00:00:10 Cindy Holmes
Welcome. I’m Cindy Holmes. And this is Around The Table, a podcast where we bring forward conversations about shared meals, dialogue, spirituality and social justice. Around The Table is a research project and a podcast.
00:00:24 Cindy Holmes
In this podcast series, we share our conversations with community leaders from across Turtle Island who have organized intentional dinner dialogues to support community well-being and advanced social justice, anti-racism and decolonization. Today’s episode is being recorded on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.
00;00;53;11 – 00;01;16;01
Cindy Holmes
On this week’s episode, my colleague Leslie Williams and I are in conversation with Sheryl Wayland about Sage Table. Sage Table is an initiative of Sage, the largest and oldest organization in the United States, dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer older people.
00;01;16;03 – 00;01;50;22
Cindy Holmes
Founded in 1978 and headquartered in New York City, Sage is a national organization that offers supportive services and consumer resources to LGBTQ plus older people and their caregivers. Sage Table launched in 2017 to fight isolation in the LGBTQ plus community through the power of intergenerational connections and shared meals. Sage table events bring people together of all ages, at tables across the world to share a meal and a conversation.
00;01;50;25 – 00;02;30;04
Cindy Holmes
The transformative relationships formed around a Sage table can alleviate social isolation and its consequences. Sherrill Wayland, senior director of Special Initiatives and Partnerships, serves as a trusted thought partner to national initiatives, team members and Sage staff across the organization. They lead the National Resource Center on LGBTQ Aging, serve as the Sage Lead for the Long Term Care Equality Index in partnership with Human Rights Campaign Foundation, and works in close partnership with Sage Collab, Sage Care, and the Diverse Elders Coalition.
00;02;30;06 – 00;02;59;02
Cindy Holmes
Sherrill began work with Sage at the local level in 2008, founding Sage affiliate in Saint Louis, Missouri, now Missourians Aging with Pride. Sherrill earned a master’s of social work degree from the Brown School of Social Work Washington University in Saint Louis and has over 25 years of professional experience in the fields of education, disability and LGBTQ plus older adult advocacy.
00;02;59;03 – 00;03;09;05
Cindy Holmes
Hi Sherrill. Welcome. So great to have you here and thanks for joining us. I’m wondering if you could just start by introducing yourself and telling us where you’re joining from today.
00;03;09;07 – 00;03;24;19
Sherrill Wayland
Thank you so much, Cindy. My name is Sherrill Wayland and I use she/they pronouns and I’m the senior director of special initiatives and partnerships with Sage. Our headquarters are in New York City, and I work remotely from Saint Louis, Missouri.
00;03;24;22 – 00;03;46;22
Cindy Holmes
Great. Thank you. I’m really excited about hearing more and learning about Sage table. When I first learned about Sage Table in 2017. It was before we were doing this project and I just initially thought, I want to host one of those. I was so inspired and excited and I still hope that I can do that someday. So really looking forward to the conversation.
00;03;46;22 – 00;03;56;18
Cindy Holmes
And I’m joined today with my friend and collaborator, research collaborator and community partner, Leslie Williams. Leslie, do you want to introduce yourself today?
00;03;56;20 – 00;04;10;03
Leslie Williams
Sure. Hi, I’m Leslie Williams. I’m the executive director of The Sharing Farm Society. And I use she/her pronouns, and I’m joining from the unceded, asserted Musqueam territory in Richmond B.C..
00;04;10;05 – 00;04;36;10
Cindy Holmes
Thanks, Leslie. I’m joining from my home in Victoria on the unceded lands of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ peoples, and we’re really looking forward to the conversation. Maybe we can start by just hearing a little bit about just your own experiences sharing food around the table with others, or just sharing food generally, and whether you have experienced a sense of belonging through that, you know, sharing of a meal with others.
00;04;36;10 – 00;04;41;10
Cindy Holmes
If there’s anything from your own experience that you want to share here on the podcast.
00;04;41;13 – 00;05;03;29
Sherrill Wayland
Thank you for that question, Cindy. You know, I’m a firm believer that when we gather with friends and family around the table, that really is an opportunity to learn, to learn about one another, to share our hopes and dreams, to share challenges that we may be experiencing. I think there’s just so much to be said about sharing food.
00;05;04;02 – 00;05;18;20
Sherrill Wayland
Sharing a drink with friends and family. And it really lends itself to that opportunity of gathering across the generations as well. So I think it really is a powerful opportunity just to be in community with one another.
00;05;18;22 – 00;05;31;24
Cindy Holmes
Thank you so much. It’s really true and in my own experience as well, just that piece of the intergenerational conversations that happen around the table. And that’s such a focus of what Sage Table is about. We’d look forward to hearing more about that.
00;05;31;26 – 00;05;46;12
Leslie Williams
Great. Sherrill, could you tell us about the Sage organization in brief and then tell us about Sage Table and how that fits into the organization, and then also talk about how and why Sage Table started.
00;05;46;14 – 00;06;14;04
Sherrill Wayland
Sure. Thank you, Leslie. So Sage is an organization. Again, our headquarters are in New York City, and we were founded in 1978. And if I think back to the stories I’ve heard about the founding of Sage, it also resembles Sage Table. It was a group of LGBTQ plus community members who wanted to do something to involve, engage and support –
00;06;14;07 – 00;06;43;27
Sherrill Wayland
– older LGBTQ plus people. And so the early founders, you know, gathered around a table. And I can even visualize, you know, that being in someone’s kitchen and talking about, you know, how do we start this work? How do we support older LGBTQ plus people in our community? And, you know, out of that grew what is now Sage National, which is a national organization with direct services provided in New York City as well as South Florida.
00;06;44;00 – 00;07;10;16
Sherrill Wayland
And then we have national programs that do outreach services and advocacy across the country. We have 61 Sage collab partners who, you know, are doing this work at the local level in 34 states across the country. And we’re really excited to see this work continue to grow as well as we, you know, continue to do outreach and services around the United States.
