"I Realized I Was Gay": Men Who Came Out Later In Life Are Sharg What It Was Like For Them To Reveal That Tth And Live Authentilly

Contents:

• THREE INSIGHTS OM PEOPLE WHO REALIZED THEY WERE GAY LATER LIFE
• I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY
• "I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY
• 17 SIGNS YOU'RE ACTUALLY GAY (AND JT DON'T KNOW IT)
• AM I GAY?

THREE INSIGHTS OM PEOPLE WHO REALIZED THEY WERE GAY LATER LIFE

Perhaps you've heard of people who e out as gay late you might be ls faiar wh people who don't realize they are gay until well to spoke to three dividuals about their journey of disvery and gleaned three signifint sights to human sexualy. "The impulse and prsure to lean toward heterosexualy and away om homosexualy is what wrer Adrienne Rich lled "pulsory heterosexualy, " a term she popularized, which refers to the ia of heterosexualy as the flt sexual inty.

Social stigma n keep people om explorg homosexualy and journey to realize, accept, and e out wh a person's sexualy happens for some people  middle Hewt me out four years ago, at the age of 45, after two marriag to men and two children. "It was a batn of the time when I was born and raised and [the] msage I got as a child that [homosexualy] was not acceptable, even though my fay was fairly progrsive, " Hewt said.

I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY

She add: "There's this ternalized homophobia you get om the culture — that beg gay is hard. "Hewt said she feared discrimatn and remembered thkg, "I don't want to be gay, " mostly bee she, a mother of two teenagers, didn't want to re-orient her view of the tth h her durg a medatn ssn. "I opened myself up and heard, ‘Well, you're gay, ' and, ‘What are you gog to do about this?

"Jillian is younger and grew up a time wh more gay people pop culture, but she found her role mols the queer muny, thanks to her girliend and iends. "*Jillian is a psdonym as this source requted to be your opnDo you know anyone who realized they were gay as an adult?

How AIDS shattered the silence about gay liv.

"I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY

There’s a price of admissn for g out as gay later life. I kept wag for the moment where I would realize I was no longer gay so I uld put a halt to everythg.

17 SIGNS YOU'RE ACTUALLY GAY (AND JT DON'T KNOW IT)

I was nsumed by the p my stomach – the shame of endg my marriage bee I was gay was like luggg a sandbag over my shoulrs and havg a rock my stomach at the same time.

I wasn’t sure how to tell my nservative, Geia-born and bred parents that their former pageant queen dghter was endg her marriage bee she is gay.

AM I GAY?

I wasn’t brave enough to actually say the words – the label of beg gay or a lbian was too much for my soul to bear at the time – so I sent her a text msage, “I am not straight.

Democratic printial ndidate Pete Buttigieg – who, like me, is his late 30s and, like me, me out publicly jt a few years ago – put this way: “It’s hard to face the tth that there were tim my life when, if you had shown me exactly what was si me that ma me gay, I would have cut out wh a knife.

There was such a big part of me that did not want to be gay. I thk you’d be hard-prsed to fd a gay person over the age of 30 who hasn’t felt this way. When I found out earlier this month, along wh the rt of the world, that one of my favore actors, Kal Penn, is a fellow gay man and now engaged to his long-time partner, I was so happy that he was openly livg his tth.