Coming Out & Beyond | Support for Women Questioning Their Sexuality

Note for Listeners: This episode contains explicit language and conversation about sex and sexual pleasure. Listener discretion is advised. What if the best sex of your life is still ahead of you? In this episode of Coming Out and Beyond, Anne-Marie Zanzal and dating coach Barbara Rowlandson sit down with Susan Bratton, the intimacy expert to millions and one of the most prolific and widely read sex educators in the world. Susan has spent more than two decades teaching the kind of sex education most of us were never given, the kind rooted in pleasure rather than shame or silence, and she brings all of it to this conversation with warmth, science, and a whole lot of joy. Together they talk about what it means to come home to your own body, often for the first time. So many women arrive in midlife having only known sex that was performative, dutiful, and centered on someone else. Susan offers another way. She walks us through calming the nervous system with the soulmate embrace, moving out of performance and into sensation, and understanding why a woman's arousal is slow, responsive, and worth every unhurried minute. This is an honest, tender, sometimes very funny conversation about pleasure as something sacred rather than shameful, about the body as something to be understood rather than judged, and about why, for so many Sapphic women, the intimacy they find after coming out is the most connected they have ever known. If sex was ever framed for you as a duty or a source of shame, this episode is an invitation to imagine something better. Pleasure is a skill. It is learnable at any age. And you are far more capable of it than you were ever allowed to believe. Want to learn more about Susan and Better Lover, her library of resource materials for improving sexual pleasure? Visit her website at https://susanbratton.com/ The toys that Susan highlighted in the episode can be found at https://drivedesire.com/ Jamie McCartney's Great Wall of Vulva project, mentioned in this episode, can be found here: https://www.thegreatwallofvulva.com/ Ready to explore this for yourself? Join us for the 3 Day Clarity Experience, a live event for women who are questioning, wondering, and ready to understand what they are feeling. Over three evenings together we make space for your story, your clarity, and the beginnings of real community. The next one runs September 22 through 24. You can join for $47, or $97 for VIP, which includes a group Clarity Circle with Anne-Marie. Register here: https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/

This month on Coming Out and Beyond it is our monthly dating and relationship show, and Anne-Marie is joined by her co-coach Barbara Rowlandson, a psychotherapist and dating coach, and her wife Tonda McKay. Before the questions, the three of them catch up on a summer of kayaking, wineries, and a 2,500 mile road trip through Michigan that somehow ended without a single argument. Anne-Marie and Tonda talk honestly about what ten years together and five years of marriage have actually asked of them, because the falling in love was real and so was the work. Then we open the mailbag. All of this month's questions come from the Late Blooming Lesbian subreddit, and they are the ones so many women ask quietly when they are new to dating women. What is it like to hold your girlfriend's hand in public for the first time, and where is the line between joy and scanning the room for other people's reactions. How do you think about an age gap when you are coming out later in life. What does reciprocity look like when one person keeps paying and the other keeps apologizing for it. And when someone pushes for exclusivity after a single date, is that really the U-Haul, or something else underneath. Barbara brings the therapist's lens, Tonda brings the honest one word answer, and Anne-Marie holds the pastoral middle. If you are somewhere on this road yourself, you do not have to walk it alone. Anne-Marie and Barb are hosting the 3-Day Clarity Experience on September 22, 23, and 24 at 7:00 PM Central. It is our most loved event, with 62 women in the room last time, and it is a warm, honest place to sit with exactly these kinds of questions alongside other women moving through this chapter too. We would love to have you there. Register at annemariezanzal.com and click the banner at the top. If coming out later in life is your story, Authentically Us is a good place to land. Authentically Us is our online community of women who genuinely support each other through this time. We hold a minimum of three online events/week where you can learn, share, and connect with other women who are navigating the coming out later in life process. You can find it at community.annemariezanzal.com.