00;07;10;18 – 00;07;47;05
Sherrill Wayland
Sage table specifically was started, I believe in 2017 was our first launch of Sage Table. Yeah, it was in May of 2017. And this was really an opportunity for us to think about how we build bridges, how do we bring people together across the generations and foster connections and support for older LGBTQ plus people and younger LGBTQ plus people, and really develop relationships and friendships that, you know, lend to the supports needed at the community level.
00;07;47;08 – 00;08;16;24
Sherrill Wayland
And so that was how Sage Table came to be. When we started in 2017, we actually had a National Sage Table day where we had over 200 Sage tables that that were meeting across the country and engaging with folks young and old across the generations to share in a meal, you know, share in conversation and, you know, have some of those hard discussions that, you know, oftentimes go unspoken.
00;08;16;29 – 00;08;22;11
Sherrill Wayland
And so it was really a great opportunity to engage and build community.
00;08;22;14 – 00;08;40;29
Leslie Williams
Thanks, that that really clarifies, too, the connection between the large organization and the and the table. Could you speak a little bit to the the focus of the tables? How they were organized or their goals or just generally how they were put together and what folks were told about them?
00;08;41;01 – 00;09;04;18
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, you know, I think the unique thing about Sage Table was it really took on a representation for the community that was hosting the Sage table. So, you know, you could be having a picnic in the park in California, you could be having a sit down dinner in New York City. You could be having coffee and cookies in Saint Louis, Missouri.
00;09;04;25 – 00;09;43;00
Sherrill Wayland
So it really took on, you know, I think the community and what the hosts were wanting to do. So it wasn’t really a prescription per se, but it was just an opportunity to gather people and to have conversations across the generations in whatever format that may take. For that first, you know, Sage table Sage did prepare some questions for folks, you know, that you could sit in a small circle and ask questions of one another to really help with that engagement, because oftentimes people were coming together as strangers that didn’t know each other.
00;09;43;02 – 00;09;54;09
Sherrill Wayland
So, you know, how do you engage in conversation with people that you’re meeting for the first time? So we did have some questions that were being asked of folks just to help you know, bring those conversations to life.
00;09;54;16 – 00;10;26;25
Cindy Holmes
I, I really appreciate that the care of helping people think about the structure of the gathering. And I know that you created a toolkit and we’ve had a chance to look at that and we’ll share it on our website for the podcast so that people can read that toolkit. And I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about the toolkit itself, like the conversation starters and also what you just spoke about around where people could gather was really significant to me.
00;10;26;25 – 00;10;41;20
Cindy Holmes
The fact that it could be cookies and coffee, it could be a picnic, it could be a dinner, could be held in different places. And then those prompts for conversation were really meaningful. Anything you want to tell us about the toolkit?
00;10;41;23 – 00;11;01;28
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, you know, the toolkit was really designed. You know, we wanted people to be able to to pick up the toolkit and go out in their community and create Sage table for themselves. So it was really designed in a way that that. Walk them through what this might look like. What are things to consider? Who might you invite?
00;11;02;01 – 00;11;26;06
Sherrill Wayland
Where are you going to host your event? So it was really you know, I think that’s the unique thing about these tool kits that we see offered so often is it’s meant to put the control in the hands of the person who’s hosting and their community. So it’s not prescriptive, but it’s there to help guide and, you know, provide kind of the framework for what this might look like.
00;11;26;08 – 00;11;52;11
Leslie Williams
We saw as well that you were trying to make specific efforts to have the tables be diverse across generations and across different communities. And I know that social media was used to some degree, depending on the generation that was involved. But I’m wondering if you could speak to that and if those efforts were successful and the general diversity of the table participants.
00;11;52;13 – 00;12;18;28
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, I actually have some data right here in front of me that I’d be happy to share with you all. You know, we had a some research that was being done for that first Sage Table, and I can share some of that data with you from that research. A majority of our hosts for the Sage table were 51 and above in age, but we also had hosts that were younger and younger than 30.
00;12;19;01 – 00;12;41;27
Sherrill Wayland
So the majority were 51. But then the second set of hosts were 30 and below. So that showed, you know, that diversity in and our age groups that were coming together, which I think is really interesting. So 23% of the hosts were between the ages of 36 and 50 people who identified as gay, queer, lesbian, and bi totaled 89%.
00;12;42;00 – 00;13;08;14
Sherrill Wayland
10% of the participants identified as straight. 45% of the hosts identified as men, 36 identified as women and 19% identified as transgender, gender nonconforming or intersex. So I think that shows some of the age diversity as well as LGBTQ plus and straight allies that attended, you know, the Sage Tables as well.
00;13;08;16 – 00;13;10;05
Leslie Williams
Great. Thank you for that.
00;13;10;08 – 00;13;35;03
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, that is so useful to have that information and to be able to talk about it. And I think that, you know, being able to reflect on that will maybe we’ll chat a little bit about it later on about the challenges across our communities. And as you talked about bridge building and some of the challenges we face in doing that.
00;13;35;06 – 00;14;10;16
Cindy Holmes
But I another challenge that I was thinking about is that during the pandemic, of course, meeting in person has been so difficult for communities and especially for elders who are at a higher risk of complications and with COVID. And I wonder whether you could talk about what you chose to do as an organization. I know there was some virtual Sage Tables, and maybe you could tell us a little bit about the opportunities and any challenges you faced operating or organizing those virtual tables for elders.
00;14;10;19 – 00;14;39;03
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah. You know, with when COVID happened, so many of our programs had to pivot and so one of the things we did was we took some time to really think about what would a virtual Sage Table look like and how can we continue to support these efforts. We actually asked people to stop doing in-person Sage Tables as we rolled into COVID because, you know, we wanted to make sure that the people’s health and well-being was really, you know, at the forefront.
00;14;39;09 – 00;15;05;23
Sherrill Wayland
So we pivoted to a virtual Sage Table, and we also provided that tool kit, you know, for how a virtual Sage Table might look. And we know that the people were doing, you know, the virtual tables. We heard of folks that, you know, maybe they were supplying like a sack lunch that people could go and pick up and then go back to their homes and join, you know, for a Sage Table via Zoom.
