My Coming Out Story Spans 26 Years – Dr LuLu, growing up Queer in Nigeria

First off, I don’t use the phrase ‘coming out’ anymore.

I use ‘invited in’, or simply ‘sharing’.  

I don’t believe that I was ever in a closet. I have always been myself. 

My second TEDx talk is actually about that. 

But as for my coming out story, it spans across 26years!

I first shared about my sexuality with my Nigerian father at the age of 16 after graduating from high school. 

I attended an all girls high school and that was when I first realized that I like girls as well as boys. 

I am intensely attracted to women, especially if they are nicely endowed. 😉 

Being raised Catholic in Nigeria, one of the most homophobic countries in the world was very tough. 

I was raised to believe that any thing gay or homosexual was bad, and we were doomed to hell. 

And today, even as several members of my family are in the queer space, it’s still seldom discussed. 

My beloved father brushed it off and told me it was only “a phase”.

One of the comment mistakes parents make is believe that being queer is transitory and thus most of them never affirm their kids. 

I went about my business believing my dad was right. But as I grew up, I realized more and more that just because a great majority of folks believe something to be “right”, doesn’t make it “true”.

As a life coach working exclusively with parents of queer kids today, the hardest part of my job is getting parents to remove themselves from the equation. 

When we make it about ourselves, about what our friends and family will say, about the world and it’s judgement, or about the “potential dangers to our kids for being gay”, we inadvertently miss the mark, and leave our kids out. 

As I got older, I never stopped being attracted to women. I did my due diligence and married a man, bore three fine children, but my attraction remained. 

It was only at the age of 42, after my first marriage ended that I finally decided to live in authenticity. That’s when I decided to stop living for others. To start living for myself. 

Soon after that I met my now ex-wife, and the rest as they say is history. 

We met in January in North Carolina at a friends house who also happened to be her sister. 

I didn’t say much to her, but I never forgot her face. She went back home to Maryland where she lived. 

Later that year in March, on my birthday weekend, (which I share with her sister), she returned for her sisters 50th birthday celebration. 

I took a chance and chatted her up. We ended up exchanging phone numbers. 

The next day, my actual birthday, I sent her a text message that read, “Why am I thinking about you while having dinner with my family?”.

Her response was, “Because I am also thinking about you”. 😍🤗