Debbie Woodell | WHEN GAYS GO GRAY

AFTER GENERATIONS of seeking equality - of becoming mainstream - why should gay men and lesbians spend their golden years cloistered from the world?

A handful of gay-centric retirement communities are popping up around the country. The selling point? Our twilight years shouldn't be fraught with worry about about physical or emotional harm.

The sales pitch sometimes includes horror stories like partners forced to live apart in a nursing home because of archaic residency policies, or long-distance relatives settling an estate by kicking out the surviving partner.

Some gay people gravitate toward these communities, fearing that traditional senior society will force them back into the closet. But aren't they just another type of closet?

"We should provide options for people," Rep. Barney Frank, the gay Democrat from Massachusetts, told me when he was here recently for a conference.

"Some old people want to be around old people. They never want to hear a ball bounce or a loud dog again. Other old people want to be more integrated."

Count me among the latter. For starters, photos on the Web sites feature a lot of gray and silver hair, but not much black or brown skin. Also, who wants a big mortgage late in life? These places don't come cheap. They seem to target a higher-income clientele and ignore the lower and middle classes.

People of all races and incomes built our gay neighborhoods. Some of these historic places are jeopardized enough by gentrification. Rainbow flight will erase the heart and soul of where we came from. And having gay neighbors is no guarantee of having good neighbors - if the folks next door let their dog dig up my garden, I don't care if they fly the biggest rainbow flag ever made.

People fought and died to give us the right to live anywhere we want in this country, and live with anyone we want. People are still fighting for these rights.

Putting us in our place - literally - marginalizes us. What happens to the gay civil-rights movement when so many of the pioneers are patted on the head, told to take a dip in the Billie Jean King pool and take some music lessons in the Leonard Bernstein lounge? *

Debbie Woodell's column on lesbian and gay issues appears monthly. E-mail woodeld@phillynews.com.