The number of middle-aged women coming out is on the rise, according to new research.
Australian woman Jenny Lonergan came out at the age of 51.
‘This documentary came on… it was a story about lesbians and about halfway through all of a sudden I had this moment where I went bang,’ Ms Lonergan told The Feed.
Australian woman Jenny Lonergan came out at the age of 51 and is one of many who decide to do so at a later age
‘How could I have lived being me for 48 years, and not have known?’
After realising she was gay Ms Lonergan said she felt more at ease with herself.
‘The minute I realised it was this complete opening up inside myself and I became a more sexual person,’ she said.
Tracie Oldham was married to a man for 18 years and had three kids before she realised she was gay.
The mother-of-three was introduced to a dating site when she was 48 years old after her husband walked out on her family.
She identified with a number of women and their experiences on online forums.
Tracie Oldham was married to a man for 18 years and had three kids before she realised she was gay
Ms Oldham said she was with a female when she was younger.
‘I was with a girl when I was young… I never really gave it any thought but in hindsight I suppose that’s why I felt something was missing,’ she said.
Ms Oldham is now happily married to Carole Oldham.
More and more women have been coming out about their relationships with women later in life, and research presented by this year’s North American Menopause Society (NAMS) suggests it’s not just a fad.
Far more women (as well as men) are attracted to both sexes than are attracted exclusively to people of the same sex, so later relationships don’t mean that previous hetero ones should be dismissed.
University of Utah psychologist Dr Lisa Diamond says that more research is needed to understand how social and physiological factors interact to affect a middle aged woman’s sexuality.
Non-heterosexuality has also become far more openly socially accepted in recent years than it was 25 years ago, when women who are now post-menopausal were in their twenties.
‘Now, you see more discussion of same sex sexuality in general in the media, which allows women to even have a language to talk about it,’ Dr Diamond says.
‘The fact that they weren’t talking about it before doesn’t mean that middle-aged women were not attracted to women before, and ‘the capacity to express same sex attractions doesn’t invalidate previous hetero relationships,’ Dr Diamond stresses.