This month's episode with Anna Empey is the one we have all earned after a tender chapter of heavier conversations. It is lighter, there is a lot of laughing, and it is about the signs. Not the ones we noticed at the time, but the ones we can only see now, the ones that were quietly flashing the whole time while we went about our lives. Anne-Marie and Anna compare notes on the intense friendships they once organized their whole worlds around, and on the celebrity crushes they were so sure were nothing more than admiration. They get into the jealousy that felt far bigger than friendship, the difference between wanting to be her and wanting to be with her, and the church language of same sex attraction that so many of us were handed like a diagnosis. There is one loving thing to hold onto before any of us starts feeling foolish. We did not miss these signs because we were oblivious. We missed them because nobody had given us the words yet. Growing up in religious and conservative homes decades apart, neither Anne-Marie nor Anna had the language to name what was right in front of them. Wherever you are in your own questioning, you do not have to check every box, or any box at all. The only person who can name your sexuality is you. And if there is one thing this conversation makes clear, it is that you have not missed the boat. Your heart is beating, and the fullest version of your life may be waiting on the other side of what you have not yet let yourself see. 🔥Anne-Marie mentions a do-not-miss Brandi Carlile performance covering the Alanis Morrissette song "Uninvited" in this episode, so if you're curious, here's the link! https://youtu.be/kyvDyZoyGUg?si=rWXmdQGaLf6CG1gU 👉Here's a little teaser of Fortune Feimster's Netflix comedy special, "Sweet & Salty": https://youtu.be/Rdj_fEEH5oU?si=rhaJa92JvoQIuYO7 🗓️Reminder: Anna Empey joins Anne-Marie on the pod on the first Friday of every month! You might want to subscribe so you don't miss it. ;) If this conversation stirs something in you, you do not have to sit with it alone. Authentically Us is our community for women navigating questioning and coming out later in life, with group support gatherings every week and people who understand exactly what this chapter asks of you. We would love to have you with us. Come find your people here: https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us

This is the start of something new. The episodes you have told us you love most are the ones where the three of us sit down together, so we are making them a monthly gathering. Once a month, Tonda, Barbara, and I will open the letters and answer the questions women are actually asking: the real ones, the tender ones, the slightly awkward ones, and the ones you would only ask us at two in the morning with the door shut. If you are new to the show, here is who you are sitting with. I came out in my fifties, and I have kept all the receipts. Barbara is a psychotherapist who will advise you gently, and she means it as the highest compliment. Tonda has been out for more than forty years, so she has quietly seen most of it. We think of ourselves as the slightly older, slightly wiser, occasionally ridiculous friends who happened to get here first. This month we read five letters, and the same quiet question ran underneath every one of them. Woman after woman, wondering whether she is allowed to believe what she feels. Here is what we opened this month: How do I know if what I'm feeling is real, or if I am imagining it? I have never been with a woman. Am I allowed to call myself sapphic or queer at all? Is there such a thing as too late? (from a listener in her late sixties) What is compulsory heterosexuality, and how do I know if I have been living inside it? I know I am not straight, but I do not feel drawn to women the way I expected. Where do I fit? We talk about the comfort zone and the fear that shows up the moment you step out of it, the gatekeepers who think they get to decide who belongs (they do not), why it is never too late, and the grace you deserve when the feelings arrive on their own timeline instead of the one you imagined. Pour something you like, get comfortable, and come sit with us. 🌈Email your questions to support@annemariezanzal.com. You might hear yours answered on a future episode. 🌈Leave your questions in the comments below. 🌈If you are already inside Authentically Us, you can privately message Anne-Marie or Barbara with your question. 🌈This Authentic Life, the community course Barbara and Anne-Marie are hosting together, begins the first week of October. Registration is open now at https://annemariezanzal.com/this-authentic-life-community-course/ 🌈Join Authentically Us, our online community, at https://community.annemariezanzal.com/ If the questions in this episode sound like the ones living quietly in you, you do not have to sit with them alone. Authentically Us is our online community, a growing circle of women who are all somewhere in this process of coming out and coming home to themselves. You can ask your own questions there and hear from us, and from women who understand because they are walking it too. We would love to see you inside. Join us here: https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us

Some mornings change everything. Marissa Mitchell was 39, a teacher and army veteran in southern Indiana, married to her junior high sweetheart and quietly certain that the distance she felt in her marriage was a problem she could fix if she only tried harder. Then one ordinary morning, about a week into summer break, she woke up understanding something that reordered her whole life. She was in love with a woman, and she had been moving through the world as someone she was not. In this conversation, one we are revisiting from Season 1, Marissa tells the story of what came next with rare honesty. She talks about the depth of the sadness, about telling her husband first and the grace he met her with, and about the tender moment she came out to her eight year old daughter at a stoplight on the way home from therapy. She is generous about her ex, who remains one of her closest friends, and clear eyed about the particular grief of reframing a life you thought you already understood. What stays with you is where she lands. Marissa found her way to community, first through an online group and then a weekend with women who simply understood her, and she calls it the most life altering weekend of her life. It is a truth we return to again and again on this show. When you first come out, the instinct is to go looking for a partner. What you actually need is community, the company of other women who get it without explanation. She carried that clarity back into her classroom, starting a Gay Straight Alliance that drew 45 students to its very first meeting. Her daughter draws rainbows. And for the first time in her life, Marissa says, she is comfortable in her own skin. Whether you came out at 18 or are sitting with these questions in midlife, there is room for you here. We are so glad you are with us. This episode is really about the thing Marissa needed most, which was community. That is exactly what we have built inside Authentically Us, our online home for women coming out and figuring things out in midlife, with group support gatherings every week. You do not have to walk this one alone. Come and see: https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us

