Our History

The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project emerged rather serendipitously in the Summer of 2019. Amidst the 50 anniversary celebrations of The Stonewall Riots, Karen Morris (a lesbian cultural anthropologist) was collecting oral histories for StoryCorps. Some of the stories she collected were with elders that are part of senior programming at the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s LGBTQ Resource Center. Todd Williams, the manager of senior services at the Center on Halsted, helped Karen connect with some of these elders and in doing so mentioned that another faculty member from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago – queer philosopher Adam Greteman – was a regular volunteer at the Center. Realizing that there was a shared interest in LGBTQ+ elders, education, and oral histories, Karen, Todd, and Adam met over coffee in July of 2019 to begin generating possible ways to engage LGBTQ+ elders. Amidst such discussions various ideas were shared – from oral history focused work to a mentoring project – until eventually the idea of creating some type of LGBTQ+ intergenerational dialogues popped up into the conversation.

What would it mean to create a project that brought together LGBTQ+ elders and LGBTQ+ young people, namely college students to talk. As the initial idea was fleshed out, we recognized from other work that LBGTQ+ elders had often expressed disappointment at not having contact with young people. Similarly, in working with LGBTQ+ college students, Karen and Adam remembered talking with students about how they, to some extent, did not realize there were “old gay people,” something that research has documented in terms of the invisibility of LGBTQ+ elders. If elders are disappointed that they don’t have contact with young people and young people don’t realize the existence of elders, what can we do to bring LGBTQ+ elders and young people together? And thus – with further conversations and planning – The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project was born.