Loving Someone Newly Out: Tonda McKay's Story of Falling in Love With a Later in Life Lesbian

About this episode

Tonda McKay shares her journey of coming out and falling in love with a woman who is just beginning her journey.

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…

People in this episode

Host: Anne-Marie Zanzal

Guest: Tonda McKay

Topics covered

• coming out
• lesbian relationships
• love later in life
• community
• personal growth

Keywords

• lesbian
• coming out
• love
• relationships
• community
• personal story
• self-respect

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Southern Baptist, liberal church

Books & works: tondamckay.com

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