Letters: Calling aging a ‘doom loop' perpetuates stereotypes. Here's what getting older is about
When media language suggests older adults are primarily a burden, it creates distance and justifies inaction. It obscures the contributions elders make every day — working, caregiving, volunteering and anchoring neighborhoods. It also ignores the deep inequities older adults of color face due to decades of displacement, rising housing costs and systemic exclusion.
Organizations like Bayview Senior Services and Self-Help for the Elderly are already doing the work — supporting elders with dignity, cultural responsiveness and deep community trust. But they need sustained investment, not scarcity.
San Francisco has the potential to lead the nation on aging equity — but that means going beyond crisis narratives. It means supporting housing reform, community care infrastructure, and the nonprofits that hold these systems together. Just as importantly, it means reshaping how we talk about aging itself.
Aging is not a doom loop. It's an opportunity — if we're willing to meet it with courage and care.
Jarmin Yeh, board chair, Metta Fund; associate professor, UCSF Institute for Health & Aging
U.S. is in devolution
Regarding 'Kaiser Permanente to pause gender-affirming surgeries for patients under age 19' (Health, SFChronicle.com, July 23): I believe there was a typo in the Kaiser statement regarding gender-affirming care when it says the 'environment for gender-affirming care continues to evolve.' Surely, what Kaiser meant is that this environment continues to devolve.
In my youth, my generation embraced the concept of social and political evolution (if not revolution). Those in power today want to return us to a simpler time.
In the imagination of the MAGA world, men are the workers and providers, women bear and care for children and the home. Poor and colored people should keep to themselves while not at their service jobs. The government's primary charge is to let capitalism run rampant.
Don't call it bias though; it's just the way the Lord intended the natural order to be.
America used to be a beacon of enlightenment and progress. It has become a repository of ignorance, intolerance and contempt. May God have mercy on our souls.
Joel Wiener, San Carlos
Unending fight
Regarding 'Texas man's lawsuit against California doctor could force another abortion pill showdown' (Politics, SFChronicle.com, July 23): Anti-choice litigants, not content with having overturned Roe v. Wade, are now wielding the Victorian-era Comstock Act to demand that the Supreme Court outlaw the safe and effective abortifacient mifepristone, despite that medication's use in multiple other therapeutic situations.
If they succeed, one must ask what dual-use items they may next target for prohibition — coat hangers, perhaps?
Rik Myslewski, San Francisco
Spread the wealth
I was stunned to read that nine households own 15% of the wealth in Silicon Valley.
Here's a dream: They each chip in a few billion dollars to free California from the retribution of the Trump administration.
High-speed rail could be completed, arts institutions could be funded, social and environmental agencies could fulfill their roles, public transportation could expand, academic institutions could continue their work and public universities could offer tuition-free education to Californians. The list goes on.
I'm sure these nine households know each other. They could get together in one afternoon and immeasurably raise the quality of life for us all.
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