Atlanta-based organization helps aging LGBTQ women find community, housing
Nosente Uhuti's life turned out very differently from what she envisioned at a young age.
Now 78 years old, Uhuti grew up in a devoutly Christian family in California. She married in 1965 at 18 and eventually had four children.
She says she loved her husband, but she was suppressing something: Her attraction to women.
"It was a taboo and some wrestling with my spiritual self, because you're raised to believe and to know this, and there is an expectation of how your life will go," Uhuti said. "And I just really didn't know what to do with it at that time."
In her late 20s, after she and her husband divorced, Uhuti decided to embrace her authentic self and came out. She's now celebrating 40 years with Mechelle, the woman who became her wife.
"When we changed our rings to this for our 30 years, we wear each other's fingerprints," she said.
Still, Uhuti said she had to seek out a community to avoid becoming socially isolated when moving to metro Atlanta four years ago. That's when she leaned into ZAMI NOBLA, a nationwide organization founded in the area in 2011, for support.
Aging with community, not isolation
NOBLA stands for the "National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging." The organization helps participants deal with isolation through community programs.
"Oftentimes, we think that when we're talking about individuals who are queer coming out, we're talking about 20s and 30s, and 40-year-olds. We don't think about the 60, 70, or 80-year-olds who are coming out and having an opportunity to be in community," creative director Angela Denise Davis said. "When you meet that with the intersections of race and sexual orientation, older Black lesbians, there's even more of a concern to end isolation. So our goal really is to make it possible for the lives of older Black lesbians to be visible and vocal so that we can make spaces of community."
Leaders say they're also tackling other issues that the National Institutes of Health say disproportionately impact elder LGBTQ+ people, such as housing insecurity and poverty.
"Lesbians, and especially Black lesbians in this age group, weren't really able to socially expand professionally, things like that. So now you have a generation of Black lesbians who are in a position where housing becomes an issue," Davis said.
ZAMI NOBLA provides subsidized housing for members at the Biggers Home, a home in Atlanta's historic West Lake neighborhood.
"My joy is being able to see women who can say, 'OK, it's now time for me to walk out of the closet. I am 80, but this is my time to shine, and I love who I am.' So if it takes you to get to 80 to say that, so be it. But just love who you are at whatever age you are," Davis said.
Finding her own place in faith
Uhuti went on to become a faith leader in the Unity Fellowship Church movement, a pioneering church network for the Black LGBTQ+ community founded by Archbishop Carl Bean.
"It took some time to get to a space recognizing that God don't make junk in God don't make mistakes. And I am one of God's perfect creations," she said.
Her four children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren come to see her at her vibrant Conyers home.
"What do I identify as? Authentic. And woman. That's it," she said. "Black woman. Very proud of that part."
It's a hard-won journey, grounded in faith, and defined on her own terms.