"It doesn't matter if I lose every friend that I have, this is what I have to do."ĭr. "I didn't want to have a secret," she said. Not everyone has taken it well, as she feared would be the case, but she has no regrets. I was so deep in denial."Įventually, in her 60s, she answered a personal ad and slowly began coming out to her loved ones as a lesbian.
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"You would think I would say, 'I'm free now,"' she said. She got her wish, but even when her husband left her, she still couldn't come to terms with the truth. Sue Pratt, 74, of Kirkwood, Mo., remembers having feelings for her high school English teacher, but she wasn't sure what to do with them when she always dreamed of getting married and having a husband. The realization often doesn't come easily. "I would describe these as the happiest years of my life," he said. Coming out, he says, has changed him from a withdrawn, tense, reticent bystander to a vibrant social butterfly who even talks to strangers in the supermarket. He says he was happy in his marriage but had known of his feelings for men since he was in high school and revealed an unrequited crush to a friend. Those who've mustered the gumption to out themselves say they feel as if they've been given a second chance.Ĭarl Martin, 83, of Falls Church, Va., came out as gay not long after his wife died in 1997.
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Among the most notable, "Family Ties" star Meredith Baxter came out in December at 62 Richard Chamberlain, long the target of rumors, came out in 2003 at 69, decades after the height of his career as a TV heartthrob. Still, many seniors have felt empowered by the growing presence of gays and lesbians in pop culture and some high-profile, late-in-life outings. "There's a real sense of regret and loss for somebody who comes out later in life, even when talking to them and they say the decision was the right one."
"When somebody comes out at the age of 20, they have their whole life ahead of them," said Karen Taylor, the director of training and advocacy for SAGE, a national group that works with LGBT seniors. And it's marked by a nagging doubt that all the heartache, all the potential for it to go wrong, may not be worth it with one's years numbered. It's snarled in a lifetime of trudging along through society's view of normalcy and the resulting fear of being ostracized by children and grandchildren. Outing yourself late in life can be complicated after having lived through times when being openly gay could get you arrested, put in an institution and given shock treatments. "It seems like I've been out on a cloud all my life and now I'm not. "For the first time in my life, I'm not putting on a show," said Farthing, who eventually had sexual reassignment surgery and changed her first name to Chrissie. Or it can bring the long-sought relief of an unloaded secret. The decision can fracture lifelong relationships.