Unboxed: A Space for Belonging
Written by: Ashley Beck. This article was originally published on the LinkAGES website in 2023.
“People want to be them, their authentic selves wherever you go. But often [as a Queer person] you have to approach with caution. ‘How is this person going to take it? How do I come out?’ I have to wait. Take it in steps where, you know, [at Unboxed] we just got to share and it was absolutely fantastic,” Holly Hall reflects about her experience with Unboxed, a Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex Asexual Plus (LGBTQIA+) intergenerational storytelling program.
The program, facilitated by StoryCenter in partnership with LinkAGES Connects and the Denver Public Library, connected LGBTQIA+ young people and older adults for three separate and intimate workshop series in 2022 and 2023. Together, they explored and shared transformative personal stories of identity from key moments of their lives. Participants wrote, produced, and collectively-edited mixed-media digital stories while also exploring movement, self-care, and opportunities to meaningfully connect. The program was intentionally comprised of facilitators, support staff, and participants who all belonged to the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I don’t think it would feel safe otherwise, I don’t think the stories would be as authentic,” Holly shares. “I think it’s wonderful to be able to create in a safe environment and then be able to share it outside of that. I don’t know if honestly the stories, the emotion and what I experienced and what I’ve observed other people experiencing would have been as honest if it wasn’t safe.”
The Power of Storytelling
We all have stories to tell. Whenever we gather, either formally or informally, with dear friends or with strangers, we eventually begin to tell stories. In many intergenerational programs, storytelling is the bridge that connects generations. Unboxed centered storytelling and drew participants in with the promise of creating a digital story of their own, to be used however they wanted to. Some participants chose to keep theirs private, at least for now, others wanted to share theirs with people close to them or other participants, and some people were ready to share their story as part of something much larger than themselves or this workshop.
Each Unboxed workshop was intimate with no more than 10 participants in each workshop, participants ranging from ages 13 to late 70s. Many of them identified as artists and writers. Holly Hall, the woman quoted at the beginning, had never told her coming out story before and was ready to finally move through the process of showing through mixed media what that experience was like for her all those decades ago.
Violet, a 26-year-old Denver resident shared that they believed mainstream media storylines were getting better, but were still missing the point– always centering the experience of the straight characters even when the script was about the queer characters. They believed that Queer folks are used as a plot device, and nonbinary characters are only being portrayed through specific and limited storylines, like whether or not to use binders. Binders are used for chest binding to flatten the breasts with constrictive material.
“I think our stories are really important,” Violet shared. “And it shows that we’re people, too. We’re not just fictionalized characters. We’re not just this idea of a one in a million kind of person. [We] are everywhere. And you can’t always tell by looking, if someone’s queer, and you don’t know what they’ve been through, either. So I think sharing stories is always a really valuable thing, across all of humanity. And that’s why I’m an artist and a writer. And I think that specifically queer stories are just, I think they’re sacred, and they need to be shared and remembered.”
Laura, a retired librarian, cited a reason that several of the older adults shared, “Well, one of the main reasons that motivated me is just passing down the stories to different generations.”
Gathering around the Story Circle
Storytelling is how we pass down cultures, traditions, and histories. If mainstream media is overlooking a particular culture or ignoring the perspectives of entire communities, then those stories can be lost. Unboxed provided an opportunity to tell those stories and hold them in digital form for years to come, as well as an opportunity to gather to share stories in community.
Laura’s story was about how much she and her late wife went through to get married, “We were together for 21 years before we were allowed to get married. And then the odd thing was that back then it was state-by-state. So we got married in Iowa, and we were only married in Iowa. We didn’t live there. I thought it was a story worth telling, because it was a unique period of time when marriage was legal but not totally legal.”
Laura was right, it was a story worth telling and one worth remembering. Violet brought it up again later, contextualizing Laura’s story with their own rights as a young person today. Laura and Violet were participants in the same online program. They shared their stories gathered in the first session during Story Circle, a StoryCenter device for having participants begin to share their thoughts on what they think they’ll be telling later on. The facilitators say this is a good way to take the temperature of the group, see who will be comfortable sharing and how everyone will be able to hold space for one another.
Holding space, or being able to be present and hear one anothers stories even through the difficult parts, can be more challenging when a group of people who have been historically underrecognized gathers. There is another level of shared traumatic experiences and collective processing. Unboxed was careful to set guidelines on how to interact during these times, provided opportunities for breaks and processing, and had facilitators who were both experienced and empathetic.
This trust was built over time, and deepened through the activities that facilitators intentionally made time for. This included check-ins and check-outs, where they reserved 10–20 minutes, really however long the participants needed, to share how everyone was doing. The questions would prompt discussion, sometimes being as light as “what do you do for self-care?” and sometimes going as deep as “when was one time you didn’t stand up for someone and you wished you had?” This level of vulnerability requires that both facilitators and participants are willing to lean in, and it is an incredibly courageous and healing thing to do.
