Death, dying, and ageing, aren’t exactly at the top of most people’s minds, especially not during Pride. But it is the reality everyone has to prepare for. Queer death workers, those working in the funeral industry, want it to be something 2SLGBTQIA+ Canadians consider sooner, rather than later.
According to Stats Canada, as of 2021, there are approximately 1.3 million queer people in Canada. 6.2 per cent of that number, or 62,000 people, are 45 years and older. With an updated census currently being taken across the country, those numbers are likely much higher.
Death workers across the country want queer people to know that it is never too soon to start planning to have a dignified end of life.
Ottawa based Tiana Dargent, founder of Queer Community Death Café, wants queer Canadians to be able to advocate for themselves long before their (or their loved ones’) deaths become a reality.
“If you do some advanced planning, that means you’ve thought about what you want. You’ve communicated that with your healthcare teams in advance. You’ve communicated with your community members. You may have already made connections with funeral providers, with ritual providers, about end-of-life ceremonies, and so you have more control over what happens in a process when you’re hopefully in a healthier, more stable frame of mind,” she explained. “Doing the work upfront eases the burden on you, and the possible suffering that you may experience. We might die at any time.”
Because of this, Dargent runs death cafés. The café gives community members the opportunity to come together and talk about what happens at the end of someone’s life. In a culture that shies away from the conversation, the salon gives participants the chance to deal with grief, trauma, existential, and practical questions in a group setting.
She also helps her clients understand what documents they need to have in place, questions they need to be asking medical providers and lawyers, and what they prefer to happen to them after they pass.
“I often say that queer people have not been dying within the traditional system for a long time,” she said, explaining the history of medical neglect with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.
“People’s bodies were being turned away. People at end of life were being turned away from the official systems that we still use, and care taking was done by community members. In the last maybe 10 or so years, we are, for the first time, looking at larger numbers of queer and trans people dying within the traditional system. A lot changes, but a social attitude does not change as quickly as a law changes. The practices in those areas are behind the times,” she said.
To combat this, Dargent does consulting in the medical industry about how to support queer and trans clients. She reviews their processes and forms to make sure they’re not exclusionary, and that requested information is ‘required and useful.’
On the other side of the country in Vancouver, Labhrás Quigley is the founder of the ABE Project. He agrees with Dargent, saying that some queer people may fall between the cracks with end-of-life care.
ABE, which stands for “A Beautiful Ending,” is a non-profit that wants to reinvite community into end-of-life care. He does so by helping marginalized queer people “ explore life through the lens of death, dying, and grief.”
“I work with a number of other organizations, mostly health authorities, Ministry of Health, and helping them to access our community and support,” he said.
Quigley notes the importance of community with regards to aging queers. As you age, your chosen family shrinks, he says, explaining that moving into institutional care may cause some to face homophobia.
“I saw this really acutely when I was supporting a senior here back four or five years ago, Frank. He was aging in place at home and refused to go into long term care because he was terrified of being having to go back in the closet. Frank was living in the West End of Vancouver, so a gay neighborhood, progressive city, west coast of Canada. Yet didn’t feel safe going into long-term care because he didn’t have anyone to advocate for him like he would before,” said Quigley.
Queer folks are left sitting at the intersection of a society that can’t, or won’t talk about aging and dying, and having to potentially face homophobia as they age “out of society.”
“When it comes to healing, particularly at end of life, it is such a crucial thing to be recognized in their true sense,” he explained. “We see this with many seniors who enter into long-term care as a gay man, straight man, straight woman, lesbian woman, who only start transitioning in their 80s because something kicks in. That could involve them just painting their nails, maybe changing the pronouns or the name and that’s as far as they go. But for them to be seen by the care aid staff, the nursing staff, the administration staff, and recognized in that pronoun as well as the new name, can go such a long way in the healing process for that individual.”
While Dargent, Quigley, and other death care providers across the country advocate for better care, they want queer people of all ages to deeply consider death and dying.
