By: Harold Kooden, PhD
There is always energy out there that needs to be tapped and directed. For me, there is a natural flow of what seems to me to be the next step to be taken. An example of this is the first conference I attended of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). In Amsterdam, I was a substitute speaker since the original speaker from the USA (Ginny Apuzzo) could not attend. I spontaneously spoke and mentioned that I thought that since ILGA is a genuinely international organization, it should be an official Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) of the United Nations. That went over like a lead balloon but one person, the president of ILGA, said he supported the idea and told me to gather information on the process and make a report at next year’s conference in Norway. So I started attending various meetings at the UN and asked many questions and eventually found the agency through which ILGA could apply. I was greatly helped by the director of that agency who was a closeted lesbian. So I made my report the next year and was given the go-ahead to start the process. And eventually over many years with many ups and downs, ILGA became a permanently official NGO at the United Nations. For years, I was the official male North American representative to ILGA which meant a seat on the board. This also led to the formation of an ILGA committee at the NYC LGBT Center of which I was co-chair. We were eventually able to hold the ILGA 1994 international conference to coincide with the annual gay pride march which, now for the first time, had an international contingent.
INTERNALIZED GAY AGEISM
And throughout all this, there was the pervasive presence of AIDS. From the time of GRID and as I buried my partner, my two best friends and many acquaintances, I became painfully aware of the life-threatening damage of internalized gay ageism. I constantly experienced the effects of this on gay men who were more afraid of growing old as gay men than of death itself. In 1987, I was diagnosed as HIV positive and received an Aids diagnosis in 1993. Over the years I pondered this issue of internalized gay ageism and its crippling and deadly effect on gay men, including my lover who eventually died from complications from AIDS. I eventually decided to write a book about internalized gay ageism called GOLDEN MEN: THE POWER OF GAY MIDLIFE (2022) which would be more than the articles I had already written.
I saw the strength of so many men and women who had come out and grown from the process but hadn’t realized the life-time lessons they had learned. I also realized that only very few could have access to psychotherapy. So I decided to write a book specifically talking about the gay experience and what invaluable lessons are developed from coming out. In addition, I wanted to focus on internalized gay ageism and how to successfully eliminate it by writing a self-help book that would give to the world what is usually confined to the psychotherapeutic office. In other words, I have faith that people have the inner strength to deal with this issue if they ask themselves the right questions and are willing to honestly look at themselves. So with additional examples from men’s lives, I wrote GOLDEN MEN: THE POWER OF GAY MIDLIFE which Harper-Collins published in 2000.
Over the intervening years, so much has changed both in the external world and in my life. The events of 2001 permanently changed the external world. It was also the year that I met John Hunter, a Black man who is now my husband. In our many discussions about race, we finally decided to start a monthly Salon in which we (our friends and invited guests) discussed race, racism and white privilege—the Salon lasted for almost eight years and culminated in heavy discussions of THE 1619 PROJECT. Also, over the years, I kept getting contrary feedback about my book in which I clearly stated it was written by, about and for gay white men—I could not speak for anyone else. I was told by both gay and non-gay, white and Black, women and men that the book applied to them as well. So with a new introduction accounting for this feedback and the extreme changes in the world, I self-published the book as GOLDEN MEN: THE POWER OF GAY MIDLIFE (2022). What has been so gratifying is the social media contacts of non-gay men who are finding the book helpful—they are in groups dealing with midlife crises and changing definitions of masculinity. And this brings me to talk about why I am writing this article for you.
Of course, I have left out much of my history but what is relevant is that I too was censored a few years ago when I was scheduled to talk during Gay Pride Month to the LGBTQ+ organization in our government’s Environmental Protection Agency. It had been arranged by a transgender colleague of mine, Sterling Herr, as part of their diversity training program. I was to talk about how the coming out process engenders resiliency—a theme that is core to my book. And this is relevant to you. As you might have guessed by now, I have had to recharge my activist battery many times over many years. One of the themes that has sustained me is that I measure success of my activism by the energy I have put into making a change. Whether I accomplish the final goal is not the criterion that I use. It is simply that I have continued to make the effort to make this a better world AND I have relied on the support of others in this process. There have always been predecessors and help along the way, It took me a long time to realize the dictum: Put your oxygen mask on first! And given the current political situation, I have heard from so many people that they do not know how to take care of themselves. Self-care takes many forms and is different for each of us but you need to actively find what works for you in the midst of this drastically shifting world. And today, my husband and I now live in Oaxaca, Mexico and have started a bi-weekly meeting of gay men to discuss issues around aging—and the group is composed of both migrants and Oaxaqueños.