By Family Caregiver Alliance, and reviewed by Patricia Osage.
As Americans live longer, greater attention is being paid to the concerns facing aging adults and caregivers. While many issues are the same for all older adults and those who care for them, some unique considerations arise for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people dealing with aging. How Chosen Families Affect Caregiving
As you may already know, many LGBT people form strong “families of choice” in addition to their families of origin as a way of coping with possible or actual rejection by parents, siblings, and other relatives for being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity. Even as attitudes have changed and LGBT people have become more visible and accepted, families of choice still provide invaluable networks of emotional and social support. Nearly two-thirds of LGBT older adults say they consider their friends to be chosen family.
Being a member of both a chosen family and a family of origin creates situations where an LGBT person may become a primary caregiver for a spouse, domestic partner, or legal spouse, a close friend who is also LGBT, or an aging parent or other relative—sometimes simultaneously. In the community at large, it is most common for informal caregivers such as spouses and adult children to provide the majority of care to older adults in the United States. In the LGBT community—with older adults twice as likely to be single and living alone, and three to four times less likely to have children—a family of choice is depended upon to provide support and care.
