{"podcast":{"title":"Coming Out & Beyond | Support for Women Questioning Their Sexuality","slug":"coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256","podcast_index_feed_id":3916256,"rss_url":"https://rss.pdrl.fm/61288f/feeds.captivate.fm/comingoutandbeyond/","website_url":"https://annemariezanzal.com/coming-out-stories-beyond-podcast/","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/baa17cb3-0a45-417c-abd2-7bef950f96a4/Z7j4qj8k47aF8JnsB9FSHKaU.png","author":"Anne-Marie Zanzal 1ac1f670-c17c-11f0-806a-ef1502adef07","episode_count":189,"summary":"Coming Out & Beyond is a podcast for women questioning their sexuality later in life — no matter where you are or what your life looks like right now. Maybe you're sitting with a question you've never said out loud. Maybe you fell for a woman or something woke up recently, everything shifted and you can't put it back. Maybe you're untangling years of religious conditioning or compulsory heterosexuality and trying to figure out who you actually are underneath all of that. Whatever brought you here — this space is for you. Hosted by Anne-Marie Zanzal — Yale Divinity School graduate, ordained progressive minister, grief counselor, and LGBTQ+ coach who came out in midlife — Coming Out & Beyond offers real conversations, emotional clarity, and grounded support for women coming out after 30, 40, 50, and beyond. We talk openly about late bloomer experiences, being married with kids and questioning, single and not finding someone who is right for us, catalyst relationships, faith deconstruction, divorce, grief, identity shifts in midlife, and learning to trust the voice inside you that’s getting louder. This isn’t about rushing labels or blowing up your life. It’s about integration. Self-…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T12:21:24.406773+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256"},"episode":{"title":"The Surprise Truth About Sapphic Sex: What Nobody Tells You Before You Get Here!","slug":"the-surprise-truth-about-sapphic-sex-what-nobody-tells-you-before-you-get-here","published_at":"2026-05-08T04:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256/the-surprise-truth-about-sapphic-sex-what-nobody-tells-you-before-you-get-here","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256","url":"https://annemariezanzal.com/coming-out-stories-beyond-podcast/","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/b0a155e2-b3d5-4f8a-972d-fc63fc908622.mp3","summary":"A woman in our community wrote in and asked: \"What if my lesbian sex experience doesn't live up to the hype? Does that make me not gay?\" That question deserved more than a one-line answer. So Anne-Marie brought in two of her favorite humans to tell the truth — the kind of truth nobody hands you before you get here. Her wife Tonda McKay has been out for forty years and brings the long view: what the community looked like before midlife women started arriving in big numbers, and what she's watched shift since. Co-coach Barb Rowlandson came out later in life and survived midlife lesbian dating to tell the tale. Together with Anne-Marie, they go where most podcasts won't. In this episode, the three of them talk about: 🌈Why the lesbian sex fantasy is so powerful — and why the reality is more complicated than the imagination 🌈Where the U-Haul joke actually comes from (hint: it's economics, microaggressions, and brain chemistry, not just feelings) 🌈Moving fast in a new relationship — when it works, when it doesn't, and how to tell which is which 🌈Why moving toward something is different from moving away from something 🌈Internalized homophobia, shame, and how it shows up in the bedroom — for newly out and long-out women 🌈What it's like to date someone who is brand new when you've been out for decades 🌈How the conversation around later-in-life lesbians has shifted in the last ten years 🌈Why \"we send our representative\" on the first few dates — and what happens when the real person shows up 🌈Butch, femme, and the freedom of having no rules 🌈The talking. So much talking. This is a warm, funny, honest conversation between three women who love each other and who are not interested in pretending lesbian relationships are easier, simpler, or more magical than they actually are. They…","meta_description":"A woman in our community wrote in and asked: \"What if my lesbian sex experience doesn't live up to the hype? Does that make me not gay?\" That question des…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3550,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256/episodes/the-surprise-truth-about-sapphic-sex-what-nobody-tells-you-before-you-get-here/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/coming-out-beyond-support-for-women-questioning-their-sexuality-3916256/the-surprise-truth-about-sapphic-sex-what-nobody-tells-you-before-you-get-here.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}