When I came out, my mother said, “You can never tell your father. I think he might kill himself and it will be your fault.”

When I came out, I cried. I felt like I lost a battle. Now I am the happiest, proudest gay ever!

When I came out, I lost a couple of friends and went through a rough patch with my mother, but the relief of not having to lie and put up a façade anymore was overwhelming. Thirty-five years later, life is still great.

When I came out, my brother wanted to know what we’d do if we ever both liked the same girl.

When I came out as a male to female transsexual to my father, it was in an email around Christmas time, about three years after I moved very far away from my home state where they lived. I got a response from him a few days later, saying that I was mistaken and misguided, but that also he had been looking at post-op SRS before and after pictures, and in his opinion they didn’t look anything like vaginas he’s ever seen. All I could say was “Please, Dad, PLEASE tell me you weren’t just thinking about what my post-op vagina was going to look like.”

When I came out in 1983, I was a scared closeted late teen. Literally within weeks, I was politically active. I kicked down that closet door.

When I came out, I came out with a vengeance. I had already messed around with guys since I was 8, but didn’t actually step fully out of the closet until I was 23 when I went to my first gay bar. For the first time, I was surrounded by my peeps. Liberation ensued. Been with my man now for 24 years.

When I came out to my mother, she cried for an hour, then served wine at dinner for the first time ever. It took her one month of her own soul searching, and now she’s fully supportive of my partner and me.

When I came out I had a wife and two young children. Divorce and some rough times followed, but nothing compares to being honest with yourself and those around you. It got better fairly quickly, and now, 16 years later, things are still great.

When I came out, it was the mid ’80s and I was watching men having to tell their parents that A. they were gay and B. they had this horrible disease that will probably kill them all in the same breath. I wasn’t ready to be totally out, so I wrote them a letter saying that I was gay and healthy and just wanted them to know. They never spoke of it for oh, maybe 5 or 6 years. But they always knew. And although not always cool about it, they didn’t ostracize me for it.