Elle Van Dermark had been married to a man for 11 years before she realized she was attracted to women. Her realization began in 1996 when she was working at Home Depot and a woman walked up to her and asked her out on a date. The day had felt like a “rollercoaster ride” Van Dermark said, adding that it motivated her to seek counseling. After several months of counseling, Van Dermark knew she was lesbian and filed for divorce. But she had questions: What did it mean to be lesbian? What did it mean having been in a heterosexual marriage with two children? Van Dermark wanted to better understand her own and others’ experience with coming out in midlife.

At the time, Van Dermark never would have imagined that she would write a master’s thesis on the subject, but she did, interviewing 10 women who had been married to men and who had come out later in life as lesbians. A few weeks ago, Van Dermark presented her thesis findings at the Diversionary Theatre to a near full house.

“Today, I will talk about some of the similarities in these women’s stories, the challenges they faced and why this phenomenon is not phenomenal but rather ordinary and yet not reflected in the literature – either popular or academic,” said Van Dermark, who studied History at San Diego State University.

“Why,” asked Van Dermark, “do some women reach midlife before they realize, accept, or acknowledge same-sex desire?”

There are different reasons for different women, she said, including a woman’s background, age and when her marriage began.

For example, Sandy, one of Van Dermark’s study participants, born in 1944, knew she liked girls as early as the fourth grade but stayed in the closet until she was 44, several years after her 21-year marriage with a man ended. Van Dermark read from her thesis what Sandy said:

“My husband left me, much to my chagrin. It was the biggest blessing. He was a nice enough guy [but] we didn’t click and how do you click when one of you is straight the other gay?” Sandy said.

Sandy, however, was torn between staying in the closet and coming out.

“I was afraid, because my children didn’t know; my parents didn’t know. I thought, ‘you know, there’s gonna be a lot of rejection. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.’ In reality there wasn’t a lot of rejection, but it was a fear. And I’d hidden this secret of mine for so long,” Sandy said.

Fear is one reason many women don’t come out until midlife, Van Dermark said, adding that another issue these women face is language.

The women Van Dermark interviewed had problems finding the words to describe their same-sex desire. A few embraced the word “lesbian,” but most rejected it.

“Once they figured it out, they were all over it. ‘I have a name. I am happy. I am taking it.’” Van Dermark said.

Most, however, preferred not to label themselves.

“‘It’s not that I am a lesbian. I just happened to fall in love with another woman,’” many of the women told Van Dermark.

“This between and betwixt thing with language is so interesting to me, because as a society, that’s one of those words that’s on the periphery. We don’t want to claim that label. As a society we push it to the back. And that stigma really informs how women feel about their relationships and what it means to be a lesbian,” she said.

Although the women did not come out until later in life for different reasons, they all felt empowered afterward, Van Dermark said.

“Women who come out; they are empowered. They have come into their own. They know who they are. They are stronger. They are more certain. They create happier lives,” she said.

SDSU History Lecturer Frank Nobiletti, who sat on Van Dermark’s thesis committee, said her research shed new light on the subject.

“Your research unseats the one-sided dominant narrative that people have about when you come out in midlife. People think, ‘Oh, how sad these people are, coming out in midlife.’ And you turned it on its head, and you showed that coming out in midlife is not a sad thing but an empowering thing,” he said.

After the presentation, Deborah Ivanovich, one of Van Dermark’s study participants thanked her.

“I want to thank you for allowing me to be one of the participants that you interviewed. It was very interesting to go back and relive that time. My life finally made sense and I have been going forward ever since then,” Ivanovich said.

Van Dermark said that life finally makes sense to her too. “The event was a sort of culmination of my own coming out process and search to learn more about it,” she said.

Van Dermark plans to turn her research into a book, and this fall, she will be teaching a class called Women in American History at Grossmont College.