Older gay men feel invisible in the Atlanta community, even those who have been wit the community for more than 20 years, according to recent research.
Griff Tester, an assistant sociology professor as Georgia State University, presented his most recent project on gay men and their attachment to the gay community in Atlanta during a Brown Bag Seminar on Monday at 1 p.m. in the One Park Place building.
His research centralized around the questions of the extent of attachment gay men feel toward the gay community and does and affect that level of attachment. He found that many of these men saw themselves as invisible with the community at all level of attachment, which Tester categorized into strong, moderate, and weak attachment levels.
Tester interviewed, in-depth, 30 self-identified gay men in the metro Atlanta area all over the age of 60. All men were white except one who identified himself as Asian.
The majority of the 30 men fell into the moderate attachment category, with both positive and negative things to say about the gay community, but those who fell into the strong and weak categories were all men who had lived in the community for over 20 years.
"The positive aspects that these men talked abut was that the Atlanta gay community is a large major community with diverse types of people and social activities," said Tester.
Tester said these men spoke abstractly about the positive aspects with no real concrete details, but when it came to the negative aspects, these men had specific details that they encountered.
"Most of the men talked about feeling invisible in the community with age," Tester said. "even those who had a strong attachment to the community talked about ageism and feeling invisible."
Tester said the dominate theme that arose throughout the interviews with these men centralized around gay bars. Tester said the men felt particularly out of place and invisible at these bars, but the bars still remained the center and focus of the community.
"There is a lot of research that suggests that gay bars were places of retreat especially for this generation of men." Tester said. "This is a place where you find sympathetic others, people who shared your stigmatized identity, and therefore you could do identity work with others in solidarity."
As these men ages, Tester said their desire to go to gay bars decreased, but they were still places of importance.
Tester said interviewees felt excluded from and marginalized in these gay bars, especially from younger gay men. Tester said some of the older men stopped going to gay bars altogether, or only went in a group with other older gay men in fear of discrimination and being ignored.
Tester said that LGBT organizations were also places where these older men felt invisible in as they aged. Tester aid their ideas were overlooked and they generally felt out of place.
Tester said other factors contributed to the older gay men's feelings of being invisible, such as class, gender, race and losing families and friendships during the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, but age still dominated the reason for the men's invisibility.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Meet Marta Days
Marta hosted one of several Meet Marta Days at the North Springs’s transit station today to encourage passengers to attend upcoming public meetings that provide information about the referendum that could help fund current and future transportation projects.
Marta directors, managers, and staff members gathered with prices, food and music at the station to give passengers the opportunity to learn and talk about several public meetings held by the Atlanta Regional Roundtable in support of the draft projects list.
These public meetings provide the public the chance to exchange ideas, concerns, or suggestions before the list is finalized during a full Roundtable meeting on Oct. 15.
These public meetings require people to fill out lengthy essays in order to speak and does not follow regular Marta public meeting procedures, said Ashley Robbins, President of Citizens for Progressive Transit.
“These meetings are not really geared toward public input,” Robbins said.
This draft projects list, which was composed on Aug. 15, contains $6.14 billion worth of extensive rail and bus projects that will be funded by a penny sales tax that will be presented to voters in June of 2012.
Jennifer Jinadu-Wright, director of marketing and communications, said all money collected in the region will stay in the region which is why Marta wants to inform passengers to attend the meetings and learn about the referendum details.
“We want the make sure we get the money we deserve,” Jinadu-Wright said.
John Crocker, Ph.D., director of development and regional coordination, said that a percentage of the money will also go to the state of good repair, which purpose is to maintain all areas of transit.
If the majority of residents vote in favor of the referendum, it will cut in half the time estimated to take for these maintenance necessities, Crocker said.
“It will take 10 years instead of 20 or 30 years,” Crocker said.
If Marta receives less money than projected, they will revert back to original plans and estimated time spans, Crocker said. Projects like remodeling the Airport station for improvements in efficiently and quality probably will not happen, Crocker said.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Park Place Bookstore Goes Out of Business
The Park Place Bookstore officially goes out of business on Friday after several years of declining sales because of online competition and the Georgia State University’s unwillingness to accept competition, said a Park Place employee.
Rebecca Latham, daughter of bookstore owner Greg Latham, said they noticed decreasing sales about five years ago after online sales diverted business and Georgia State University Bookstore stopped allowing the store to accept Panther Card payment options and advertising.
This mode of payment had helped the 15-year-old independently owned and operated business greatly, Latham said. Neighboring businesses were allowed to continue Panther Card transactions, Latham said.
“It pisses me off to no end” said Rebecca Latham, who now is a student at Georgia State. “I’ve been at this store since I was 7 years old.”
The Latham’s tried offering deferred payment plans as a substitute for the Panther Card but the easiest way for the students to pay with financial aid money was through the Panther Card.
During Incept tours, tour guides always walked around Park Place and Decatur Street to introduce the bookstore, but not anymore, said Donna Smith, a long-time employee at Park Place Bookstore.
“We used to stand out on the corner and hand out free t-shirts and water bottles,” said Smith. “But that’s stopped now.”
Latham said she tried to advertise the store’s cheapest prices and half the market of the Georgia State University Bookstore’s textbooks but once they found out, they made it stop.
“That’s a good bookstore,” said Liliana Bakhtiari, a student a Georgia State University. “I am sad to see it go.”
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