It is the second Friday of the month, which means Anne-Marie is back with the company she loves most: her fellow coach Barbara Rowlandson and her wife Tonda McKay. This is the monthly conversation so many of you tell us is your favorite, where we take the real questions women ask about sapphic dating and answer them with honesty, humor, and a lot of love. This month we open four questions from the Late Bloomer Lesbian forum. What do you do when you are in your late thirties, newly aware of who you are, and embarrassed that you have not even had a first kiss yet? How do you make sense of a libido that roars to life the moment you come out, and how do you have honest conversations about sexual health along the way? Why do so many of us keep falling for straight women, and what is really underneath that pattern? And how do you set down the guilt that rises up when someone you love reacts to your truth with hurt or anger? Tonda brings decades of lived experience. Barb brings her training as a therapist and dating coach. And underneath all the laughter is the reminder we return to again and again. You are not behind. This is your timeline. There is no race to run, and there is a whole community of women who came out later in life ready to welcome you. We also have news. These conversations have grown so popular that we are expanding to twice a month, which means even more room for your questions and your stories. Queer joy is what this looks like, and we are so glad you are here. Barb's viral clap back at a troll who asked what she would do if no one ever married her. She answered by tearing across her land on her ATV, dog running happily alongside, grinning and completely unbothered. Two years later people are still liking it. Watch it here: https://www.tiktok.com/@late_2_the_party_lesbian/video/7369204187428670725 Send us your dating questions. Drop them in the YouTube comments, add them in the comments on Spotify, or reach out directly at support@annemariezanzal.com. Like, comment, and share the episode so more women who need this can find it. Keep listening, because the show is expanding to twice a month. Alongside the monthly Sapphic dating episode, there will be a second episode covering broader Sapphic questions. The episode briefly touches on an OP's suicidal thoughts, and Barb reminded listeners that anyone in North America can call or text 988, available 24/7. If this episode made you feel a little less alone, that is exactly why we built Authentically Us. It is our community for women navigating identity, coming out, and dating later in life, created by someone who knows the isolation of doing this in midlife firsthand. Inside you will find real connection and at least three group gatherings every week, from Speed Friending to our book club, along with courses and a place where you are always met with understanding instead of judgment. Membership is $39 a month or $390 a year. Come find your people. https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us

What if fear is not a stop sign but a signal that you are growing? In this month's first Friday conversation, Anne-Marie is joined by regular guest Anna Empey, business development consultant and LGBTQ+ coach, for an honest look at fear. Not how to get rid of it, because we cannot, but how to stop letting it make our decisions for us. Together they explore why the brain works so hard to keep us in our comfort zones, even the miserable ones, and why so many women stay in marriages, jobs, and closets for years because familiar feels safer than free. Anna gets wonderfully nerdy about the amygdala and neuroplasticity, explaining how every small brave step literally teaches the brain that change is survivable. Anne-Marie draws on her years as a hospice chaplain, where she sat with thousands of people at the end of life and heard their real regrets. No one ever told her they wished they had stayed more comfortable. You will also hear why "blowing up your life" is the wrong phrase, how to recognize when practicality is really fear wearing sensible shoes, why the anticipation of coming out is often scarier than the act itself, and Anne-Marie's beloved reframe of coming out as "letting in," where you hold the power to choose who enters your inner circle. We leave you with one question to sit with this week. Where in your life is fear making your decisions for you? No need to act yet. Notice, and consider your first brave step. Fear loses its grip in community. When we sit with other women who understand this road from the inside, the fear, the guilt, and the shame all begin to loosen their hold, because shame cannot survive being met with empathy. Both Anne-Marie and Anna are inside Authentically Us, our ongoing community for women navigating identity, coming out, and everything beyond. If you are tired of carrying this alone, we have saved you a seat. Join us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com

