A Lifeline For Older Men Coming Out

When I began my coming out journey, I spent literally years in therapy.  First, I had to shed the religious brainwashing, shame and guilt inculcated into me by my Catholic upbringing.  After that bridge had been crossed, my nest stage was to figure out how to live a fulfilling life as a gay man.  My therapist were a life line for me and they pushed and forced me to find inner strength and to let go of so much old baggage.  Despite this help, there was a lack of books and other resources aimed at those coming out in mid-life.  In fact, my last therapist said repeatedly that I should write a book for those coming out later in life.  He said a friend of his was writing a blog as a method to accumulate material for his upcoming book.  He suggested that I should do the same.  Thus, Michael-in-Norfolk- Coming Out in Mid-Life was born.  Eight years later, I still have not written the book, but I have tied to share my trials and tribulations along the way as I have made my journey.  I remain more than happy to communicate with those seeking advice or shared experiences via e-mail and/or telephone calls. A piece in Huffington Post looks at a new book that tries to help fill the void I found in terms of resources.  Here are review highlights:

When my therapist, Adam asked me who I could talk to about coming out, I pointed at him. "Of course," he said "But, what I meant, was a friend or a family member." I looked up as if the answer might have been written on the ceiling. Not finding it there, I looked down at my shoes, shifted uncomfortably in my chair and then said "No one." At forty-three years of age, nobody really knew who I was. I was alone.

I was a father, a husband, a son, a brother and an IT Director. I had friends, but none of them close. When you're in the closet, you worry that every word, glance or gesture might give your secret away. How could I have developed an authentic relationship?

The closet seems like a vestige from a darker time. Many young LGBT people never experienced the repression, but there is an older generation of men who closed the door decades ago and now find themselves transported through time, tentatively stepping out into a terrifying, exciting and puzzling world. They often feel alone.

If you are coming out late, you are not alone.  Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men Who Came Out Later in Life is a collection of stories that sheds light on a large and largely overlooked segment of the LGBT+ community. The anthology offers affirmation to older men coming out of the closet. I am honored to have an essay included.

I had the opportunity to speak with Vinnie Kinsella, the publisher and editor from Eldredge Books, who created this anthology. 

Q: What prompted you to create this book?  KINSELLA: The biggest prompt for me was the surprising growth of the meetup group I started for men who came out later in life: . . . I expected maybe twelve men in my city would ever join. When we exceeded a hundred members in just a few months, I was floored. I had no idea there were that many men in my city who identified as coming out later in life.

Q: How do you think this book will help LGBT men?  KINSELLA: My hope is that the book will be a strong tool for combating shame. What I hear from a lot of men coming out is a lot of shame for what they didn't do. Shame for not being honest with friends and family about their sexuality of gender identity. Shame for letting fear keep them from living an authentic life. I think this book combats shame by sending the message of, "Don't beat yourself up for coming out a bit later than the norm. Celebrate the fact that you came out at all!"

Q: Is there a void in the market for this type of book or these stories?   KINSELLA: Yes. When I looked for books that could help me early on in my coming out, I found that most of the resources for coming out are youth-focused. I think the belief is that coming out as an adult is rare, but that's simply not true. The culture is so different today from what it was thirty or forty years ago. For Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers, the support system for youth coming out wasn't like it is today, so many men from that era stayed in the closet. . . . That's the void this book fills. It's not a how-to guide. It's more like an "It's Gets Better" campaign for men.

Q: Do you expect this book to help the families of LGBT men? KINSELLA: Indirectly, yes. It will offer insight into what goes on in the mind of a man coming out, which can helpful for spouses, kids, grandkids, and others who have lots of questions about what might have prompted their relative to come out.

As Kinsella notes, there are LOTS of us who have come out or who are in the process of coming out later in life.   We all need to help and support one another.

