Rhea at The Boomer Chronicles pointed readers to a community group for AARP members who are LGBT:

AARP has developed the online Prism Network to make lesbians and gays feel more at home within the organization. It’s a great idea. AARP, for instance, is offering members a free membership for a spouse or partner. Here’s the link for the AARP Prism Network.

Last year, Newsweek discussed issues faced by many aging gays in Invisible And Overlooked:

‘œIn many ways, this population is a mirror opposite of what the mainstream aging community looks like,’ says Karen Taylor, director of advocacy and training for the New York-based Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders, or SAGE, the nation’s oldest senior network. ‘œThe average senior in the United States lives with one other person; two-thirds of LGBT seniors live alone. If you don’t have those informal support networks built into your life, then everything else becomes a bigger issue. Who forces you to go to the doctor? What happens if you fall?’

As this community grows, in both population and visibility, those questions are becoming harder to ignore. Over the next 25 years, persons in America who are 65 and older are expected to grow from about 12 to 20 percent of the total population, and various estimates indicate that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals will comprise 7 to 10 percent of that senior population. Meanwhile, like the Baby Boomers of all stripes, aging gays and lesbians are radically redefining what it means to be a senior’”and how they fit into the larger community.

Other groups for LGBT seniors:

Photo credit: AARP.