00;15;05;25 – 00;15;29;03
Sherrill Wayland
So it still allowed for people to have a meal and sharing conversation with one another. During that time, a lot of these programs really were self-directed. People had an opportunity to still advertise their Sage Table event on the Sage website, but some folks were just coming and taking the information and, you know, going forward with that table and not really interfacing with Sage.
00;15;29;08 – 00;15;52;21
Sherrill Wayland
And that’s okay because when we develop these types of toolkits, again, it’s really to help communities get the information they need to lead programs at the local level so we don’t have as much data today on what the virtual tables looked like. But we do know that people were coming and accessing, you know, the resources and continuing to host those tables.
00;15;52;24 – 00;16;16;03
Leslie Williams
That’s really impressive that it took on a life of its own, that it could go forward like this. Could you speak to if you’ve heard from participants and hosts about what motivates them to either host a table or to participate to come to one of the tables? Have you anecdotal or if you have data or just generally sort of what encourages people to participate?
00;16;16;05 – 00;16;44;12
Sherrill Wayland
What I think about the reasons for Sage, you know, wanting to start this work, one of the overarching questions that so many older adults have posed and have today is who will be there to support me as I age? And a lot of times, you know, we hear people saying, well, maybe the younger people, a younger LGBTQ people will be here to help support me.
00;16;44;14 – 00;17;21;25
Sherrill Wayland
And unless we build those bridges and those relationships, that doesn’t just happen naturally, right? There’s intent behind that. And so part of that is developing these relationships. So, you know, for Sage, it was how do we help support, you know, these across generational conversations and relationships that can lead to, you know, more lifelong sustaining friendships during a time like COVID where, you know, hopefully people had those connections and could reach out to somebody and say, hey, I need some help getting groceries.
00;17;22;03 – 00;17;52;05
Sherrill Wayland
And maybe it was a connection through Sage Table, you know, that that led to that relationship. So, you know, I, I think people’s desire to lead a Sage Table or to be a part of that work probably all had some commonality about wanting to build those relationships across the generations. I think back to the first Sage Table that I attended here in Saint Louis, Missouri.
00;17;52;07 – 00;18;21;17
Sherrill Wayland
You know, there were people that I had never met before that showed up to that Sage Table. And I’m thinking more specifically about some of the younger folks. There was one couple in particular who they ended up sitting with, one of the older women here in Saint Louis from Germany, and they had visited Germany. So they were able to share in conversations, you know, about her experiencing growing up in Germany and their experience visiting Germany.
00;18;21;19 – 00;18;43;19
Sherrill Wayland
And so it was just really interesting to see those types of conversations and friendships, you know, starting to develop and what might that look like if there were more continued efforts, you know, to have ongoing cross-generational conversations that really help build community over time.
00;18;43;21 – 00;18;46;14
Leslie Williams
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
00;18;46;17 – 00;19;13;11
Cindy Holmes
I was really struck and Leslie and I chatted a little bit about this after reading the materials online about Sage Table, how for members of our communities who don’t have children, you know, while there are many LGBTQ folks who have kids, there are also many who don’t. And so that question that you raised, that the elders have raised of who will be there to look after us is really significant.
00;19;13;11 – 00;19;45;07
Cindy Holmes
And this piece also about, I guess, the unique circumstances that are what are the things that are distinct for LGBTQ elders and that isolation is for all elders, for all people who are aging, isolation a factor but for our communities there are many other reasons why we experience isolation. I think that your organization, not only the Sage Table project, but the organization more generally is one of the leading sources of knowledge and understanding about this.
00;19;45;07 – 00;19;56;19
Cindy Holmes
So could you tell us a little bit more about your thoughts around that isolation piece and this this piece about reducing isolation, reducing loneliness for seniors, for elders?
00;19;56;22 – 00;20;27;21
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, thank you for that, Cindy. You know, we know research has shown that as LGBTQ older people we’re less likely to have children and more likely to live alone as we age, and those can be strong indicators of risk for social isolation. And so a lot of the work that we do here at Sage is helping to build community, helping to ensure that people have access to services and social supports when they need them.
00;20;27;23 – 00;21;18;04
Sherrill Wayland
And, you know, we can’t be everything to everyone. And so it’s really important that we’re building relationships with the service providers because we know that, you know, if we don’t have family who’s there hoping to provide caregiving support as we age, that we more than likely will have to turn to the service system and paid providers. So a lot of the work that I do through the National Resource Center on LGBTQ plus aging is working directly with area agencies on aging, state units on aging, and other home and community based services to help provide them with cultural competency, training and technical assistance and support that they need to be inclusive of their LGBTQ plus community
00;21;18;04 – 00;21;48;22
Sherrill Wayland
members. We also have our National Housing initiative that is working with mainly affordable housing communities across the country that are being developed that want to be LGBTQ plus welcoming from the beginning. And we have two housing developments in New York City. And then there’s others, you know, across the country Chicago, Pennsylvania, California, New York, and others that that are coming on board.
00;21;48;23 – 00;22;17;16
Sherrill Wayland
Those are just some. You can go to our website at Sage USA dot org. And we actually have a listing of these affordable housing communities that are LGBT plus welcoming. But it’s really important that, you know, people have access to safe and secure housing as they age. And we know that when people have, you know, those types of supports in place that they also can start to build community within, you know, their residents within that affordable housing community.
00;22;17;19 – 00;22;43;21
Sherrill Wayland
And so that can help reduce social isolation. Another program that we have is the long term care quality index, and that is in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. This program started in 2019. And through this program, of course, we started during COVID. So again, we had to kind of take a step back and reevaluate, you know, how to move forward during the pandemic.
