duty and community advocacy amidst a tense political climate.
Michael Mitchell, peer support coordinator for Whitman-Walker’s Behavioral Health department, says the LGBTQ+ community’s senior citizens are a valuable repository of experience, both for the younger generation and for the District as a whole. Mitchell oversees the organization’s Silver Circles program, which convenes LGBTQ+ individuals who are over 60 to discuss topics such as maintaining their vitality, sex, dating, and leading fulfilling lives. Most of the support groups are led by volunteer peer facilitators, the oldest of whom is 75 years old, and have been run virtually since the pandemic.
Mitchell, who is not quite 60, currently leads one of the groups. “It has been interesting for me to be the young one on the call, but also just to learn from my elders,” he says. “Folks like me lost an entire generation above us.”
“I started my career doing HIV/AIDS work in 1990, and that was still in the middle of everything. So, I have been in it for a very long time, and it has very much affected me, personally, and there is a whole level of people that’s missing above me,” Mitchell continues. “For a lot of our folks, they’re still grappling with that. They’re still grappling with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Women are still grappling with the fact that they stepped in and took care of gay men in a pretty profound way.”
That sense of history is so important, Mitchell says. It can be difficult for younger members of the community to grasp the tensions that existed during a period in which the LGBTQ+ community suffered staggering losses while their plight was largely ignored by the government. “It was a really horrific thing, and the stigma still hasn’t really gone away,” he adds.
For many, the COVID pandemic resurfaced the trauma experienced by those who lived through the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS crisis. In addition, restrictions on gatherings exacerbated the isolation that commonly afflicts elders, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community. Silver Circles and Aging with PRIDE, Whitman-Walker’s group addressing the mental health concerns of LGBTQ+ seniors, have provided important support to individuals struggling to cope with the trauma of past and present events.
Mitchell notes that the failure to access the LGBTQ+ senior community’s lived experiences during the pandemic represents a lost opportunity. “We have so much to offer the community at large,” he says. “We lived through a pandemic recently, and no one came to us … and asked what it was like to live through a pandemic not even 20 years ago. What can you teach us? As someone who lived through that, and someone who worked in HIV/AIDS [services], I know what it’s like to live through a pandemic.”
Elders, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, have survived and thrived due to their resilience and adaptability, and their insights can provide important lessons with immediate relevance to emerging issues, Mitchell says.
Cultivating the community of LGBTQ+ seniors also benefits the younger generation, which faces its own personal and civil struggles. “Their stories reveal the commonalities across generations, and when young people interact with those of us who are older, we can pass along our stories, and they can know that they’re not alone, that there’s someone above them looking out for them and preparing the way for them,” Mitchell says.
For elders, being seen is vitally important. Visibility has been one of the hardest-won victories for many in the LGBTQ+ community, and elders in contemporary Western communities face challenges relating to a dwindling connection to others. For participants, Silver Circles can help address this problem directly. “There’s something magic in a peer group that’s different from a therapy group,” Mitchell says. “Which is that the peer volunteer can actually say, ‘I’ve been through what you’re going through, and I made it to the other side,’ and that’s so powerful for someone to hear.”
Organized by Whitman-Walker in conjunction with AARP, Anybill, Capital Pride Alliance, East of the River Family Strengthening Collaborative, and Team Rayceen Productions, Silver Pride’s evening of food, storytelling, and dancing will be hosted by “Empress of Pride” Rayceen Pendarvis, a well-known figure in the District’s queer community. She will be joined by DJ Alex Love.
Additional information about the event can be found on Whitman-Walker’s event page, and registration is available here.
