Regardless of how comfortable older gay men are with disclosing their sexuality they do, as a group, face discrimination whether it is age or sexuality related 4. Some older gay men are ‘out’, that is their sexual identity has been disclosed and is known to other people, while other men are nervous or reluctant to publically disclose that they are gay 3. Gay men over 65 have lived through the most significant and positive changes in public attitudes toward gay men. They have also experienced the devastation caused by the AIDS epidemic. Conversely, in New Zealand this group of men have also lived through, and may have contributed, to the gay liberation movement which led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality and legalisation of same-sex marriage. Consequently, gay men now aged 65 years and over were formerly discriminated against with many living in constant fear of being ‘outed’ and their attraction to people of the same sex made public.
Society viewed gay men as deviant and it was not until 1973 that homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1.ĭuring this time, a formal diagnosis of being homosexual could have resulted in admission to a psychiatric institution and being subjected to conversion therapy 2. Gay men aged 65 years and older grew up in an era when engaging in same-sex acts were classified as a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment.
