The Complicated, Beautiful Truth About Coming Out

When sports journalist and retired long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad came out to her mom more than 50 years ago, she had a contradictory response. They spent years together on the path to acceptance

Diana Nyad,

AARP

Comments

Published June 22, 2026

a photo shows diana nyad at her Los Angeles home

“Great comfort comes with being entirely true to oneself,” says Diana Nyad, photographed at her Los Angeles home in June 2026.

Maggie Shannon

Editor’s note: Diana Nyad made history in 2013 with her 53-hour swim from Cuba to Florida. Her book Find a Way and the Netflix movie Nyad have inspired millions worldwide to chase their biggest dreams.

Growing up in the 1960s in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I was oblivious to gay life, though I do recall relishing books by French novelist and women’s rights advocate George Sand. She wore men’s clothes, smoked in public, hung out at late-night soirées with famous male artists and writers in Paris — and had both men and women as lovers.

But it wasn’t until I was 21 when my coming-out enlightenment arrived. My best friend from high school was living in Michigan, and her friends got in touch with me, convincing me to surprise her for a big birthday party. They told me later that they were afraid to reveal to me that the party would be 100 percent gay women, for fear that I wouldn’t come. At that time in my life, I had never been to a gay bar and had no gay friends.

“We must collectively insist that the nation’s values of ‘all men created equal’ apply to every single individual,” Nyad writes.

Maggie Shannon

After a long bus ride, I got to the house in East Lansing, and the party was in full swing. Within 10 minutes of walking in the door, I was slow-dancing with one woman. Within an hour, I was kissing another woman. And I spent the night with a third woman, the two of us under covers on the living room floor. The next morning, my friend and her partner wisecracked as they stepped over us, “She seems to have adjusted quite easily.”

That same year, 1971, I was visiting Fort Lauderdale for the holidays. I had been dating someone, and I decided it was time to tell my mom. We went out for a nice dinner, and I was nervous throughout. Toward the end, I told her how I felt, truly expecting outrage and disappointment.

But Lucy took it with great calm. She reminded me that although she had been born in New York, she grew up in Paris, land of liberal lifestyles, and held that the provincial narrow-mindedness of Americans was repugnant to the French.

Wow! I thought. I wanted to scream with relief. But I stayed cool, just like Mom. Just like the French.

Most Popular

The very next night, I invited my girlfriend over to spend some time with me and Mom. She had also come to Fort Lauderdale to visit her family for the holidays, and I was looking forward to spending a lot of time together in our hometown. We made plans to go out, but first I wanted her to stop by. I was brushing my teeth when I heard a shriek. I ran to the front door and stood there wide-eyed, watching my mom chase my girlfriend down the street, yelling such provincial insults as “You dirty lesbian! You are not going to make my daughter a lesbian!” Apparently, reality had set in for my mom. So much for open-minded French liberalism.

After that initial incident, Mom did get to know my girlfriends through the years. She liked them. She laughed with them. She was fond of them. But she drew the line at me viewing my serious, long-term relationships as marriages. “Only men and women can be married,” she’d say. When I mentioned wanting to have kids with my then-partner, Mom was adamant that children were the realm of heterosexual couples.

This was ironic, coming from her. My mom — who’d had two ex-husbands, including my father, a nonparticipating, non-present con artist throughout my childhood — raised us kids alone.

a photo shows diana nyad with her mother Lucy

Nyad with her mother, Lucy. Since coming out to her mother more than 50 years ago, being gay has been a cornerstone of Nyad feeling free, whole and joyful.

Courtesy Diana Nyad

Years later, after I had moved to Los Angeles, Mom was visiting, and my partner and I went out to a party, leaving her alone at our home. An earthquake hit, and I rushed, heart pounding, back home. I knew Mom would have been terrified. The quake turned out to be minor, but Mom and I lay in her bed for several hours, talking and sharing private aspects of our lives. Opening, softening, does happen at moments of potential crisis. That night, she offered her apology: “The truth is, I only wish I had known the respect and the happiness in my two marriages that you have known with your partners.”

From that moment on, Mom was more accepting and even supportive. She evolved.

On an all-lesbian cruise not long ago, I met a couple, about my age, who had brought one of their mothers. They told me she had quite a story to tell, so I sat with her on the upper deck one night.

She started by saying she loved her recently deceased husband very much. But there was no doubt that the love of her life was her childhood best friend, who was also deceased. They had married two brothers, securing their path to always being together. They built homes next door to each other. On movie outings, the men would sit in the two outside seats, and the women would hold hands under their coats in the two middle seats.

Now, on this cruise, she was witnessing 2,000 women holding hands at dinner, hugging freely in the pool, salsa-dancing into the night. This mother, who’d had no inkling she could openly build a life with the woman she loved, now had a daughter who could marry the love of her life.

It seems to me that gay rights, gay life, have evolved in this country in the space of a generation, faster than the long-fought campaigns of women’s or civil rights movements that accelerated LGBTQ+ rights. Gay marriage, now legal in all 50 states, was ushered through by young voters. It is de rigueur these days for television sitcoms and Broadway shows to include and celebrate gay characters. In many circles, though certainly not nationwide, nobody bats an eye when a woman introduces her partner as her wife.

Since my coming out more than 50 years ago to my now late mother, being gay has been a cornerstone of my feeling free, whole, joyful. Could it be that my career as a sports broadcaster was hampered by my being gay in that era? I’ll never know. And I don’t care. Great comfort comes with being entirely true to oneself.

We gay brothers and sisters may be grateful for our evolved era, yet we are painfully aware of backward and hateful views and legislation setbacks. We must collectively insist that the nation’s values of “all men created equal” apply to every single individual. The pursuit of happiness for all.

We will never go back. We’re forever loud and proud.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.

%{postComment}%

Diana Nyad’s memoir is titled Find a Way (Knopf, 2015). She leads, with Bonnie Stoll, a walking initiative called EverWalk. She is a speaker, writer, linguist, and the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage.