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But I'd made up my mind early on in life that I never wanted to be a mother.

My mom gave me enough self-worth to carry me through difficult experiences. She was very loving and accepting. She was like, 'Whelp, you're gay? OK, cool.'

When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, 'You're either going to love yourself or hate yourself.' And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.

My mother wanted me to understand that as a woman I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, that I didn't have to use sex or sexuality to define myself.

My mother died of a stroke in 1974, and for a long time, I blamed myself. She was utterly devastated when I told her I was a lesbian not long before.

I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends' mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing.

I'm a lesbian. Yup. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I remember being in college, and I had fallen in love with this woman, and I remember sitting in my dorm room saying out loud to myself, like, 'You have enough problems. You are not gonna let this happen.'

I'm lucky to have family around me. Otherwise, I'll be taking the risk of falling in love with myself.

What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I am straight.