New Connecticut bill seeks to prevent LGBTQ+ discrimination in long-term care facilities

CT Post – Saturday, March 15, 2025
By Cris Villalonga-Vivoni

Carol Conklin and Janet Peck share a committed loving relationship that started on a camping trip to the beach and has endured cancer and Alzheimer’s almost five decades later. Their love for each other has even taken them to court as one of the plaintiff couples who sued Connecticut to bring equal marriage to the state in 2008.

Now, as they continue living their life together — taking walks on the beach and building puzzles — Peck, 74, said she and Conklin, 72, need to consider their options for long-term care. A comfort, Peck said, is a recently proposed bill aimed at preventing LGBTQ+ discrimination in long-term care facilities that would ensure their lifelong relationship is treated with respect and dignity.

“We wanted people to see that we’re really not that much different than anybody else, and we’ve really lived that our whole relationship together,” Peck said. “We want to know that if indeed, Carol, at some point, for whatever reason, has to go into long-term care, or maybe we’ll both go into long-term care … that we’ll be able to live that truth, live our truth, as we have all our lives and this bill would help make that happen.”

Introduced by the state legislature’s Aging Committee, proposed HB6913 prohibits discriminatory actions towards residents based on their sexuality, gender identity or human immunodeficiency virus status while living in long-term care facilities. Some of these actions include denying admission to same-sex couples, restricting room assignments and intentionally misgendering residents.

It also requires facilities to post non-discrimination policies in their building, maintain records of all resident’s gender identity, name and pronouns, and promote “bodily privacy” with their personal care. Long-term care facility staff would also be required to attend cultural competency training every two years on caring for residents who are LGBTQ+ or are living with HIV.

Essentially, the proposed bill aims to take the state’s established non-discrimination law and explicitly state them for staff and residents at long-term care facilities, said Matt Blinstrubas, executive director of Equality Connecticut, a grassroots LGBTQ+ led organization.

Blinstrubas and the state’s long‐term care ombudsman said they’ve heard of LGBTQ+ residents experiencing discrimination, harassment and isolation while being treated at long-term care facilities.

Following a public hearing in early March, HB 6913 was voted out of committee in a 10-3 vote. State Rep. Mitch Polinsky, R-Newtown, who voted against the bill, said he doesn’t believe it’s necessary since there are already extensive protections for the community. Still, he said he was open to hearing arguments for it.

Despite Connecticut having some of the “oldest and strongest” non-discrimination laws in the country, Blinstrubas said it’s important for those laws to be consistently evaluated and updated to match the changing needs of communities.

He said the first non-discrimination laws were enacted in the 1990s during a time when an HIV diagnosis was ultimately a death sentence. Advancements in medication and treatments have since turned the disease into a manageable health condition, and people who have contracted it are living long, fulfilling lives. Blinstrubas said he’s grateful that lawmakers can now consider the needs of an aging HIV population through the proposed bill, something that was only dreamed of three decades ago.

The proposed bill also proactively anticipates that LGBTQ people “are leading open and honest and authentic lives in larger numbers,” Blinstrubas said, and will continue to do so as they grow older and move into long-term care nursing facilities.

“This is an example of looking back and saying that ‘those laws are a starting point,'” he said of the advancements made from the early days of HIV, adding that they’re a guiding point, standards meant to ensure that no one is left out and that everyone’s rights are fully realized.

Peck and Conklin, lifelong Connecticut residents, met in high school but didn’t fall in love until they returned home from college about 49 years ago. From the moment their relationship started, Peck said they didn’t want to hide who they were. Admittedly, that hasn’t always been easy, especially in the early days of the state’s non-discrimination laws, she said.

Before protections were enacted, Peck and Conklin said they’d experience discrimination anytime they entered a hospital. Peck once had major surgery to remove tumors, and hospital staff didn’t allow Conklin to visit her in the ICU. Conklin, using colorful language to describe how she felt not being able to see her partner in the hospital, said it was an awful time for them both.

“In those days, [we] refer to each other as partners, but the word ‘partner’ doesn’t really mean anything in a legal way. And so people didn’t have to respect who we were together,” Peck said. “That happened for most of our relationship. We got married after being together for 33 years. So that was 33 years of really not being accepted or respected for who we were anywhere.”

Over their lives together, Peck said they’ve watched Connecticut often be at the forefront of respecting LGBTQ+ residents. They say the long-term care facility non-discrimination bill is the next step in the journey.

Peck said it would bring them a sense of peace if it was adopted. Conklin was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s eight years ago, and Peck has been caring for her at home. She said they’ve thought about the higher levels of care Conklin may one day need, especially after Peck was diagnosed with cancer last year.

Peck says she is doing well with her cancer treatments, but would be comforted knowing her wife would be treated with dignity and respect at a long-term care facility should she die first. She also feels the bill would ensure their relationship would be protected the same as any other couple growing old together if they decided to move into a facility together.

“People talk about ‘they don’t want to have to go back into the closet,’ and Carol and I’ve never lived in the closet,” Peck said. “So, I don’t want to have to feel like we have to go into the closet.”

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