This week we return to one of our most beloved conversations from the archives, my talk with Dr. Mallory Hanfling, a fellow later in life queer woman, therapist, and the creator of the term Firefly. Mallory shares her story with such honesty. She married a kind man, built a genuine friendship with him, and still felt that something was quietly wrong. Like so many of us, she searched everywhere for an answer. Individual therapy, couples therapy, sex therapy, endless blood work, and doctors who offered birth control and even exploratory surgery. She was looking for a physiological explanation for a truth her spirit already knew. She is queer. Together we explore why the question "have you ever considered your sexuality" is so rarely asked, how compulsory heterosexuality teaches us to dismiss our own knowing, and why women are socialized to carry discomfort quietly rather than speak up for their own pleasure and peace. We also talk about opening a marriage as a bargaining stage of grief, what actually happens when a third person is brought into a struggling relationship, and the moment Mallory chose to end her marriage with love rather than let it end in heartbreak. And of course, we talk about fireflies. Mallory coined the term as a gender and sexuality expansive alternative to late bloomer language. Fireflies spend most of their lives underground, and when they finally emerge as their most authentic selves, they glow and bring joy to others. You do not need to have all the labels figured out to belong. If you are somewhere in the metamorphosis, this conversation is for you. Dr. Mallory Hanfling is a therapist in Philadelphia, licensed in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Indiana. Her practice, Courage to Grow Counseling, serves the queer community with a focus on identity development, coming out, and connecting with one's most authentic self. Her doctoral research explores how community mitigates the impact of compulsory heterosexuality on the Firefly identity. Mallory's resources 🌈Courage to Grow Counseling: couragetogrowcounseling.org (she provides a superbill for out of network benefits) 🌈The Firefly Circle weekly peer support group, linked on her website 🌈Instagram: @thefireflyjourney 🌈TikTok: Mal's Courage to Grow (home of the original Firefly video) Community changes everything. It is the thread running through this entire conversation, and it is why Authentically Us exists. If you are questioning, coming out, or rebuilding your life in midlife, you do not have to walk this road alone. Inside Authentically Us you will find weekly gatherings, resources, and women who understand from the inside because we have lived it too. 🌈Come find your people: https://community.annemariezanzal.com/ 🌈Visit annemariezanzal.com for resources, articles, videos, and the free downloadable guide for coming out later in life. 🌈Subscribe to Coming Out and Beyond on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so you never miss an episode.

What if the single biggest factor in whether we come out, when we come out, and how we heal along the way is the community around us? Dr. Mallory Hanfling returns to the show, this time with research in hand. Mallory recently completed her PhD in human sexuality, and her dissertation explored how community mitigates the impact of compulsory heterosexuality on the Firefly experience, the journey of those who discover something new about their sexuality or gender after committing to a relationship that appeared straight from the outside. Mallory shares why she coined the term Firefly, what her 21 participants taught her about the systems that keep us underground, and why the people we surround ourselves with shape everything about this journey. We talk about grief, religious communities, workplace culture, family planning, neurodivergence, and how to choose online spaces that truly support us. Whether you are 30 or 86, this conversation is a reminder that we were never meant to do this alone. [03:39] Mallory's academic journey and how the term Firefly was born out of isolation, biphobia, and the need for something beautiful in a messy experience [08:16] The preconceived ideas that did not survive contact with reality, and the grief that surprised her [09:16] Grief as a portal. Why coming out later in life often brings every ungrieved loss to the surface [13:15] How the study was designed, who participated, and why Mallory insisted on a participant pool that reflected a range of genders, sexualities, races, and backgrounds [18:42] The central finding: community makes a world of difference in how, when, and whether we come out [22:00] The communities that most often restrict authenticity, beginning with religious spaces [24:13] Workplace culture, family planning, and the institutional barriers that keep people in straight presenting marriages [29:16] A-M's story of finding her first online community and the words that changed how she saw her ex-husband's new partner [31:26] How to be a careful consumer of online groups, and the difference between spaces that heal and spaces that harm [36:22] The overlap between recovery, neurodivergence, and coming out later in life [41:51] Treasure hunting: looking back with hindsight glasses at the signs that were there all along [47:01] Sexual scripts, caretaking roles, and the abandonment of self [51:55] Addressing the old trope about childhood abuse and sexuality, and what the science actually says [54:38] Mallory's advice for anyone figuring this out, at 30 or at 75 Dr. Mallory Hanfling (she/they) is a therapist located in Philadelphia and licensed in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Indiana. Her practice, Courage to Grow Counseling, serves mostly the queer community, working with individuals and couples on identity development, coming out, communication skills, and connecting with one's most authentic self. She is a doctor of human sexuality, and her dissertation explored how community mitigates the impact of compulsory heterosexuality on the Firefly late bloomer identity. Mallory received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Bachelor of Science in Family Science from the University of Maryland and her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. She has presented nationally and internationally on her academic work with the Firefly community. Instagram: @thefireflyjourney (the survey link for sharing your own story is in her bio) Website: couragetogrowcounseling.org Mallory is currently accepting new clients in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Indiana Mallory's previous episode of Coming Out and Beyond, where she shares her personal story: https://youtu.be/Wn0EWBEsOtw Authentically Us is our community for women finding their way toward a more honest life. It is a soft place to land, a space for your queerness to bloom, and a room full of people who understand the questions you have not said out loud yet. We would love to welcome you. Come find us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com/

