Lifestyle
Read More ›
Senior Center Celebrates LGBTQIA+ Community
GenPride gives LGBTQIA+ seniors programming that addresses their pressing needs and wants
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Seattle magazine.
At GenPride, being seen is just the beginning.
In the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the organization champions the visibility and dignity of the city’s senior LGBTQIA+ community. Founded in 2016, GenPride was inspired by a University of Washington study that revealed challenges like social isolation, stigma, and difficulties accessing affirming health care for LGBTQIA+ seniors. GenPride is the first and only such senior community center in the Pacific Northwest.
Jamie Husmillo, GenPride’s director of engagement and development, says the senior queer community has many of the same challenges as all older Americans, including security, financial challenges, and loneliness. “There’s a lot of stigma around the queer elder community, including a lot of isolation and becoming invisible as they age,” Husmillo says. “So, we’re trying to transform what it’s like to age in the queer community.”
As Seattle commemorates the 50th anniversary of Pride this month, Husmillo reflects on the progress made by the community’s elders. “Our queer seniors are the trailblazers who lived through the last 50 years,” Husmillo says. “The rights and privileges we have today are largely due to their efforts.”
GenPride hosted this year’s Seattle Pride kickoff event, collaborating with MOHAI and Seattle Pride to present “Objects of Pride.” The exhibit, located in the GenPride Center, showcased memorabilia from Pride events over the past 50 years, sparking conversations about the community’s journey from the Stonewall riots in the 1960s, through the gay liberation movement of the 1970s, and the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
“We need to remember why Pride exists — it’s not about marketing or corporations tokenizing the queer community,” Husmillo says. “It’s about asserting our existence and claiming the rights that belong to us.”
GenPride runs nearly 20 different programs and has more than 100 active members. In September, GenPride celebrated the opening of its first physical space in Capitol Hill, thanks to a partnership with Community Roots Housing.
The new space offers a variety of programs that bring people together, including a popular biweekly lunch. “It’s a great way to build community and find comfort in knowing you’re with people at similar stages in life,” Husmillo says.
To learn more about how GenPride is making a difference, or to join their programs if you are 55 or older, identify with the LGBTQIA+ community, and live in King County, visit genprideseattle.org.
Follow Us
Remember When the Eastside Felt Like a Road Trip?
Months after the Sound Transit 2 Line began crossing Lake Washington, Seattle and the Eastside feel a whole lot closer.
There’s a particular kind of optimism and happiness you feel when a city decides to connect itself to its own future. World-class cities invest in the invisible things that make everything else possible. They make it easier for ideas to collide, for workers to access opportunity, for culture to flow. The East–West light rail Crosslake…
World Cup 26 Is Keeping the Region Busy. So Are Its Recycling Bins.
A local expert explains what actually happens after a plastic bottle leaves the bin.
Seattle is buzzing right now. In the first 11 days of World Cup 26, Waterfront Park recorded more than 451,000 visits, including nearly 85,000 on June 19 alone. SEA Airport has also seen some of its busiest travel days ever, with match-day crowds and summer travelers moving through the city. That is a lot of…
A New Climate Fund Starts With Indigenous Leadership
The $5.5 million investment will support seven Tribal governments and Indigenous-led organizations working on climate projects across Greater Seattle and Puget Sound.
As we head into another summer of hotter days, drought, stress on waterways and habitat, and the now-familiar arrival of wildfire smoke, the First Peoples Climate Fund puts city and philanthropic money behind Native communities already doing the work of responding to these pressures, many of them closest to the impacts and with long-held knowledge…