00;22;43;24 – 00;23;28;26
Sherrill Wayland
And so during that time, we were really doing a lot of outreach and working with long term care providers, residential communities, assisted living, skilled nursing that wanted to be LGBTQ inclusive. And so working with them to look at their policies, practices and procedures that need to be in place, you know, we recognized today it’s not enough to simply put a rainbow flag, you know, on your company logo during June, but it’s really about doing the internal work of updating policies, practices, procedures, engaging in cultural competency, training and humility and awareness training that helps organizations truly be LGBTQ plus inclusive.
00;23;28;29 – 00;23;52;01
Sherrill Wayland
So that project started in 2019. In May of 2023, we released our first report of the Long Term Care Quality Index, and we have 200 communities across the country that took part in that work. And, you know, we see that work only growing as we move forward and continue to identify those communities that want to be welcoming and supportive.
00;23;52;04 – 00;24;00;26
Sherrill Wayland
So those are just some of the examples of the work that we’re doing through Sage to really help, you know, bring about change at the community level.
00;24;00;28 – 00;24;32;25
Cindy Holmes
I really appreciate that you’ve shared how you’re working at the systems level and you’re working at the community grassroots level, and that’s what I think is quite powerful and important about the work, because on the one hand, we can’t just rely on services and existing systems to be there for us. And there’s something that we can be doing for one another and building community and friendships and relationships through the table, through our neighborhoods, through friendship networks, through meeting strangers and building new relationships.
00;24;32;25 – 00;24;47;18
Cindy Holmes
But then we also need to also be able to train the health care workers, the social services, the housing. And you’ve really just spoken about the importance of that in relation to the Sage Table initiative as well, that we need both.
00;24;47;20 – 00;25;27;13
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah. And you know, for so many communities, there may not be an LGBTQ organization, community center, affordable housing provider, but the Sage Table could be the impetus to start building that network, to start bringing the aging providers together with the LGBTQ providers across generations. Right? And saying, let’s share a meal together. Let’s talk about our challenges, our needs, our wishes, and start to build that community engagement around LGBTQ plus inclusivity.
00;25;27;15 – 00;25;28;10
Cindy Holmes
Yeah.
00;25;28;12 – 00;25;37;22
Leslie Williams
Sherrill, if you could just address how the actual act of sharing a meal together shapes or influences the dialogue that happens at the table?
00;25;37;24 – 00;26;10;01
Sherrill Wayland
I think the meal is what brings us together, right? It’s like provide food and people will come. So that’s the invitation. And then it’s the conversations that happen around the table. You know, that I think really lead to change. It’s those one on one conversations where, you know, you start to connect with somebody that you’ve met for the first time and you start to see similar interests and needs and concerns and start to develop that relationship.
00;26;10;04 – 00;26;16;27
Sherrill Wayland
And so I think that’s what can be very powerful about that opportunity.
00;26;17;00 – 00;26;45;24
Cindy Holmes
When we get to this question of the conversation and the dialogue, there are so many complexities across communities and I’m wondering if you could talk a bit about the role of dialogue both within our communities and across our communities. So for example, within LGBTQ communities across generations, race, class, gender, ability, sexuality. Just curious about the dialogue across these differences and within our communities.
00;26;45;25 – 00;26;48;24
Cindy Holmes
Anything else you want to say a bit about that?
00;26;48;26 – 00;27;18;17
Sherrill Wayland
Those are good questions. I think it’s important that, you know, if somebody’s starting to engage in this work that you have some agreed upon, like community engagement models, you know, how do we maybe have difficult conversations and agree to disagree? To be open to hearing each other’s stories and not taking offense. You know, should somebody make a mistake?
00;27;18;24 – 00;27;33;09
Sherrill Wayland
So I think it’s important to have those conversations upfront and kind of set the expectations to provide, you know, as safe of a space as possible for engaging in some of these harder conversations that may come up.
00;27;33;12 – 00;27;58;18
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, I think what you’ve just said is so important about safe enough, recognizing that some spaces may not be safe, fully safe for everyone, given some of the complexities of power in our across our differences. Do you have any experiences or thoughts about how hosts might be able to address power imbalances during the space of the dialogue or not
00;27;58;19 – 00;28;27;28
Cindy Holmes
even just hosts, I guess people even participating? How to, I think you mentioned some community engagement models being able to be open to hearing stories that disagreement may be to accept that we may disagree. How do we disagree with respect, that creates still safe enough spaces. But if there’s anything else you want to add about how you’ve seen in your work or stories you’ve heard around how people have done this around the table.
00;28;28;00 – 00;28;55;18
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah. You know, I think it would be important if you’re planning to you know, we provided some questions, you know, up front that people could ask to kind of engage in conversation. I think it would be important to really think about those questions that we’re asking and be intentional about not putting questions forward, especially at the first Sage Table that may be more controversial for folks, for lack of better words.
00;28;55;21 – 00;29;30;12
Sherrill Wayland
And I could also see, you know, just for like the power imbalances, you know, maybe and this would take a little more planning, but I could also see having, you know, hosts that at each table who are really equipped to help facilitate the conversations and being okay with saying, you know, maybe we should hold that conversation for a later time and, you know, bring that up in a different environment or one that’s more conducive, you know, to this type of dialogue.
00;29;30;14 – 00;29;55;14
Sherrill Wayland
So I think that’s okay. You know, kind of trying to help set some parameters around what this looks like. I could also see having facilitators, you know, that are of different age groups so that you kind of alleviate maybe that power imbalance by having a younger host and an older co-host that are sitting at each table and helping to guide those conversations and model.
00;29;55;16 – 00;30;05;23
Sherrill Wayland
You know, I think that modeling is what’s so important, you know, modeling a good conversation, you know, when you’re trying to engage with people and learn from one another.
00;30;05;26 – 00;30;33;03
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, I know. In the toolkit you speak about both, you know, thinking about the economic accessibility that, you know, doesn’t have to be. You asked the hosts to consider if you’re going to go to a restaurant, can everyone afford that restaurant. To have it be a potluck, and without any pressure to, that people don’t have to bring any if they if they’re not able or don’t or do not want to.
00;30;33;03 – 00;30;45;12
Cindy Holmes
And then also the piece about physical accessibility, it seems to me that those are really important considerations that you’ve brought forward. Is there anything else about accessibility that you want to add?