Content note: This conversation includes language that references homophobic slurs and a discussion of suicidal ideation and mental health struggles. Please listen with care, and reach out for support if you need it. What happens when the thing you love most is the very thing the world tells you is wrong? This week we sit down with Stef Vachon, a proud queer man, husband, father, keynote speaker, and former international professional figure skater with over 30 years of experience performing around the world. Stef grew up in a small French speaking town in Quebec where every boy was expected to play hockey. Instead, he fell in love with figure skating, and the bullying began almost immediately. Stef shares his decades in survival mode, the breaking point that led him to write his entire life story and hand it to a therapist, and the piece of homework that sent him back onto the ice and back to himself. We talk about learning to be alone before finding love, the pressures of image and perfection in gay male culture, chosen family, and the movie that opened the door to fatherhood in his fifties. Today Stef hosts the Together Moving Forward podcast and speaks on moving from survival into self respect, self love, and pride. His story is a reminder for all of us that it is never too late to come home to who we are. Resources and Mentions Together Moving Forward podcast, hosted by Stef Vachon: https://www.youtube.com/@TogetherMovingForwardPodcast Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko, the book Stef's therapist recommended: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43866.Reinventing_Your_Life Lion (2016), the film that opened the door to fatherhood for Stef and his husband: https://youtu.be/-RNI9o06vqo?si=YvZBBnQhp24aX3XY Heated Rivalry, the series we cannot stop talking about (hear our full episode on it with Barb Rowlandson): https://youtu.be/7ws7-FvaW38 This Time I Know It's for Real by Donna Summer, Stef's coming out song: https://youtu.be/U4_X2p6rPJI?si=-J9S3QpetZS5lu3n Connect with Stef Website and podcast: togethermovingforwardpodcast.com Instagram and social media: @togethermovingforwardpodcast If Stef's story stirred something in you, that feeling is worth paying attention to. Our 3 Day Clarity Experience is a live, guided event for women who are questioning, wondering, or somewhere in the middle of figuring out who they are. Over three evenings together, July 21 to 23, we create a safe and welcoming space to help you find clarity about your own journey, surrounded by women who understand because they are walking it too. You do not have to have it all figured out to join us. You only need to be curious about what your most authentic life might look like. Learn more and register at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/

It is the second Friday of the month, which means Anne-Marie is joined by dating coach Barbara Rowlandson and Nashville photographer Tonda McKay, to talk all things sapphic dating and relationships. This month the trio takes on four real questions from women navigating the queer dating world. How do you slow down when every connection turns intense within weeks? Are you a jerk for losing interest when someone shows up looking nothing like their photos? What do you do when you want more intimacy than your partner does? And how do you recover when a promising connection ends after six lovely dates? Along the way, Barb teaches the WIN language formula for hard conversations, Tonda shares her hard-won wisdom on representatives, resentment, and why community will pick you up when heartbreak knocks you down, and Anne-Marie reminds us that bed death is not a lesbian thing, it is a long-term relationship thing. Expect honest talk, big laughs, and one unforgettable New Year's Eve story from the Lipstick Lounge. If you are questioning your sexuality or reconsidering who you are, you do not have to figure it out alone. Join Anne-Marie and Barb for the Three Day Clarity Experience, July 21 to 23, a safe and supportive space to explore your questions alongside women who understand. Our last event welcomed 54 women and many called it life changing. Save your seat at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/ New episodes of Coming Out and Beyond drop weekly. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube https://youtu.be/NXWUe52DKmM so you never miss a conversation, and if this episode spoke to you, consider leaving a review. It helps other women find us.

When you come out to someone, you learn very quickly to tell the difference between the half embrace and the full embrace. The half embrace turns the conversation back to your husband, your children, your family system within the first thirty seconds. The full embrace simply asks, how are you doing. In this episode, Anne-Marie sits down with frequent guest Anna Empey for a tender and honest conversation about what we wish straight allies actually knew. Together they unpack why coming out is never about sex, but about identity, love, community, future, and wholeness. They name the responses that wound, the ones we have all heard, like this is just a phase, you are so brave, and I will pray for you. And they move toward something more hopeful, the real allyship that defends us when we are not in the room, that learns our partners by name, that follows up two years and five years and ten years later, because coming out is not a single moment. It is a lifelong unfolding. Whether you are walking your own coming out path or you love someone who is, this conversation offers language for the difference between the ally sitting safely in the chair and the ally who steps into the room beside you. If this conversation stirred something in you, and you are sensing there is more clarity waiting for you in this chapter of your life, we would love to welcome you into the Three Day Clarity Experience. It is a gentle, guided space to listen to yourself and begin to understand what is true for you, in community with women who understand. There is no pressure here, only an invitation. You can learn more and join us at https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/

