In 2018, after being friends for more than a decade, Emma and Sam were sitting in Sam’s basement in Sale, Manchester, having a cup of tea. Emma had been living with Sam for a few months and called herself “the lesbian in the loft”.
“I’ve been thinking” , said Sam, “about how you introduce yourself as ’the lesbian in the loft’ every time anyone comes over who you don’t know. It’s like you are outing yourself each and every time’
“When you’re gay” said Emma. ‘You don’t have to come out once, you have to come out so.many.bloody.times. it’s tedious”
“We should make a podcast about coming out” said Sam “about how it’s such a different experience for everyone, how each time can be different, how it can sometimes feel like a celebration and other times feel really painful”
“Nah” said Emma, ”No one will listen to that”!
Luckily Sam took no notice and persuaded Emma that, brilliant presenter as she is, she should host the podcast and Sam would do all the other stuff to get it out into the world.
In September, Coming Out Stories was born and since then, more than 100,000 people have listened, Sam and Emma have spoken to people from across the LGBTQ+ community and heard stories from the UK, USA, India, Israel, Barbados, Taiwan, South Africa, Namibia, Puerto Rico and Poland!
In 2019, Sam and Emma were approached by Jessica Kingsley publishers and in January 2021 Coming Out Stories the book was published!
Now you have heard our story, we would LOVE to hear YOUR story. Please do get in touch and you could feature on the podcast and of course, please share the podcast with all your friends and families and especially those who are NOT LGBTQ+ Our mission is to try and make everyone understand that LOVE, ALWAYS, IS JUST LOVE!