00;30;45;14 – 00;31;10;08
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, I think, you know, we oftentimes think about physical accessibility as a ramp, right? But it goes much further than that. Lighting, sound. You know, a lot of times people may want to do to host a happy hour at a bar. Well, if the lighting is dark, if there’s a lot of music playing, you know, that doesn’t necessarily lend to conversations.
00;31;10;11 – 00;31;35;17
Sherrill Wayland
So really thinking about much more than just the ramp. But is it accessible for seeing, hearing, you know, is there accessible transportation for folks that that may not drive, you know, just a number of things that can come into play? But then I think the other thing about finances is, is key. And that’s one of the things we really tried to stress, you know, with the Sage Table was it doesn’t have to be a fancy dinner.
00;31;35;20 – 00;31;56;00
Sherrill Wayland
You know, again, that community potluck, the one that I attended here in Saint Louis, it was a community potluck. You know, we provided the main or the organizers and host provided the main dish and then invited people to bring, you know, a dessert or a side dish. But they didn’t have to either. You know, we just wanted people to show up and share in that time together.
00;31;56;02 – 00;32;06;22
Sherrill Wayland
You know, again, picnic in the park or cookies and coffee, you know, really wanted to encourage people to do what made sense for them and their community.
00;32;06;24 – 00;32;32;07
Cindy Holmes
One thing that I’m curious about is the rural context and what rural tables or gathering for folks who are not in urban centers. If you have any thoughts about just what that’s like for LGBTQ elders and not just specific to the Sage Table, but what the realities are for people living in rural context.
00;32;32;09 – 00;33;11;10
Sherrill Wayland
I think our rural LGBTQ plus community is an area that we’re still learning about. And I could see where, you know, I grew up in rural Oklahoma, so just thinking about my own, you know, growing up, coming out, being engaged with LGBTQ communities in a rural setting. I don’t even know what that would look like. You know, personally for me and so having a big LGBTQ plus gathering in a public space may not feel safe or secure
00;33;11;13 – 00;33;38;25
Sherrill Wayland
you know, for folks in rural communities. They may be gathering differently, you know, than what we see. You know, we’ll hear stories from folks that, you know, we want to be inclusive. So we’re going to, you know, hang up a, you know, LGBTQ pride flag in a rural community. And I always ask them to kind of take a step back and say, is that the first thing you want to do?
00;33;38;27 – 00;33;57;12
Sherrill Wayland
Or is there something else we can do to be welcoming and inclusive? Have you talked to the LGBTQ plus folks in your community to see what they want and you know what will feel safe for them? You know, because I think where people want to do, they want to do what’s right. They want to show that visible support.
00;33;57;15 – 00;34;12;20
Sherrill Wayland
But for people in rural communities that may not feel welcoming to them, it may not feel safe. You know, I’ve shared this story, and someday I should probably ask my mother if it’s okay that I share it. But, you know, I think I think I did ask her. So I’m going to go ahead and share it here today.
00;34;12;22 – 00;34;43;06
Sherrill Wayland
She was at her local senior center in rural Oklahoma one day and she was playing games. And one of the they were started talking about LGBTQ plus folks and somebody said, you know, that they didn’t like the fact that there were commercials, you know, with LGBTQ plus people. And my mom said, well, you know, Sherrill, she’s the same person that she was growing up as she is today, and she’s a lesbian.
00;34;43;09 – 00;35;16;28
Sherrill Wayland
So you need to think before you talk basically is what my mom said. The next week that person apologized. And so what I share with folks today is you may not know of LGBTQ plus people in your senior centers, in your community centers, but you probably have family members of LGBTQ plus people. So we need to make sure that, you know, our community gathering spaces are welcoming to the broader LGBTQ plus community and our families.
00;35;17;00 – 00;35;24;20
Sherrill Wayland
Because if we’re hearing, you know, anti-LGBTQ plus sentiment in those settings, then people may not feel safe.
00;35;24;22 – 00;35;25;10
Cindy Holmes
Yeah.
00;35;25;12 – 00;35;29;13
Sherrill Wayland
So what does that look like in these rural communities?
00;35;29;15 – 00;36;01;04
Cindy Holmes
It’s a great example also of your mom in those in that space, amongst other older folks and having that conversation. And it’s making me think about another question I had, which is the role of allies in this work. And I noticed in the toolkit and in some of the materials that it when the question of who comes to a Sage Table event, it says LGBTQ people across generations and allies.
00;36;01;04 – 00;36;44;10
Cindy Holmes
And so I thought a little as someone who has attended some intergenerational LGBTQ gatherings about what it would be like to have a straight and cisgender allies in the space who I was thinking about how sometimes that can change the conversations. And it’s not entirely it’s not necessarily a negative thing, but it changes. And so sometimes we are in that place of being in an educating role and that where members of the LGBTQ community are educating folks about our experiences of oppression or other things about our communities and it can change the conversation.
00;36;44;12 – 00;37;15;20
Cindy Holmes
And then there’s also the role I can imagine loved ones, partners, parents who are not part of the community, who might be coming alongside someone to a Sage Table event and the importance of that. So I was just curious if you have any thoughts about that, you know, the sort of insider gathering and the significance of that, but also the importance also of allies, like how many allies would come to a Sage Table event and how might that shift the dynamics?
00;37;15;22 – 00;37;35;11
Sherrill Wayland
I don’t know the statistics, you know, around that, but I think if we looked back at the stats I showed early on, you know, it was obviously lower for people that identified as straight, right? So I would say, you know, there were probably a number of allies that were in those spaces and they were there to show support.
00;37;35;18 – 00;37;59;18
Sherrill Wayland
Right. And I think, you know, today we see that it is much easier to have conversations with allies and to be engaged with our allies in this work. And it made me think of another toolkit that we developed in partnership with P Flag. And it’s a tool called grandparents coming out in support of their LGBTQ plus grandchildren.
Cindy Holmes
Oh wonderful.
