[New York, NY] In what is becoming a trend, the Trump administration is once again trying to make LGBT people invisible. The administration has erased the lesbian and bisexual women’s health pages from the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Just this past year, the same agency sought to erase LGBT elders from a critical aging survey. LGBT older people face much greater health challenges than the population at large and, in particular, research has shown that older bisexual women and lesbians have more challenges with healthy weight and higher rates of cardiovascular disease. More, not less, attention needs to be brought to the health challenges older lesbians and bisexual women face. We call on the administration to restore these critical resources. SAGE and the older women for whom we advocate refuse to be invisible.
SAGE is the country’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older people. Founded in 1978 and headquartered in New York City, SAGE is a national organization that offers supportive services and consumer resources to LGBT older people and their caregivers. SAGE also advocates for public policy changes that address the needs of LGBT elders, provides education and technical assistance for aging providers and LGBT community organizations through its National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, and cultural competence training through SAGECare. With staff located across the country, SAGE also coordinates SAGENet, a growing network of affiliates in the United States. Learn more at sageusa.org.