Sometimes you hear about people coming out as gay very late in life. They might be in their 50’s or 60’s and married with a family. I’ve always wondered what sort of sexual identity feelings they had before then. Were they initially straight and then became gay? Did they always know they were gay but pretended to be straight? Or did they like both sexes all along and finally decided they’d rather switch?
My father came out (well, sort of - he was always very conflicted about it) as gay in his mid-40s. To me (his oldest daughter and we were always close), to his sister, and to some close friends of his.
He always knew, and because of a strict Catholic upbringing, suffered perpetual guilt. he tried to to the “right thing” - got married and had three children before the marriage fell apart. I cannot speak to how he identified himself, but his public persona was very jock and Malboro Man. He always had close female friends too and in part they functioned as “decoys” he could bring to work or public events as girlfriends.
My mother came out at around age 40. She was raised in a strongly religious environment by a domineering father who was a Church of Christ minister. I think she repressed any notion of sexuality so far that I’m not sure she could have articulated her feelings at the time.
I’ve known many people who came out in their 50s or 60s. Some of them never suspected they might be gay or bi, but most of them were conflicted at the time of their marriages. They thought that if they got married and raised a family, any same-sex thoughts would disappear; their marriage would reinforce their “normal” side. Some of them, while being married, acted on their same-sex feelings on the down-low.
So the bottom line is that everyone’s different. Some guys had always known they were gay, in spite of their marriages. Other guys embraced their bisexuality. And other guys considered themselves absolutely straight.
If my father had not married a suitable woman he would have not only shamed the family and risked his career but lost the chance of a massive inheritance. Interestingly my mother once got drunk and admitted they only had sex after he got arrested for having a gay old time in public toilets, his lawyer delayed the two year apart trials until she was obviously pregnant and used her as Exhibit A of his straightness - but my mother was quite justifiably a bit bitter that as soon as no fault divorce was introduced he was off living with an architect and she was stuck with two kids she had little interest in and had never planned for. The funniest bit was she made me swear to never tell my aunt (his sister) that he was gay when I had long before picked her and her golfing friends as lesbians.
My now 60 year old partner married to get out of home because that was what you did back when women with little education couldn’t earn enough to live alone.
I was engaged for a short time to a lovely fellow, it was very nice to not have to play the pronoun game, have a photo of him on my desk and have a date for work functions but we were really both queer just trying it on for size. My mother loved me more in those three minutes than anytime before or after, that is powerful. It was almost sit com worthy though, I’d be out in the shed building stuff, he’d be in the kitchen whipping up a fluffy sponge. We parted amicably when we grew up a bit.
It is important to remember that it was both illegal for men to have sex together and considered a mental illness until fairly recent times.
I recently saw a documentary about Chely Wright, which was an interesting view into this. She was a popular country singer who knew she was gay from a young age but kept it hidden. Strong family and religious pressures made her feel that those feelings were wrong and she worked hard to suppress them and hoped to change her orientation. The stress caused her to be on the verge of suicide in her 30’s, when she finally decided to stop fighting it and decided to come out.