00;37;59;26 – 00;38;27;20
Sherrill Wayland
We actually use this as a model for senior centers for long term care, communities that are wanting to engage in these conversations that start to be allies for LGBTQ plus communities but aren’t sure where to start. So building allies within our senior centers, you know, having a Sage Table designed around grandparents coming out in support of their LGBTQ plus grandchildren.
00;38;27;28 – 00;38;29;21
Cindy Holmes
Oh my gosh, I love it.
00;38;29;23 – 00;38;30;26
Leslie Williams
That is an amazing.
00;38;30;26 – 00;38;31;14
Cindy Holmes
I want to be there to be there.
00;38;34;15 – 00;39;04;11
Sherrill Wayland
Because you know, even in our most rural communities today, you know, yesterday was coming out day, October 11th. Yes. And more and more people have come out are continuing to come out. And, you know, if we asked when I would go into spaces 10/15 years ago and I would ask the question, how many of you and this was largely, you know, home care providers, assisted living senior centers, how many of you know you were serving LGBTQ plus elders?
00;39;04;12 – 00;39;42;10
Sherrill Wayland
I would do this in almost every training that I would go to. People didn’t raise their hands. Today you asked the same question and people are like, Yeah, we’re serving LGBTQ plus elders, so people know us today in a way that they didn’t know us before. You know, our families know that they have LGBTQ plus grandchildren, nieces, nephews, uncles, brothers, sisters, sometimes moms and dads and grandparents, you know, So our families see us today and our families, I think, by and large, want to be supportive.
00;39;42;13 – 00;40;02;09
Sherrill Wayland
And so centering allyship and these conversations can be very impactful, especially in communities that don’t have LGBTQ plus community centers and other welcoming services. It really, I think, empowers those communities when we have allies that are there and being able to speak up.
00;40;02;12 – 00;40;04;00
Cindy Holmes
Thank you so much.
00;40;04;03 – 00;40;49;29
Leslie Williams
I wanted to jump in. And so within the positive framework that you’ve just elaborated on, I’m wondering with the political context in the U.S., have you noticed since Sage Table started? It’s a complicated question because there was a pandemic in there, but is that in terms of safe or safe enough spaces, is the political context currently making that more and more difficult, do you think, for things like Sage Table, or do you feel that there’s enough support within these different communities that right wing extremism or increased violence is not necessarily having a direct effect?
00;40;50;01 – 00;41;14;13
Sherrill Wayland
I don’t know that I can to the effect that it’s having. I think that what gets covered is the negative. Right. That that’s what always makes the news. It’s the negative stories that make the headlines. And so seeing how communities are coming together and being supportive doesn’t make the headlines.
00;41;14;13 – 00;41;22;22
Cindy Holmes
I do really appreciate hearing that. That’s so that is so true. And yeah, it’s a very important reminder. Yeah.
00;41;22;25 – 00;41;51;10
Sherrill Wayland
And I think people are looking for ways to support their LGBTQ plus friends, neighbors, constituents. And Sage Table is one of those ways that they can continue to have those conversations. They don’t have to be big and flashy. It can just be, you know, having friends over to talk and share about how we can better support, you know, LGBTQ plus communities across the generations.
00;41;51;13 – 00;42;25;15
Sherrill Wayland
So I think Sage Table definitely still plays a role in that. You know, in a way of bringing people together. And I think we’re seeing some of our national organizations, you know, step out and be supportive, you know, of LGBTQ plus communities and making sure that, you know, we’re, you know, at the table and, you know, speaking at national conferences, having a presence, you know, on advisory committees and in other ways that really helped to shape, you know, the inclusiveness inside of these national organizations.
00;42;25;18 – 00;42;41;08
Sherrill Wayland
So even with the political things that are happening, we’re seeing organizations, nonprofits that are stepping up and saying, we are there, we are supportive, and we want to be inclusive of our diverse communities that we serve.
00;42;41;11 – 00;42;44;04
Leslie Williams
Like AARP is quite supportive, right?
00;42;44;06 – 00;42;49;01
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. Can you just say what that what that is for folks who might not know?
00;42;49;01 – 00;42;56;05
Leslie Williams
It’s American Association for Retired People. Is that right? That. Yeah. Sounds about. Yeah.
00;42;56;08 – 00;43;05;22
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah – they now just go by ARP. Yeah. It was the Association for Retired Citizens. Retired People. Yeah, they’re. They’re very supportive.
00;43;05;25 – 00;43;37;07
Cindy Holmes
I think the question about safety is changing. Certainly the anti trans rhetoric and attacks on trans communities and the way that’s impacting all LGBTQ communities. But I think it is important to kind of name it. That is really an attack on trans children and youth and adults that we’re seeing here in Canada as well is certainly affecting.
00;43;37;10 – 00;44;08;07
Cindy Holmes
Like, for example, if I was to organize a Sage Table in my home, I might not post in a public social media that I’m looking for people of different ages, whereas that might have been something you might do. And at other times I would not probably do that now. And maybe in some geographical areas, depending on what’s happening in that community, in their communities, if there is a greater risk or greater sense of solidarity in the community.
00;44;08;07 – 00;44;42;26
Cindy Holmes
You know, and but I certainly do think we’re in a moment that depending where you are and even when you think you’re in a community of support, there’s some things happening that are really increasing risk for people. So I know that a lot of the communities supporting trans children and youth, these questions about how safe, you know, getting to a support group is or for trans youth even just yeah, whether the location is publicly known.
00;44;42;29 – 00;44;49;07
Cindy Holmes
These are things we did not think where we were going to be dealing with in 2023. But.
00;44;49;09 – 00;45;22;07
Sherrill Wayland
You know, I’ve oftentimes struggled with the concept of safe spaces because we can’t really guarantee safety anywhere. And I think we see that more and more today. And so the context of safer spaces, you know, how do we how do we make sure places are safer? And that may be, you know, not hosting an event publicly, you know, relying more on email, phone trees, you know, things that that have worked in the past in gathering people.