This is likely what sets the stage for participants to be able to actively provide and receive feedback on their work, and collectively edit together. The act of creating in and of itself can be raw, and when you are sharing a story that is based on a significant moment or moments in your life, this is even more true. The most emotional day, however, was the final screening, when everyone watched one another’s finished products. This was a day full of tears and emotions, and something that everyone spoke to as their favorite moment of the program.
Meaningful Intergenerational Connections
Just as vital to Unboxed’s magic as storytelling was being in community with other LGBTQIA+ people across generations. For many young participants, they did not know many other Queer people older than them.
“I think I knew one older gay male, and that was about it. And, of course, why new LGBTQ history? Because I want to know my own history, right. I had never heard it told from people I know, or people who had personal stories, it was all what I could find online. And so the intergenerational aspect of it was so cool,” a youth participant who wishes to remain anonymous.
Kathy, a college educator, shared that she isn’t even sure when she became “an elder,” but she is thrilled that she is now. She remembers coming out in college and how important it was to her to see older Queer adults, living happily, “Just knowing there were queer elders out there whether I found them in books, or I saw them on campus, or I ran into them in the community, they didn’t have to tell me anything. Their existence spoke volumes to me.”
Kathy told the story of a book she found of a Gay activist in the 1930s and 1940s, fighting with her fists to create a better world for people to come into the future. In her story, Kathy realizes that the woman is talking about her, she is the woman in the future. And she is part of continuing that legacy for future generations, “I can fight in other ways. I can use my words and my stories and my lived example and my advocacy work so that the next generation has an easier time coming out.”
Social Disconnection and Mental Health
Gathering for an intergenerational program is always potent. Youth are experiencing unprecedented levels of loneliness, and the US Surgeon General’s Advisory has pointed to increasing levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and suicidality. Older adults also experience high levels of social isolation and loneliness. In 2023, one in three adults aged 50–80 (34%) reported feeling isolated from others and 37% report a lack of companionship. While these statistics are trending downward since COVID-19 spikes, older adults are still lonelier and more isolated than they were previous to the pandemic, according to the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging (NPHA).
Feeling lonely or isolated is correlated with poor mental and health physical indicators. The physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
When combined with other social determinants of health (SDOH), or the conditions of the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, and play, age-related loneliness and social isolation are compounded. The SDOH include Economic Stability, Education Access and Quality, Health Care Access and Quality, Neighborhood and Built Environment, and Social and Community Context.
The Realities of LGBTQ+ Teens and Older Adults
LGBTQIA+ teens disproportionately experience loneliness and its mental health due to stigma, prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination and are at greater risk for suicidality. School dropout rates for LGBTQ+ youth are nearly three-times the national average, and they’re more than twice as likely to report persistent sadness, (CDC).
Transgender youth are twice as likely- to experience depressive symptoms, seriously consider suicide, and attempt suicide compared to cisgender and LGBTQIA+ youth, (Journal of Adolescent Health). Risk factors include bullying, trauma, substance use, homelessness, rejection, and more.
LGBTQ+ older adults also experience social isolation at greater levels than their peers, according to research. They face barriers to receiving formal health care and social support that heterosexual, cisgender adults do not due to fears of discrimination, financial instability, and social isolation. These adults are more likely to be single or living alone, and less likely to have children to care for them. They have higher risks of mental health issues, disabilities, and higher rates of disease and physical limitation. Transgender older adults face additional experiences of victimization and stigma, (The Williams Institute).
Social Connection and Healing
It is for these reasons that Unboxed received a Centura Health Equity and Advancement grant. When we look at the inequities facing LGBTQIA+ youth and older adults, we can’t help but feel deep empathy at the unfairness. Sadly, however, the social injustices sometimes pile upon one another until we feel we are fighting a tidal wave. Unboxed proved that there is always something we can do, there are always people who are willing to gather, to be vulnerable and tell their stories– and, hopefully, there will be more and more organizations who are willing and able to support these efforts through designing and facilitating high quality programs, and funding them as well.
[Quote call out: “Queerness is a really big part of my life. But it is not the only thing about me. And it’d be cool if someday it didn’t have to be as big of a part of my life. Even though I love it, and I embrace it, and it’s a big deal to me now. It’d be really cool if someday, people could just to be clear, and it was like, not a topic of discussion, you know, at all,” Violet.]
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If you are interested in facilitating an intergenerational affinity group program, check out these resources:
- Unboxed playlist of Digital Stories
- Unboxing Unboxed- The Making of an Intergenerational Program
- The Zine
- Toolkit: Intergenerational Affinity Group Programs
If you are funder who is focused on youth development, older adult services, or social justice, please reach out!
