Coming Out to Care
A LIFE LIVED FULLY Vancouver nurse Nadia Rebecca Alteme's service on the Board of QMUNITY, BC's queer resource centre, has given her an opportunity to fully explore life as a biracial, queer woman.
On the second Tuesday of every month QMUNITY, BC's queer resource centre, hosts a peer-led support group for questioning women interested in exploring queer identities, relationships and communities.
The group is called "Dear John, I love Jane." It was here, on a warm summer evening in 2015, that Nadia Rebecca Alteme found herself seated among a gathering of kindly strangers—each with their own story of arrival. "The chairs were arranged in a circle with everyone facing each other. I was just sitting there waiting for it to begin," Alteme recalls. "I was so nervous and scared I didn't know what to expect."
For months prior to that moment, Alteme had been feeling adrift, questioning her identity and her sexuality. "There would be days when I felt like I didn't really know who I was anymore. I remember one day in particular when I was lying on the sofa, in a puddle, not sure what to do, what direction to go in."
Alteme had only recently completed the registered nurse program at BCIT, along with specialty training in emergency nursing. "I got a job soon after graduating," she says. "I knew something about triage – about prioritizing the needs of others – but I had forgotten how to prioritize myself, to figure out what I needed."
That afternoon on the sofa was a turning point. "I remember my friend coming over to where I was, prone and sobbing, and just listening to me try to make sense of what was going on," recounts Alteme. "She had an incredibly open heart, and it was she who suggested that I connect with someone at QMUNITY who would be able to help me make sense of the turmoil inside of me." And so Alteme made her way to the Tuesday group to figure out just what it meant to admit to oneself that they might very well love Jane more than John.
The daughter of an Italian-Canadian mother and Haitian-Canadian father, Alteme has an intimate understanding of how an identity can be a ceaseless source of vexation. "Being bi-racial, being mixed, you never feel like you truly belong," she remarks. Raised in Montreal by her Italian grandparents and immersed in the language (which she retains in fragments), Alteme later moved to Toronto where she began attending community events organized by various Black organizations. "I would look forward to going to a party, the music, whatever, but I never felt like there was a space to be who I was. I had a kind of imposter syndrome," she recalls. "Every time I went somewhere, I was always stepping into my discomfort. Not Black enough – me this Italian-speaking, bi-racial woman. I felt looked at but not seen."
"I was a new nurse and I had just come out. I felt like I wasn't nurse enough or gay enough."
In 2011 Alteme settled on the West Coast. She initially found it difficult to fit in. "It's taken time for me to find my place here, but nursing has helped," she reflects. "When I first started practising, I finally began to feel like I was able to be more the person that I am in my life – to be more like myself through the work that I do." It was this desire to align her true self with the self she presented in public that propelled Alteme through QMUNITY's doors and toward a new kind of life.
For over 40 years QMUNITY has served as a welcoming space for LGBTQ2S+ people to come together, guide and support each other. Alteme says meeting other women who were also questioning their sexuality enabled her to embrace the person she felt she was becoming. "After 15 years of being married to my husband and best friend, I moved out. I felt like I was experiencing adolescence again – except now I was in my late 30s."
For the first few months Alteme struggled to find her equilibrium. "I was a new nurse and I had just come out. I felt like I wasn't nurse enough or gay enough." Although often exhausted, she continued to attend the Tuesday group and welcomed the solace and support that others offered. Her social circle soon began to expand. "I started to realize that in spite of my own discomfort I had to learn to have empathy for myself and for others – all those whom I was caring for," says Alteme. Over time she reports being able to cultivate a deeper sense of calm. "I became a more present and authentic nurse."
This January Alteme joined the QMUNITY Board of Directors. The organization is in the process of expanding its outreach and Alteme saw this as an opportunity to help it do a better job of connecting with QTBIPOC*, women, sex workers and other marginalized populations. "I've felt for a while that I wanted to give back and this seemed like one way to do just that."
Of the many programs QMUNITY hosts in support of a diverse LGBTQ2S+ community, Alteme is particularly enthusiastic about those offered to queer seniors, in part because coming-out later in life has made her aware of the importance of having access to welcoming spaces no matter one's age. "So many LGBTQ2S+ seniors have experienced stigmatization and isolation, and suffered trauma as a consequence of their identity," she says, noting that it was only in 1969 that Canada decriminalized homosexuality.
Alteme says she often thinks about what life might be like for her in her later years. "After having to redefine everything about myself, I hope I'll still be free to explore my identity as I age."
A LIFETIME OF DISCRIMINATION
Today, sexism, racism, and ableism can often conspire to constrain the lives of queer or questioning older adults, lesbian and gay seniors, aging bisexual women, trans men and two-spirit elders. The lives of many are fraught with difficulty as the pernicious effects of ageism compound a lifetime of discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity. All too often, a life lived openly is once again closeted when a senior moves into care, or after the death of a long-term partner that suddenly signals the loss of sexual identity.
Against a backdrop of heterosexist and transphobic violence, loneliness, social isolation, poverty and lack of appropriate care and support, it is no wonder that a lifetime of discrimination and being marked by difference can have an irreparable impact on LGBTQ2S+ seniors' physical and mental health and well-being.
This reality was acknowledged recently with the Public Health Agency of Canada's release of a national dementia strategy that specifically recognizes the need for equitable care for populations that face barriers and are at higher risk.
The strategy is informed by evidence that finds lesbian, gay and bisexual adults may experience delays in dementia diagnosis and difficulties finding support due to stigma and social marginalization. The evidence also shows that transgender people face additional barriers to health services, with significant numbers reporting that they avoid medical care for fear of being mistreated.
"After having to redefine everything about myself, I hope I'll still be free to explore my identity as I age."
Government is slowly beginning to apply an equity lens to social policy decisions and acknowledge the barriers to equality that continue to infringe on LGBTQ2S+ seniors' human rights.
In May, Ottawa announced funding of over $193,000 for two projects that will support the social integration of LGBTQ2S+ seniors in Canada. One will see University of Guelph research developing a "promising practices" model to assist community organizations to better engage and include LGBTQ2S+ seniors and the other will support the ongoing work of queer resource organizations in Winnipeg and Edmonton.
QMUNITY SPIRIT
The human rights of LGBTQ2S+ seniors' that are only now being fully acknowledged by the federal government have been central to the work of QMUNITY for the past four decades. The organization's ongoing commitment to expand the reach of its initiatives to communities and people who may not have been well-served through existing services means that many more LGBTQ2S+ seniors will have the support they need to continue to live rich and fulfilling lives and to feel safe in their neighbourhoods and homes – and when receiving care.
For Alteme, the opportunity to work with QMUNITY has opened up a space to more deeply consider what it means to live an authentic life as a bi-racial, queer woman at the beginning of her nursing career. "What we all need more, than anything else is, more room for compassion amongst ourselves as nurses, where there's always a place for someone to say, 'hey I'm human, I am having a rough time,''' she argues. "We need to allow ourselves to become more vulnerable and not have that used against us."
Find out more about QMUNITY at qmunity.ca
UPDATE (October 2019)