In Part 2 of this conversation, Anne-Marie Zanzal continues her talk with Dahron Johnson, a trans woman, advocate, lifelong cyclist, and chair of the Metro Human Relations Commission in Nashville, who came out in her late forties after decades of quietly knowing. Dahron shares the rush of the days right after she realized a change had to be made, from calling care providers within 48 hours to playing the "wait list shell game" that shortened a six month wait down to six weeks. She remembers her first public moment out in the world, changing into a brand new outfit in the back of her car and walking across legislative plaza into a Glennon Doyle book reading just days before the world shut down for COVID. The conversation moves into the tender territory of telling her wife, "I need to let you know that I'm trans," after almost 25 years together, and the grief work both of them have navigated in the six years since. Anne-Marie and Dahron, both former hospice chaplains, talk about ambiguous grief, the courage it takes to trust your own inner voice, privilege and representation, and what it means to be married to several different people over the life of one marriage. It is an honest, hope filled conversation about becoming the self you could never have imagined. Connect with Dahron Johnson on social media. Her name is spelled D A H R O N Johnson, and you can also find her as DJ Contraption on most platforms. Feeling that quiet inner voice nudging you toward your own truth? Join Anne-Marie for the 3 Day Clarity Experience, July 21 to 23 at Authentically Us, three evenings of guided support for women navigating identity discovery in midlife and beyond. Save your spot here: https://annemariezanzal.com/3-day-clarity-experience/

Dahron Johnson grew up surrounded by voices. Thousands of books in her parents' home, two people who met in divinity school, and a faith that taught her every person is fearfully and wonderfully made. And still, for decades, she could not find the words for who she was. In this episode, Anne-Marie sits down with her dear friend Dahron, a clinically trained chaplain, a tireless advocate, and the first openly trans person to speak from the floor of the Tennessee House. The two of them share roots in the North, in the church, and in the long work of coming home to themselves. They move through faith and the work of welcome, the cost of advocacy in Tennessee right now, and what it means to hold the whole person rather than the narrow slice the world finds convenient. Then the conversation turns inward. Dahron walks us through the years of living with no language and no container to put herself in, the ballet class and the leotard, the three days she spent tucked into the corner of a closet, and the hope bargain she made with herself to survive. She tells us about the lung collapses and the tumor that kept whispering there was a self she had never let herself know. And she brings us to the end of a therapist's driveway, the left turn and the right turn, the moment fifty years finally crystallized into one decision. It is time to get this done. This is a conversation about faith, courage, and the long road to naming ourselves. We are honored to share it with you. If you hear yourself somewhere in Dahron's story, you do not have to sit with it alone. Authentically Us is our community for women finding their way toward a more honest life. It is a soft place to land, a space for your queerness to bloom, and a room full of people who understand the questions you have not said out loud yet. We would love to welcome you. Come find us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com/ This is Part One of our conversation with Dahron. The rest of her story is coming in Part Two. Follow Coming Out and Beyond wherever you listen, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

This month we return to our lesbian dating and relationship conversation, the one we share on the second Friday of every month, and by popular request Tonda is back at the table! Anne-Marie is joined by her wife, Tonda McKay, our longtime out lesbian and resident truth teller, and by Barbara Rowlandson, fellow coach and the woman who helps lead our Authentically Us community. Together we work through four real questions pulled from the Lesbian Dating Advice subreddit, and the conversation moves from laughing out loud to genuinely tender. We start with the question so many of us know by heart, is my barista flirting with me, and we talk about strategic ambiguity, the cognitive itch that turns a maybe into a crush, and why two women who like each other can sit in a room and say nothing at all. From there we look at a girlfriend whose closest bond is with her straight married best friend, and we ask the harder question underneath the jealousy, are your needs being met in this relationship. We sit with a heartbreaking note from someone whose partner ended things out of religious guilt, and Anne-Marie and Tonda speak plainly about internalized shame, the cost of loving someone who is still in the closet, and the truth that you can be both gay and beloved by the Divine. We close with the "break" at seven months that is really a breakup, the anxious and avoidant dance, and Barbara's reminder that if someone tells you that you are too much, you are free to go find less. A few invitations from this episode. If you are wrestling with the clobber passages and the old messages about faith and sexuality, we point you toward the resources at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, a UCC congregation that does this work with real care: https://www.cathedralofhope.com/ If this season of your life has a catalyst of its own, Barbara and Anne-Marie created The Catalyst Chapter, a course to help you understand why this work can feel so hard and so holy, and you can find it inside Authentically Us and on the Anne-Marie Zanzal Coaching website, https://annemariezanzal.com/ We taped this on the first of June, so wherever you are, we hope you find your way to some community and some queer joy this Pride month, and if it is safe and right for you, we hope you let yourself be seen. We are so glad you are here!