"Coming Out" as Gay Meant That I Could Finally be Myself

In my surfing the Internet to find thinks to talk about, I came across a column from last October on The Journal, a news outlet based in Ireland, that hit a nerve with me since the author, like me had come out in mid-life.  The title to this post is a shortened version of his column and to me, it underscored what coming out meant for me.  Just finally being able to be myself and to stop playing a role on a stage dictated to me by others/society.  Like the author (pictured at right), over time playing this imposed role just became harder and harder and led to my decision to either come out and face who I was and come to terms with it or end my life.  From the e-mails I receive, I know many others are going through this struggle which is anything but easy.  Yet, despite the difficulty of the journey, I remain convinced that the journey is worth it.  To not undertake the journey ultimately is tantamount to giving up one's soul.  Yes, there are times along the way where it seemed that a decision to remain in the closet would have been easier.  But in the long run, if I had remained in the closet I would have slowly suffocated and likely have cause unhappiness to those I loved in any event.  Note: (i) how the author could not come out even to himself for many years - that certainly was my situation as well, and (ii) how getting in LGBT organizations helped in the transition.  Here are highlights from the column:

SINCE COMING OUT, I have left my anti-depressants behind, travelled the world, made lots of friends and, now – at the age of 68 – I would have to say I am relatively happy. But it has been a long road and it hasn’t been easy.

I was born in Mayo back in 1945, when Ireland was a very different place. I went to a small school in the countryside, then on to boarding school, before joining a monastery when I was 18, where I stayed for four years. I was very religious then, but decided to leave the monastery to study English in UCD, after which I became a secondary school teacher, and got married. At that stage, I was in denial about my sexuality and couldn’t come out even to myself.

The marriage started off well and I loved my wife a lot – and still do in many ways – but the fact that I was gay became something that, increasingly, I could no longer ignore. I struggled a lot with that and it caused me severe depression.

When I was 40, I went on a trip to Amsterdam, where I visited a number of gay venues and felt totally at home. Only then did I actually come out to myself and admit that I was gay. A few years later, I told my wife – but I said I was bisexual to soften the blow, as a lot of gay people do when they are coming out to their partner. We stayed together for 10 years after that, but my depression became so severe that I had to give up teaching, which meant I was at home doing nothing, and so it became even worse.

Eventually, I became suicidal and was admitted to hospital in 1999, aged 54. At that stage, I was experiencing total self-hatred but, while I was in hospital, I got very angry and, to be honest, it was actually the anger that saved me in the end. I realised that I had to be true not only to me but to the world, and I decided that I deserved to be able to live my life truthfully. I couldn’t take it anymore and my marriage was annulled.

After that point, I was in a gay relationship for a few years, but it didn’t work out. I also started to work part-time in Outhouse LGBT Community Resource Centre on Capel Street in Dublin and, during the 10 years I worked there, I met a huge amount people of all different ages and backgrounds who had come out under various circumstances and in their own unique ways. I drew enormous strength from being around these people who understood what I had been through and I learned a lot.

Looking back, there were three main factors holding me back from coming out. They were: the danger of losing my family, including my parents; the social situation of living in Ireland at a time when it was not even legal to be gay; and religion. In that order.

Happily, I can say that, since coming out, my family – including my two children from my marriage and my extended family in Mayo – have been very supportive. As for religion, these days I would say I am a 100 per cent non-religious and a 100 per cent believer, so faith is important to me, but I’m not a practicing Catholic.

it’s important to realise that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ to ‘coming out’. Everyone is different. If you were to ask me to give advice to people who may be thinking of coming out, I would say ‘Get loads of advice and proceed with caution’.  For me, however, I finally feel like me.

Some time ago I posted these lines from a Susan Boyle song, but they do describe the point that I have finally achieved after much struggle and plenty of turmoil:

And though I may not
Know the answers
I can finally say I am free
And if the questions
Led me here, then
I am who, I was born to be

We all deserve to be who we were born to be and no one has the right to take that from us.  No one.