TW: This episode includes honest discussion about grief, estrangement and suicidal ideation. Listener discretion is advised.

There is a kind of loss that arrives without a funeral. No casserole on the doorstep, no card in the mail, no ritual to mark it. It is the loss of people who are still alive, of communities that keep meeting without us, of the versions of ourselves we performed for decades. It is called estrangement, and for those of us who came out later in life or left the faith traditions that raised us, it may be one of the most present and least spoken parts of the whole story.

In this episode, Anne-Marie and her cohost Anna Empey sit with the word estrangement and everything it holds. Anne-Marie shares her experience of becoming estranged from her child, the devastation of it, and the slow, tender work of repair she is in now. Anna brings her own story of leaving the LDS faith she was raised in and learning to navigate family through boundaries, distance, and a love that refused to disappear. Together they name the things the culture rarely makes room for. That we can grieve someone who is still breathing. That healing does not require reconciliation. That rupture is not failure, and leaving is not always abandonment. Sometimes it is the most faithful thing we can do for ourselves.

This is a conversation we offer without tying it up neatly, because some of it is meant to stay open. If estrangement is part of your story, we hope you find some company here.

This episode mentions a previous episode about grief and coming out. You can find that episode here: https://youtu.be/DnrRcKN8oT4

Find the episode where Anna shares her coming out story here: https://youtu.be/XD_5QNn5IM8

Learn more about "The Grief Handbook" by Bridget McNulty here: https://bridgetmcnulty.com/the-grief-handbook/

You were never meant to do this alone. Authentically Us is a community of women who came out later in life and who understand the grief, the boundaries, and the becoming. We would love to walk alongside you. Join us at community.annemariezanzal.com.

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 together. As Tonda puts it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with loving who you want to love, and love really does win eventually.

You can learn more about Tonda's photography work at https://tondamckay.com/

If Tonda and Anne-Marie's story stirred something in you, you do not have to walk your own journey alone. Authentically Us is a warm, grounded community for women exploring identity and coming out later in life, a soft place to land among others who understand. Whether someone is newly questioning or further along the path, community is where the healing happens. Come find your people at community.annemariezanzal.com.

This week on Coming Out & Beyond, Anne-Marie sits down with Keith Aron (he/they), a trans and queer transformational coach, writer, proudly witchy weirdo, and self-described honorary tree. Keith writes the Substack Big Blue Sky Dragonfly, where he explores the sweet spot between belonging and authenticity — and his story is one Anne-Marie has been wanting to share for a long time.

Keith came out as a lesbian in 2001, while living in conservative Northern Virginia, married to a man, and parenting a young child. There was no social media then, no community waiting on the other side of a Google search — only a Yahoo users group called Lesbian Support, a tiny LGBTQ shelf at the local Barnes and Noble, and a book titled From Wedded Wife to Lesbian Life that he devoured in his minivan. Fifteen years later, after years of sobriety, therapy, and working with gender dysphoria that had been quietly rising for most of his life, Keith came out again — this time as trans.

In this conversation, Anne-Marie and Keith move slowly through the territory many of our community members know well. The double masking of sexuality and gender. The way the body keeps the score when we suppress what we know to be true. The role of community in healing what Anne-Marie has called the relational wound of queerness. The strange terrain of passing, of invisibility, of gaining male privilege as someone who lived nearly five decades culturally read as female. The both/and of every part of this work.

Keith also offers his perspective on imposter syndrome — particularly the queer imposter syndrome that visits so many people who arrive at their identity later in life and wonder if they are queer enough, trans enough, allowed enough to claim what is theirs. His approach, informed by internal family systems, is one of curiosity rather than combat: getting to know the inner critic, learning what it is afraid of, what it has been trying to protect. (Listen for Keith's nod to Marlin from Finding Nemo as the inner critic we can all probably recognize.)

Anne-Marie and Keith also talk practically about how to find safe community when you are exploring something new — including the often-overlooked support of 12-step affinity spaces — and how to find a therapist or coach who actually understands later-in-life identity work, because the rush to be an ally is not the same as the experience to do the work well.

This conversation is for anyone listening who came in for the sexuality piece and has started to wonder if there is something else underneath. It is also for anyone who has been on this path for a while and could use the company of someone who has walked the long version of it.

Connect with Keith

You can find Keith at keitharon.com and on Substack at Big Blue Sky Dragonfly (keitharon.substack.com), or by searching his name on LinkedIn. If you are curious about working with him, his website is the easiest place to start.

Join us in community

If Keith's words about the necessity of community landed somewhere tender today, we want you to know there is a place for you. Authentically Us is Anne-Marie's ongoing community on Mighty Networks for women navigating identity, sexuality, and the questions that arrive in midlife. It is warm, it is unhurried, and it is full of people who have wondered the same things you are wondering. We would love to have you. You can learn more at https://community.annemariezanzal.com.