TW: This episode includes honest discussion about grief, estrangement and suicidal ideation. Listener discretion is advised. There is a kind of loss that arrives without a funeral. No casserole on the doorstep, no card in the mail, no ritual to mark it. It is the loss of people who are still alive, of communities that keep meeting without us, of the versions of ourselves we performed for decades. It is called estrangement, and for those of us who came out later in life or left the faith traditions that raised us, it may be one of the most present and least spoken parts of the whole story. In this episode, Anne-Marie and her cohost Anna Empey sit with the word estrangement and everything it holds. Anne-Marie shares her experience of becoming estranged from her child, the devastation of it, and the slow, tender work of repair she is in now. Anna brings her own story of leaving the LDS faith she was raised in and learning to navigate family through boundaries, distance, and a love that refused to disappear. Together they name the things the culture rarely makes room for. That we can grieve someone who is still breathing. That healing does not require reconciliation. That rupture is not failure, and leaving is not always abandonment. Sometimes it is the most faithful thing we can do for ourselves. This is a conversation we offer without tying it up neatly, because some of it is meant to stay open. If estrangement is part of your story, we hope you find some company here. This episode mentions a previous episode about grief and coming out. You can find that episode here: https://youtu.be/DnrRcKN8oT4 Find the episode where Anna shares her coming out story here: https://youtu.be/XD_5QNn5IM8 Learn more about "The Grief Handbook" by Bridget McNulty here: https://bridgetmcnulty.com/the-grief-handbook/ You were never meant to do this alone. Authentically Us is a community of women who came out later in life and who understand the grief, the boundaries, and the becoming. We would love to walk alongside you. Join us at community.annemariezanzal.com.

In this revisited Season 5 favorite, Anne-Marie sits down with photographer Tonda McKay, who also happens to be her wife. Tonda came out at eighteen as a good Southern Baptist girl whose prayer partner became her first love, and she has spent the decades since building a life as a long-out lesbian in the South. She shares what those early years held: the isolation of believing she was the only one, the family rupture when her mother said she was dead to her, and the slow, joyful discovery of community through a liberal church softball team. The conversation then turns to something the two of them know intimately. What is it actually like for someone who has been out for forty years to fall in love with a woman who is only just beginning her journey? Tonda speaks honestly about boundaries, patience, and trust, about learning that her new partner's grief was not about her, and about why being older changed everything. Her advice is tender and unvarnished, full of hard-won wisdom about red flags, self-respect, and why some loves are worth holding onto. It is a episode about two women of the same age meeting from opposite ends of the same experience, and the contentment they found together. As Tonda puts it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with loving who you want to love, and love really does win eventually. You can learn more about Tonda's photography work at https://tondamckay.com/ If Tonda and Anne-Marie's story stirred something in you, you do not have to walk your own journey alone. Authentically Us is a warm, grounded community for women exploring identity and coming out later in life, a soft place to land among others who understand. Whether someone is newly questioning or further along the path, community is where the healing happens. Come find your people at community.annemariezanzal.com.

This week on Coming Out & Beyond, Anne-Marie sits down with Keith Aron (he/they), a trans and queer transformational coach, writer, proudly witchy weirdo, and self-described honorary tree. Keith writes the Substack Big Blue Sky Dragonfly, where he explores the sweet spot between belonging and authenticity — and his story is one Anne-Marie has been wanting to share for a long time. Keith came out as a lesbian in 2001, while living in conservative Northern Virginia, married to a man, and parenting a young child. There was no social media then, no community waiting on the other side of a Google search — only a Yahoo users group called Lesbian Support, a tiny LGBTQ shelf at the local Barnes and Noble, and a book titled From Wedded Wife to Lesbian Life that he devoured in his minivan. Fifteen years later, after years of sobriety, therapy, and working with gender dysphoria that had been quietly rising for most of his life, Keith came out again — this time as trans. In this conversation, Anne-Marie and Keith move slowly through the territory many of our community members know well. The double masking of sexuality and gender. The way the body keeps the score when we suppress what we know to be true. The role of community in healing what Anne-Marie has called the relational wound of queerness. The strange terrain of passing, of invisibility, of gaining male privilege as someone who lived nearly five decades culturally read as female. The both/and of every part of this work. Keith also offers his perspective on imposter syndrome — particularly the queer imposter syndrome that visits so many people who arrive at their identity later in life and wonder if they are queer enough, trans enough, allowed enough to claim what is theirs. His approach, informed by internal family systems, is one of curiosity rather than combat: getting to know the inner critic, learning what it is afraid of, what it has been trying to protect. (Listen for Keith's nod to Marlin from Finding Nemo as the inner critic we can all probably recognize.) Anne-Marie and Keith also talk practically about how to find safe community when you are exploring something new — including the often-overlooked support of 12-step affinity spaces — and how to find a therapist or coach who actually understands later-in-life identity work, because the rush to be an ally is not the same as the experience to do the work well. This conversation is for anyone listening who came in for the sexuality piece and has started to wonder if there is something else underneath. It is also for anyone who has been on this path for a while and could use the company of someone who has walked the long version of it. Connect with Keith You can find Keith at keitharon.com and on Substack at Big Blue Sky Dragonfly (keitharon.substack.com), or by searching his name on LinkedIn. If you are curious about working with him, his website is the easiest place to start. Join us in community If Keith's words about the necessity of community landed somewhere tender today, we want you to know there is a place for you. Authentically Us is Anne-Marie's ongoing community on Mighty Networks for women navigating identity, sexuality, and the questions that arrive in midlife. It is warm, it is unhurried, and it is full of people who have wondered the same things you are wondering. We would love to have you. You can learn more at https://community.annemariezanzal.com.

