https://youtu.be/BR5NfuOBnvg Judy grew up in Nashville, Tennessee in a Roman Catholic family. She came out in the early 1970’s and live in San Francisco during the AIDS crisis. Her story is a testament to the courageousness underground culture of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kN6f1EgmPc Olivia Hill was born and raised in Nashville Tennessee. She is the parent of two children and came out at fifty two as a trans woman. She served 10 years in the US Navy and worked at Vanderbilt University for 25 years....
At fifty I made a major life change. I wrestled with something for my entire life, taking it out of the box on my compartmentalized shelf once in awhile and then putting it away when the fear of making the necessary changes to my life became overwhelming. I went...
I came out as a lesbian in 2016, after ten years of struggling with my sexual identity. I was married for a quarter of a century, mom of four kids, ordained minister, and firmly established in my career as a hospital chaplain. During that time did I think of my...
Tonda McKay is a long time out lesbian, photographer and blogger who write about lesbian culture and history. I find it amusing that the “toaster oven” reference is still around after twenty-four years. It was a casual reference in a sitcom called Ellen, for the...
There is the assumption that is made by society as a whole that all of us are straight unless proven otherwise. There are even words for this including “heteronormativity” or more strongly “compulsory heterosexuality.” Heteronormativity is based on the...
Several years ago I was desperate, I was in my third attempt to come out into the LGBTQIA+ community. I was fifty, married, mother of four, and a minister. I had struggled with my sexual orientation for most of my life, as glimpses of it would pop up like...
WHAT IS LATER IN LIFE? That is totally self-defined and I have worked with people as young as 25 and well over 70. BEFORE For some of us acknowledging our sexuality is a very difficult thing to do. Although I knew I was attracted to...
I am a coming out coach. What is that, you may ask? I work with people who are coming out later in life to the LGBTQIA+ community. I began coaching individuals after several years of running mutual support groups for this community. Some of...
I have a secret to admit, but please don’t tell anyone. I used to have a very strong aversion to the word “coach”. My experiences with this word dates back to my non-athletic youth, when a parent would take on the responsibility of teaching a bunch of kids...
Like many queer people, my partner, Tonda, and I sat down to watch the lesbian romantic comedy, Happiest Season, on Hulu. Tonda has been out for thirty-five years and I am out for five; we are both in our mid-fifties. We found the movie problematic for so...
The last holiday I spent as the mom of a heteronormative family was in 2015, I really don’t remember it very well, most likely a typical holiday that happened every year. The following year was 2016 and at that time I knew my marriage of twenty-six years was...