After decades of marriage and motherhood, some middle-aged women are spending hundreds of dollars to join online lesbian support groups led by a “coming out coach” to guide them through the process of coming out late in life, according to a New York Times report.
Coming out coach Anne-Marie Zanzal charges $400 for a private online membership designed to help “late-blooming” women, some of whom are still married to their longtime husbands, navigate what she calls “sexual identity transitions.”
“She helped me see that leaving my marriage wasn’t selfish. It was honest. And my kids are better for it,” a testimonial from Zanzal’s website reads.
Zanzal also offers a separate 16-week program called “This Authentic Life,” which includes live group coaching, individual coaching and access to her “Authentically Us” online community.
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According to Zanzal’s website, the program helps LGBTQ+ women unpack heavy questions regarding their sexuality alongside others navigating similar experiences.
“It is not too late, and you are not too late. Come as you are, and let us walk this part of the road together,” Zanzal’s website reads.
“We were looking for women who came to this the way we did, later in life and carrying a whole history, who would never ask us to explain any of it.”
Zanzal, who holds a master’s degree in divinity from Yale Divinity School, began her “coming out coaching” business in 2018. She came out at age 52 after being married to a man for nearly 30 years and raising four children with him.
“I help women come home to themselves — with clarity, self-kindness, and community — so they can live authentically without abandoning the lives and relationships that matter to them,” Zanzal writes on her coaching site.
“That is why I built this work. Not because I have a degree in it — though I do … But because I lived it, in the dark, for a very long time.”
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During the support meetings, women share personal updates with the group and their coming-out coach. One woman, for example, discussed preparing to tell her son that she was a lesbian over a beer, according to a profile of Zanzal’s business published in the Times on Wednesday.
In an interview with the outlet, one of Zanzal’s clients named Shelly said she worried that coming out to her family would upend her “perfectly good” dynamic.
Shelly said Zanzal helped her understand that any unhappiness her children felt about her sexuality transition was “likely to fade with time and be only a part of their story,” whereas, her own pain could be permanent if she continued to conceal her identity.
Podcast host Ben Ferguson told Fox News Digital he found the messages being sent to women through this coaching service “outrageous.”
“What’s especially outrageous is the suggestion that a mother’s unhappiness is permanent, but her children’s pain will somehow just fade away,” Ferguson said in a statement.
“Children aren’t disposable characters in their parents’ journey of self-discovery. Marriage involves commitment, and parenting requires sacrifice,” he added.
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Ferguson argued that the business model — which includes $150 one-hour “clarity calls” with a coming out coach and $77 self-paced courses, including the “Maybe I am Not Straight Course” — is “deeply disturbing” and appears to monetize women’s personal struggles.
“This isn’t about being gay or straight,” he said. “It’s about charging people hundreds of dollars to navigate decisions that could tear their families apart, with seemingly zero accountability for the damage left behind. That’s not compassion or empowerment. That’s opportunism disguised as counseling.”
Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff offered a different perspective, arguing that Zanzal’s “community-driven” coming-out coaching reflects a broader cultural shift in how people seek support.
“There is so much more freedom and language around sexuality and what makes a modern relationship that it isn’t surprising older women are looking at that and realizing they never had space to ask some of these deep questions of themselves,” he told Fox News Digital.
Just 1% of LGBTQ+ women come out at 50 or older, according to a 2024 Gallup survey, and the number of teenage girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual has plunged in the last four years, a new study reveals.
Zanzal did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.