00;45;22;10 – 00;45;55;12
Sherrill Wayland
So some of things may start to look different, you know, especially dependent on the community that you’re in. And, you know, when we think about intergenerational and cross generational work, oftentimes we get stuck in youth and older adults. And I like to look at it across the generations, especially when we’re thinking about building social connection. You know, it’s oftentimes folks in their twenties, thirties and forties and fifties that are more equipped to help really provide that support that an older adult needs.
00;45;55;15 – 00;46;05;15
Sherrill Wayland
And that’s still intergenerational. And but we don’t oftentimes think about it that way. So how do we bring people together across the generations?
00;46;05;17 – 00;46;16;12
Leslie Williams
I like your bringing up a sort of old fashioned context, like maybe you just see somebody at the grocery store and say, Yeah, we’re having a Sage Table. Do you want to come?
00;46;16;14 – 00;46;40;04
Sherrill Wayland
So it doesn’t have to be, you know, this public acknowledgment. Like look at your own circles. Who do you know who may want to be a part of these conversations and how do we bring people together? And to me, that that’s the lasting impact of, you know, maybe it is five or six people and maybe you’re just thinking about our own internal like support networks.
00;46;40;06 – 00;46;49;13
Sherrill Wayland
And I want to bring together folks that I know across the generations to just come together and have this discussion with me that can be a Sage Table.
00;46;49;15 – 00;47;18;12
Leslie Williams
And creating an opportunity for people to speak about things they might not otherwise speak about in different contexts. Yeah, I wanted to shift this a little bit and this this may not be relevant to Sage Table or your understanding of it, but in our different interviews with different folks doing dinner dialogue initiatives, many of them have talked about how a shared meal is a kind of sacred space and a site of healing and connection.
00;47;18;14 – 00;47;48;21
Leslie Williams
And the idea of gathering together to share food and speaking together can be a spiritual experience, not necessarily connected to religion or faith, but as a different level of connection. And we also noticed that some of the Sage Tables took place in places of worship or that that was mentioned as a possible place of contact. So if you could speak to that, if that seems relevant to you.
00;47;48;22 – 00;48;01;13
Sherrill Wayland
I think spirituality and religion is another area that we oftentimes shy away from within the LGBTQ community and oftentimes that’s because of our own traumas that maybe we’ve experienced.
00;48;01;13 – 00;48;02;16
Leslie Williams
Yeah.
00;48;02;19 – 00;48;34;04
Sherrill Wayland
I often talk to talk about my own trauma with religion. You know, I remember sitting in the church pew on Christmas when the conversation shifted to homosexuality being an abomination. And I wanted to run out of my church that day. And again, this was in rural Oklahoma and so I’ve, you know, shied away some in my religion. But I also have deep spirituality.
00;48;34;06 – 00;49;05;26
Sherrill Wayland
And so that connection, you know, is important. And we have so many, you know, spiritual and religious organizations today that are supportive and welcoming to LGBTQ plus communities. And I speak at, you know, conferences with some of these organizations and I think it’s important, you know, to invite that conversation and to recognize that, you know, some people do still want that spiritual and religious connection.
00;49;05;29 – 00;49;14;20
Sherrill Wayland
And how do we support that? How do we remain open, you know, to those spaces that want to support us and be there for us?
00;49;14;23 – 00;49;38;06
Leslie Williams
Thank you. Especially, I think because places of worship, thinking of like the Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church have these battlegrounds of LGBTQ rights, or just that there are other communities that are willing to literally fight for these things. This is this really important.
00;49;38;09 – 00;50;07;03
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah. And, you know, I just thinking back to like your earlier question about early experiences with sharing a meal, some of those earliest experiences were at our church and you think about the cross generational environment that oftentimes is in that church. You know, it’s young people and old people and middle aged folks all coming together and, sharing a common commonality.
00;50;07;05 – 00;50;40;02
Sherrill Wayland
And oftentimes it was our spiritual beliefs. And so those are still, you know, cross-generational gathering spaces. And many older adults, especially at the end of life, you know, I see why people turn back, you know, to those early religious and spiritual paths, because it helps it helps folks, you know, as they’re thinking about their own life. And, you know, what their purpose in life has been and what is the future for them.
00;50;40;04 – 00;50;49;03
Sherrill Wayland
So I think it’s important that we welcome, you know, welcoming spiritual and religious communities into this space as well.
00;50;49;05 – 00;51;21;09
Cindy Holmes
I wonder if you have any lessons that you have learned from the work that you would like to share with others who that might be, things that might be helpful if people were wanting to initiate this work in their communities, if they if people wanted to start a Sage Table or just generally for folks organizing and social movements, anything that you think from the work of Sage Table and the work at Sage more generally, anything you’d like to ask?
00;51;21;10 – 00;52;10;23
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah, I think if we go back in time across most LGBTQ plus movements that have started, they’ve probably started around a kitchen table, a dining room table, a cafe, a coffee shop. You know, it’s people coming together and sharing, sharing our concern, sharing our hopes, sharing our dreams. It can be, you know, a great catalyst for change. And so as we look toward the future, you know, whether it’s a Sage Table or some other, or you know, some other dinner dialogue experience, I would just say start, you know, just start find five or six friends that you want to gather in a space and share in conversation and be a part of the change at that local
00;52;10;23 – 00;52;18;12
Sherrill Wayland
community level. You know, that that’s how these movements start. It’s by people wanting to come together and share.
00;52;18;15 – 00;52;47;29
Cindy Holmes
So thank you. I love this. It’s just really inspiring and I love the reminder about how our movements begin around the table. And that’s powerful and that’s another beautiful part about Sage Table and the intergenerational dialogue is also learning about that history. And then also the reminder to just begin is to just start. It’s very helpful.
00;52;47;29 – 00;52;50;24
Sherrill Wayland
And keep it simple. Keep it simple.
00;52;50;27 – 00;52;54;11
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, yeah. Don’t need to complicate it too much.
00;52;54;11 – 00;52;56;06
Sherrill Wayland
Right. Right.
