Image description: Over a light colored background there is a wreath of flowers in a circle, on the inside the purple colored text reads: “I am queer enough. Always.” The website www.tiffany-landry.com is at the bottom of the graphic.

Dear Fellow Late Blooming Queer,

Like you, I also realized that I was queer later in life-I realized that I was a lesbian in my mid-30’s to be exact. While I’ve often wished that I realized my queerness because I fell madly in love with a woman, my story is honestly a lot more boring. I was in a course on pleasure after trauma and someone posed the question: “what are you sexual yums and yucks?” and it was the permission slip I need to name my biggest desires around dating, falling in love with and having sex with women. However you realized that you’re queer, I’m so glad you’re here. Picture me welcoming you with the yummiest coming out rainbow cake and the biggest hug. When I realized that I was a lesbian I remember feeling both so excited but also overwhelmed by the bigness of it. Perhaps you’ve feeling excited, relief, sadness or even grief. Can you welcome all of the emotions that come up and name that they make so much sense?

It’s unfortunately so common for folks who realized their queerness later in life to feel self doubt or like they aren’t queer enough. But just like no one requires heterosexual people to provide their “straightness”, darling you don’t have to prove your queerness. You can trust your queerness, you can trust your attraction, authentic desire and inner knowing. If that feels hard, can you take small doable steps and build that muscle of your queer worthiness. Perhaps that’s gently whispering to yourself “I trust my queerness” or reminding yourself that you never have to prove your queerness to anyone. Your queerness doesn’t depend on who you have sex with now or in the past, your current relationship or what you look like. You can be a lesbian even if you’ve only previously dated men. You can be bisexual or queer even if you’re in a long term relationship with a cis heterosexual man. Imagine me softly reminding you: you are queer enough, you are queer enough, you are queer enough.

When I realized that I was a lesbian I was so excited that I immediately shared the news with the closest family and friends. But I waited awhile until I publicly came out on social media because my queerness still felt so tender and raw. What I’m so grateful for is how I trusted my own unique coming out timeline-and came out when I felt so grounded and connected to my queer identity. Remember that you don’t ever have to come out. Perhaps you hate the concept of coming out or maybe you prefer to think about coming home to your queerness. You get to decide when, if and how you come out. Can you remind yourself that you and only you get to decide what coming out and coming in means to you as queer person? Only you know your own specific circumstances, trauma history, safety concerns and needs. What would it be like to remind yourself that you get to honor your own timing and needs?

Image description: In the photo you can see the back and side views of several faces. A person wearing a pride bandana is holding a sign that says “I am here to party and to smash the heteronormative racist patriarchy.” Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash

There’s such a bigness to realizing that you’re queer later in life and you shouldn’t have to navigate it all by yourself. You truly deserve the best queer affirming attuned care and support. Perhaps that looks like connecting to online late blooming queer spaces, working with a LGBTQIA+ coach or therapist or reaching out to a trusted friend. When I came out later in life a few things that I found deeply supportive were working with a coach who had also come out later in life, as well as doing queer centered healing practices. Can you tend to your queerness in small doable steps by doing things like tending to your unmet core queer needs, spending time with your queer inner child or investing in the queer sex education on your dreams? You might ask yourself: “what would be the kindest and much loving queer care for me to receive right now?”

Image description: a woman wearing a red shirt and jeans looks up at her partner (who is wearing black pants, black boots and a jean shirt), cups her face and they both are smiling while they look into each other’s faces. The first woman is next to a horse and is holding a rope connected to the horse’s halter.

When it comes to dating after realizing your queerness later in life you might feel both excited and also wonder: “will anyone want to date me if I don’t have any queer dating experience?” While your fears are always valid, I wonder if you could pause and reframe the idea of “I don’t have enough experience” to “I have so much to offer.” While I don’t know you, I can imagine that you have so much gifts, experience, knowledge and care to offer those lucky enough to spend time with you! What if coming out later was actually a pretty darn cool, brave and an amazing story to tell? Every queer person has their own coming out stories and you might share your stories on a first date. You might have come home to your queerness later in life but a lot of the skills that you learned before realizing that you’re LGBTQIA+ still translate. If you find yourself wondering if you’re queer enough or experienced enough to date a specific person, can you take a gentle pause, remind yourself that you are queer enough and then ask yourself how you feel with the person? You deserve to have affirming and supportive sexual and dating experiences. Also if dating after coming out makes you feel like you’re a teenager again-you are in such good company! A second queer adolescence is a common experience for LGBTQIA+ folks who missed out on key experiences as a teenager.

