Chaz Bono Quotes

I think for a long time I wasn't really out to myself growing up in Omaha, Neb., to a Catholic conservative family. It took me a while to come out to myself, and not long after that, I came out to them. I think that it really couldn't have been a better experience. They were all immediately supportive.

You know, I'm gay and I grew up being aware of that at a very early age, in a fairly repressed family.

I can't speak for other people, but for me, I feel like gone are the days that you need to come out of a closet. I never felt like I was in a closet. I never did. I always felt comfortable with who I am and the decisions I made.

My mom doesn't get the whole gay thing, but she loves me.

People who were close to me - family and friends - they knew about my sexuality.

I was raised thinking I'd burn in hell for being gay, but I didn't have a choice. It's just who I am.

My mother and father could not handle even me being gay. We never talked about it, really.

I never talked about homosexuality with my family. After I was 18, they know everything, but I never talk; it was like an information but in silence. I start to talk when I was 32, it was good for me - it was like a liberation. I'm talking about a love story. I'm not talking about sex because love is love.

I really didn't talk about my sexuality until I wrote my autobiography.

I was never physically abused, but when I came out to my parents late in life, when I was 27, they definitely had an intervention.

I'm just going to jump and say:hey Mom, Dad, I'm gay, What's for dessert?

My dad was a very conservative Republican businessman, so obviously I considered it a problem when I realized I was a lesbian.

I came out to myself when I was about 15 or 16, and to my parents when I was 18. When you come out to your parents, that's when it's properly official.

I never thought to myself, I'm going to grow up and fall in love with a man or I'm going to fall in love with a woman because my mother is a lesbian.

When I was 16, I knew I was gay. I loved a lot. But I lived as a straight guy, because there are people in my town who don't understand my story. I never told. I never wanted to show what was inside my heart.

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.

My mother thought me being gay was a death sentence.

Looking back, one of the things I love most about my mom was that she never, ever relented. She stuck to her guns right up until the end. She wasn't abusive, but she was never that thrilled that I was gay.

As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are.

My mom knew early on that I was gay, and she knew that I had to get out of the ghetto.

I was never honest. My father died, and I had never said to him, 'I'm gay.' I knew what I was, but I had to pretend not to be that to avoid the beatings.

I've been gay since the day I was born.

I feel very fortunate that while I had a little bit of personal panic or maybe a little internal struggle as a teenager, really coming to terms with the fact that I was gay, and also knowing I was going to have to tell my family. And, how was that going to affect things? And would it affect things? And ultimately, it did not.

You must come out. Come out... to your parents... I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth!

I didn't have a coming out moment.