00;52;56;09 – 00;53;09;26
Leslie Williams
I did want to say Sherrill, both Cindy and I were just generally so inspired by the work and thinking we need this in Canada. This is just a really the model of all the services you provide and those are…
00;53;09;29 – 00;53;35;06
Cindy Holmes
Incredibly inspiring. We got ideas going, and our hope is we’re going to do some dinner dialogues collaboratively and where Leslie works at the Sharing Farm that they do host many meals. I won’t say more here, but we after preparing for today, we were like, okay, we’re doing Sage Table. Yeah, we’re at the farm.
00;53;35;11 – 00;53;46;12
Cindy Holmes
We’re going to we’re going to make it happen. And I’m in my neighborhood. There’s a few people who I don’t know very well, and I’m thinking, okay, I’m going to do something here. But anyway, Leslie, were you going to say something else?
00;53;46;15 – 00;53;59;20
Leslie Williams
No, just of that. Just really appreciating the work that you’ve been doing it. From what we saw on the website, it seems like since there were the virtual ones, there has not been a concerted resumption of in-person right.
00;53;59;22 – 00;54;07;29
Sherrill Wayland
Yeah and you know, part of that to just staff capacity. Yeah, right. In Denver we had a full time person that was just –
00;54;08;01 – 00;54;08;17
Cindy Holmes
Uh huh.
00;54;08;17 – 00;54;11;11
Sherrill Wayland
- working on Sage Tables in the beginning.
00;54;11;14 – 00;54;12;23
Cindy Holmes
So that’s helpful to know.
00;54;12;23 – 00;54;34;13
Sherrill Wayland
That’s helpful. You know, organized over 300, you know, Sage Tables on one day. So that that was a pretty big undertaking. But, you know, like with so many things, it’s like how do you develop the resources that people can pick up wherever they’re at? So it can be a small gathering in rural Oklahoma to a large dinner party in New York City.
00;54;34;17 – 00;54;40;07
Sherrill Wayland
You know, it just people the tools to help do this in their communities.
00;54;40;10 – 00;54;43;24
Leslie Williams
Cindy do you want to close out, or are there a couple more questions?
00;54;43;24 – 00;54;59;29
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, I guess. I guess I was wondering, are there any projects that you’re imagining for the future or anything else that you want to say about that? And I think the other piece was, can you imagine this model working with other communities as well?
00;54;59;29 – 00;55;26;15
Sherrill Wayland
Definitely. I think as you know, as we’ve kind of talked, I think a lot of the change in initiatives happen, you know, by people gathering to share coffee, to share a meal. So I think you know, this can really serve any community that’s trying to bring community together. You know, I know that we’re rolling out our strategic plan over the next five years and at Sage.
00;55;26;15 – 00;56;01;13
Sherrill Wayland
So stay tuned on what things may look like as we move forward. I also wanted to touch we had talked some about the anti-trans legislation that we’ve seen happen around the country. We have a couple of other tools that that may be useful in this context, and it would be great itself to like a Sage Table conversation. We have a toolkit on being an ally for transgender older adults and then also one on trauma informed care for transgender adults.
00;56;01;16 – 00;56;02;27
Sherrill Wayland
So both of those –
00;56;03;00 – 00;56;03;03
Cindy Holmes
Excellent.
00;56;03;06 – 00;56;30;14
Sherrill Wayland
– toolkits can be used for conversation, and they’re available on the National Resource Center website. And that website is LGBT Aging Center dot org. And thank you. But I think it’s important for us to recognize that even though so much of what we’re seeing right now is really geared towards children and youth, the impact that it’s having on our older adults is trauma inducing.
00;56;30;16 – 00;56;46;14
Sherrill Wayland
Exactly. It’s really important that we’re also there to support our trans elders who also may be experiencing discrimination and stigma as a result of this anti-trans, you know, movement that we’ve seen across the country. And as you said, there in Canada as well.
00;56;46;14 – 00;57;10;28
Cindy Holmes
So important. Those tools are really important. And I’m glad that you shared them here and we’ll put them up on our website for the podcast. Is there anything else in terms of where people can go to find information about the project? I think we’ll share the toolkit. We’ll share the website links. Is there anything else about where people can go that you want to add?
00;57;11;00 – 00;57;11;28
Cindy Holmes
Is that covered?
00;57;11;28 – 00;57;13;05
Sherrill Wayland
I think that’s great.
00;57;13;08 – 00;57;16;16
Cindy Holmes
And anything else you want to add or anything that we’ve missed?
00;57;16;17 – 00;57;39;19
Sherrill Wayland
Thank you and Leslie both for this conversation today for the work that you’re doing. And again, I think any time we can join together in conversation and dialogue about these topics, that means so much to us then then that helps create hope, you know, in how we address the challenges as we move forward. So thank you for the work that you’re doing.
00;57;39;22 – 00;58;03;26
Cindy Holmes
And thank you so much, Sherrill. It’s been great to have this conversation and we are really inspired by the work you’re doing and the work that the organization has been doing. All these years, and I’m hoping that we can continue to bring it forward and host some Sage Tables here and share the good work you’re doing in the podcast so that others can be inspired as well.
00;58;03;28 – 00;58;12;09
Leslie Williams
Thank you so much, Sherrill. It’s been a really great conversation and really look forward to seeing what else you organization is doing for years to come.
00;58;12;10 – 00;58;25;15
Sherrill Wayland
Would love to stay in touch and learn about more that you’re doing,
Leslie Williams
That’s great.
00;58;25;17 – 00;58;59;09
Cindy Holmes
That’s it for this week and I look forward to seeing you next time. If you’re enjoying this, you can subscribe at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us at our website aroundthetabledialogues.ca. Around The Table is produced by Cindy Holmes, Fionna Chong and Leslie Williams on the unseeded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ peoples. Support for Around The Table comes from the University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College. The Sharing Farm Society Podcast editing is provided by New Leonard Media and Music is by Olszewski Kapalanski.
Around the Table 