As you continue to come home to your queerness, can you make space for queer joy and pleasure? Perhaps that’s creating a connected relationship to your sexuality and pleasure, connecting to queer community, watching that sapphic movie that makes you so happy or creating a fun queer playlist. Your queerness is worthy of celebration, joy and pleasure and it’s so important to make space for it-even when times are hard. This isn’t about bypassing the very real difficulties but about tending to the health, to your joy and pleasure. Your queer joy and pleasure is magic, it’s powerful, it’s so needed. It’s about telling yourself “my queerness matters so damn much and so do I.” Perhaps that’s identifying that a core unmet queer need was the need to be celebrated, so you throw yourself a coming out party. Or maybe like me you get together with a queer bestie and make a random day a “Lesbro Day” complete with corsages, cake and presents. You and only you get to decide how to tend to your queer joy and pleasure.

Image description: At a Pride March two women embrace, one of them is kissing the other one who is smiling. They are both wearing rainbow clothing and one is holding a Pride flag in the air. Photo by Brian Kyed on Unsplash.

When you realize your queerness later in life you might the grief of “how did it take me so long to know this?” or anger around past experiences of having your queerness invalidated. Your grief, anger and sadness make so much sense. Sometimes it can be helpful to bring in gentle reminders that there are very good reasons why you didn’t realize your queerness earlier. Perhaps that’s trauma, internalized homophobia, growing up in a religious household or compulsory heterosexuality. Can you both honor the challenging emotions that come up and validate that your queer timeline actually makes a lot of sense? That doesn’t mean that there’s not grief around it taking you so long to realize your queerness but it is about naming the conditions that made it challenging to come out to yourself (and potentially others) sooner. Can you be gentle with yourself as you both allow space for all of your emotions and feel into how your queer journey timing makes so much sense?

It’s been 4+ years since I came out as a lesbian and it’s been such a journey of continuing to come home to my queerness in different ways. I recently wrote an article that I titled “my queerness is precious to me” and it truly is. Wherever you are in your own journey can you remember to really honor where you’re at? To show up for your queer self with so much kindness, care and loving support? To connect to both LGBTQIA+ history and community? Coming home to your authentic self is so big and it can be so healing to take it one small doable step at a time. Honoring your unique nervous system and consistently showing up for your healing by asking yourself: “what’s the next small doable step that I can take?” Ultimately, my greatest wish is that you know in every bone in your body that you are queer enough, today and always. That your queerness is so welcome, that your queerness is precious and that the queer community is so glad that you’re here.

Big queer love,

Tiffany

Notes & further reading:

For more information on the second queer adolescence. The Second Adolescence of LGBTQ+ Adulthood.
I first learned about the 10 core childhood needs from my teacher Emily Beatrix, which have inspired my writings on the core queer and trans needs.
Head here to read 10 Queer Movies and Books That Give Me Queer Joy.
Love this letter but desiring a letter written to late diagnosed autistics? You can read a love letter to autistics here.
Grab a free copy of The I Am Queer Enough Affirmations.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this blog post was supportive. If you’d like to share a bit about your experience with realizing that you’re LGBTQIA+ later in life-please feel free to share in the comments.

The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.

Your healing matters.

Hi, I’m Tiffany and I’m passionate about making healing neurodivergent and queer centered. If you’re seeking support on coming home to your body, queerness and authentic self-I’d love to support you in my 6 month program Coming Home. Coming Home is a somatic coaching program where you receive:

A detailed intake process and a personalized coaching program written just for you.
Two 90 minute somatic coaching sessions a month,
One 30 minute Co-Regulation Call.

If you’re desiring queer and neurodivergent centered somatic support and trauma resolution coaching, I’d love to chat and see if working together would be a good fit.

You can find out more about Coming Home here.

Tiffany Landry is a somatic coach who works with queer and autistic clients. She works with clients in her program The Autistic Mentorship and in Coming Home. Tiffany also writes a free newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.