A decade ago, Anne-Marie and Katrina Anne Willis met inside a small Facebook group that no longer exists — a quiet corner of the internet where women who had Googled "late in life lesbian" found each other. They were both raising kids. Both married to men. Both trying to understand a feeling they didn't yet have language for. This week, they finally meet face to face. Katrina is the author of Hurricane Lessons: A Memoir of Betrayal and Becoming , released April 7th by Sibylline Press. In this conversation, she and Anne-Marie trade their parallel stories — the Pilates instructor, the Catholic upbringing, the husbands who said "if you ever leave me, you'll leave me for a woman" long before either of them understood what that meant. They talk about the catalyst relationship that ripped Katrina's world open, the friend group that quietly disappeared, and the children who grieved in their own ways and on their own timelines. They also talk about what comes after the hurricane. The chosen family. The intentional life. The unexpected softness of a world without raised voices. And the lesson Katrina says took her the longest to learn: that the first betrayal in any coming out story is the betrayal of self, and the becoming begins the moment you stop. If you've ever wondered whether you're the only one who has felt this way — Katrina's answer, and the heart of this episode, is no. You're not. You never were. Where to find Katrina: Hurricane Lessons is available at bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and independent bookstores everywhere Substack: Surrendering to Sappho Instagram & Facebook: katrina.anne.willis Ready to write your own next chapter? Authentically Us is Anne-Marie's private community for women navigating exactly the kind of transition Katrina describes in Hurricane Lessons — the questioning, the becoming, the quiet rebuilding of a life that actually fits. You don't have to figure it out alone, and you don't have to wait until you have language for it. Join us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com

A woman in our community wrote in and asked: "What if my lesbian sex experience doesn't live up to the hype? Does that make me not gay?" That question deserved more than a one-line answer. So Anne-Marie brought in two of her favorite humans to tell the truth — the kind of truth nobody hands you before you get here. Her wife Tonda McKay has been out for forty years and brings the long view: what the community looked like before midlife women started arriving in big numbers, and what she's watched shift since. Co-coach Barb Rowlandson came out later in life and survived midlife lesbian dating to tell the tale. Together with Anne-Marie, they go where most podcasts won't. In this episode, the three of them talk about: 🌈Why the lesbian sex fantasy is so powerful — and why the reality is more complicated than the imagination 🌈Where the U-Haul joke actually comes from (hint: it's economics, microaggressions, and brain chemistry, not just feelings) 🌈Moving fast in a new relationship — when it works, when it doesn't, and how to tell which is which 🌈Why moving toward something is different from moving away from something 🌈Internalized homophobia, shame, and how it shows up in the bedroom — for newly out and long-out women 🌈What it's like to date someone who is brand new when you've been out for decades 🌈How the conversation around later-in-life lesbians has shifted in the last ten years 🌈Why "we send our representative" on the first few dates — and what happens when the real person shows up 🌈Butch, femme, and the freedom of having no rules 🌈The talking. So much talking. This is a warm, funny, honest conversation between three women who love each other and who are not interested in pretending lesbian relationships are easier, simpler, or more magical than they actually are. They are interested in telling you the truth, so you have company on the road. If you have ever wondered whether your experience is "normal," whether you are doing this right, or whether the hype was lying to you — this one is for you. Have a question you want answered on the podcast? Send it to us. Like the listener who asked the question that opened this episode, your question might be exactly what someone else in our community needs to hear. New episode of Coming Out & Beyond is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the full episode on YouTube: If you are coming out later in life, dating for the first time as a queer woman, or somewhere in the middle of figuring it all out — you are not alone, and you are not behind. We're glad you're here. If this episode made you think I want to talk about this with women who get it — that's exactly what Authentically Us is for. It's our private community for women navigating identity, coming out, and what comes next. We talk, we laugh, we process, we hold space. Come find your people. Join us at https://community.annemariezanzal.com .