Lynn Faria named as SAGE’s new CEO, pledging to lead with joy, authenticity, and fierce advocacy

When Lynn Faria was named the next CEO of SAGE, the country’s oldest and largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ older people, she described the opportunity as “humbling and deeply personal.”

“I’m just incredibly humbled and honored for this opportunity,” Faria told The Advocate in an interview following her appointment. “I’ve been here at SAGE, working in close partnership with Michael Adams and other members of leadership for the last 10 years, which is about half of his tenure. Before that, I had been in the movement, working at the Empire State Pride Agenda during the marriage fight and the marriage win. I’ve admired SAGE for a long time, and I’m just so blown away by what Michael has built.”

Adams, who is stepping down after an extraordinary 20-year tenure, leaves behind a national institution that he helped transform from a small New York nonprofit into a powerful force for LGBTQ+ aging policy, advocacy, and care.

Related: Queer aging is the next frontier in LGBTQ+ human rights

Faria calls him “a visionary and a mentor,” crediting his leadership with “building the foundation we now stand on.”

“It’s really such an important time for our community to build on that foundation,” Faria said. “To create initiatives and resources for the generations of us who are getting older and thinking about getting older. At the end of the day, the whole concept of aging is really about living. What SAGE can really bring is helping our community navigate the challenges that come with living, that come with life.”

That vision feels especially urgent amid an unrelenting wave of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks at the federal and state levels. “In this environment, where the attacks on trans folks and our community in general are just relentless, it is so meaningful and powerful to do the work we do on the ground,” she said.

Related: 52% of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks targeted transgender and gender nonconforming people

“We’re providing a place for our community to come together, to learn together, to celebrate together, and to find joy. That’s why I threw my hat in the ring for this job. This feels like a calling.”

Faria’s perspective is shaped not just by her policy experience but by her generation and her identity. “I bring a very different lived experience to the job as a Gen Xer, as someone who’s nonbinary and married to a woman,” she said. “That means I walk through the world with a completely different identity, and I want to lead with a focus on joy and authenticity. That’s what I want to bring out at this moment, balancing joy with the fight.”

That balance has long defined SAGE’s dual mission. The organization has taken the federal government to court to defend LGBTQ+ seniors’ rights while also creating spaces for community, connection, and storytelling. Faria sees those dual roles as essential to surviving the current climate.

“SAGE is just so important,” she said. “We are fierce advocates. We’re pushing back. We were the first LGBT organization to sue the federal government when they tried to freeze federal funding. But we also need to create those moments of joy that are such hallmarks of our community. They’re ingredients of our resilience. And that resilience is crucial to the resistance we’re up against right now.”

Related: 12 LGBTQ+ Seniors Share the Joy of Being Out

Faria often turns to SAGE’s constituents, the Stonewall generation, for lessons on resilience. “Those are the folks who stood up to police at Stonewall, who came out at work when they weren’t legally protected,” she said. “Our community has such a legacy of taking care of each other, especially when the government turns its back. We saw that during the AIDS crisis, and we see it now. Having strong community organizations like SAGE to offer people a place to come together, to organize, and that’s crucial.”

As SAGE enters a new era, Faria is especially attuned to the shifting demographics of LGBTQ+ aging. “Historically, SAGE served people 50 and older. But within that, you have at least three or four generations, each with very different needs and experiences,” she said. “As queer people, we experience identity differently across generations, whether that’s going to a senior center, the gym, or a Silver Sneakers class.”

“My parents are boomers in their early 70s, and they don’t consider themselves seniors. They think that’s for ‘those other folks.’ So I think SAGE can really start to reinvent what it means to age and what those experiences look like.”

Part of that reinvention, she said, involves the growing number of LGBTQ+ people in the "queer sandwich generation," caring simultaneously for aging parents and for chosen family members or peers. “Many of my Gen X peers have children and are connected to their parents, but they’re also caring for or have adopted elders from our community, friends, neighbors, former roommates,” she explained. “This is something new, and it’s a caregiving model that’s uniquely queer.”

For Faria, the through line is clear: community, care, and celebrating, even in hard times. “We’ve been through it before, and we’ll get through it again,” she said. “Celebrating how far we’ve come and telling our stories is crucial to our connectivity and to our ability to withstand what’s ahead.”