I Didn't "Always Know": My Late-in-Life Coming Out Story

My SEO team has made me more aware of how little I've talked about my queerness. No blog post, no real social media. Every queer journey is so personal, private, and sacred... so let me put on some Chappell Roan and roll up my sleeves.

I Didn't "Always Know" I Was Queer

My story is not like the rest. I did not "always know." I grew up in the Midwest, in Catholic school my whole life, where "queer" and "gay" were never part of the vocabulary. I was sporty like my mom, who was constantly accused of being gay during her professional sports career. It was treated as a joke, a ha-ha. My uncle is gay, but I didn't understand the weight of his experience until much later. I didn't ask questions. I didn't question anything, least of all my sexuality. Classic good little Catholic school girl.

The Kinsey Scale and a Night on Calle Ocho

It wasn't until my senior year of college, far from home, that I took the Kinsey test. If you're unfamiliar, the Kinsey Scale measures sexuality on a spectrum. My friends and I joked that we were on the scale, to varying degrees, but probably, maybe, never ever would fully go there.

Then one Wednesday in Miami, I was at ladies' night at a bar on Calle Ocho when a woman came up and started chatting with me. She looked like me, acted like me. She was flirting, but I didn't realize it until I ran back to my friends to check in. They were all smiles and cheers at her flirtation, and I swatted away their assumptions... "No no, she's just so nice and cool, she's not into me!" We said goodbye, lingering, as she got into her Lyft. I went home skipping, cheeks warm, curious, and fell right into my boyfriend's arms. He joked about losing me to a woman, and we fell asleep with lazy smiles on our faces.

My First Lesbian Bar

Years later, deep in therapy after a traumatic experience with my latest male situationship, I told my therapist: I want something else. I've always been curious about women. How do I do this?  She gave me some advice, but nothing could prepare me for walking into a lesbian bar for the first time.

It was the best night. Hell, I took a woman home with me that night. I was made for this! (jk jk) After that, it was just the beginning. I went on to date more women, fall in love, and immerse myself completely in the queer community. I moved to the gay neighborhood and fully embraced my Q in the alphabet of my new world. It was vibrant, alive, unique, scary, funny, and interesting. Everywhere I turned defied what I thought I knew about heteronormativity. Men were no longer a priority. It was women, women, women. And I loved it.

Bisexual, Lesbian, Queer: Finding My Label

I never went back. I identified as bisexual for a little while, then lesbian, then queer. "Queer" used to feel like a bad word. My mom used it growing up as an even harsher way of saying "weird." Now it felt even more personal to take the word back as mine.

Today I'm happily in love with my girlfriend of a few years. I've experienced homophobia from friends and strangers alike, even though I don't "look" stereotypically gay. It's still out there, and needs to acknowledged. I started a queer-only podcast, met incredible people, and learned so much.

Coming Out at 25 Was the Start of My Life

Coming out as queer at twenty-five was the start of the rest of my life. Not because I'd been dying to do it for years, but because I didn't know what I was missing, and I won't miss another moment of it. I am thirty-one now and my world looks completely different than what I imagined for myself at this age. It's bigger, stretchier, and more expansive in every direction because of my queerness. It's the best thing I ever learned about myself, and probably always will be.