The 6 Stages of “Coming Out,” about the Cass Model of Identity Development
My friend, Jan Skousen, sent me Charlie Bird’s book, Expanding the Borders of Zion a Latter-day Saint Perspective on LGBTQ Inclusion, for Christmas in 2022. I’m so glad she did. I’ve learned a lot from Charlie Bird about myself, even though he’s a guy. Thanks Charlie. On page 132 through about 152 of the book, Charlie writes about the Cass Model of Identity Development. This is research done by doctor Vivianne Cass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_identity_model.
Charlie writes, “The model consists of six stages of LGBT identity development, known as ‘the six stages of coming out’. “While not every LGBTQ person follows this model exactly, learning about the stages of coming out [helps…understand that there is sort of a behavior pattern in the following stages.]”
As I (Kris) read through the six stages, I noticed myself in most of these patterns in the Cass Model of Identity Development stages throughout my adolescence and adult life. This stage identification identifies me better than I could identify myself, so I’m happy to understand there is a pattern in my behavior. I paraphrase the stages to identify myself in each stage.
For instance:
Stage One— Identity Confusion: A person suspects they may have same sex attraction. They feel different from their peers, confused and conflicted about their feelings about the same sex.
When I was a teenager, I noticed I had a crush on or fell in love with certain movie actresses, Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet. I thought it was strange; I was confused, but it didn’t alarm me too much. There were girls I liked better than other girls, but that’s normal. I was a tomboy and more interested in sports than boys. I avoided dances because they was so awkward. I had no interest in dating boys. They were my team-mates not my dates, more like my brothers, not my boyfriends or lovers. If I ever had a sleepover with some friends, which was rare, there was generally some girl I wanted to put my arm around and hold all night. It seemed normal but it was confusing. However, I craved intimacy the intimacy I never had, and felt shame for longing for a relationship I did not ever get before college.
Denial— is a substage of Stage One
I knew very little about sexual confusion, I denied my feelings by ignoring them.
Stage Two— Identity Comparison: a person begins to accept the possibility of being predominantly attracted to the same sex and often feels alienated by those around them. They grieve the loss of the life they thought they might have with marriage and children. At this stage they might engage in same-sex romantic behaviors but it seems like a normal expression of friendship. They do what they can to appear heterosexual.
For me, I felt alienated because I wanted to share my feelings with others but could not. I was same-sex romantic, but that didn’t really come out until I was an adult. Sometimes I felt romance toward some women in college and after. I had romantic feelings for some girls around me, but I had no idea what was happening. I tried not to show it, to keep it secret. This was in high school. It wasn’t until I was in my 60s that I recognized I was “flirting” with my new friends, and “dating,” going places, horsing around and being silly, and giddy, being so excited there was someone I might be friends with. Sometimes I was and still am embarrassed about it.
Stage Three— Identity Tolerance: This is the time a person starts to admit they are probably gay and begin to look for others like them and try on various labels as they would a coat. They move away from the term “same sex attraction,” to the word, “gay”.
I did not go through some of this stage until I was in college when I found my girlfriend and we became inseparable. I was giddy around her and so excited and so infatuated. I had such a crush on her waiting to see her between classes, etc. Soon, we started planning our days together. We started to date. We became exclusive and became emotionally and physically addicted to each other. This is when we started sleeping together.
I didn’t know there was a name for my attraction to my girlfriend in college. I eventually heard something about same-sex attraction and decided,” Well, that must be what is happening to me.” No one talked about sexual dysphoria back in the 70s. I accepted that I had same sex attraction, but I never used the word “gay” or “lesbian,” as a label. I continued to mask my feelings, and kept it to myself, though others suspected. I was naïve and did not know what “coming out” was or much else.
Because I never did “come out” except to the bishop before I was married, I did not go through this stage until after my marriage. I didn’t understand that I was going through stages until I started studying books and understanding my situation when I was in my 60’s. I had a family to raise and I didn’t need any sense of curiosity to distract me. Unlike my situation, others at this stage realized something was different about them, then decide they were gay. They were what is called the “gay adolescent” and start trying on other people like they might try on a coat, in other words, they start dating. The gay adolescent is just that, innocent, never dated before, immature, inexperienced, never had a chance to mature into or through the life cycle of a relationship like those heterosexuals who date. Because they are immature and inexperienced, they can put themselves in great danger during this stage.
I dated a few guys in college, but they were like my brothers, kissing them was like kissing a sucker, a type of fish. I had lots of friends, acquaintances but no intimate relationship with boys or girls until college. I had my one-and-only girlfriend in college, then I married my one-and-only boyfriend, Allen. I had no other close relationships to try on. And, yes some parts of me were still innocent, immature and inexperienced, and other parts of me were not.
Before we knew what was going on with Allen. His patterns of behavior confused me. I was mystified and angry at many of his choices, his strange addictive patterns. When he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, BDP, I realized he was not going to get better, and I fell into despair. I began to look for comfort outside of our marriage. I wanted and needed the comfort only a woman can give. I knew how that felt. I didn’t realize it at first, but the one I really wanted was my first love, Lynne. I needed her love and acceptance and the comfort I wasn’t getting anywhere else.
Stage 4— Identity Acceptance: The person starts accepting self
In my case, I began exploring the why. Why am I like this? I needed answers. And, what the world and others say about the subject, something I had purposely avoided. I didn’t need any distractions, not yet, anyway. I needed more of something that I was not getting.
I started looking for women to “try on,” though I didn’t realize exactly that was what I was doing. I started looking for women to “date.” I missed any type of dating stage when I was younger. I started playing sports after many years of marriage. I was tired of not being myself. I was tired of not playing sports, something I had done since I was old enough to run and hold a ball in my hand. I needed a team; I needed connection again. I needed women in my life, women to be intimate with. So, I started playing volleyball and softball on community teams. What I feared happened, I began meeting women I was interested in “trying on.” I invited them to go do things with me and my kids, or just go out to lunch or meet somewhere, for whatever. I didn’t really care what we did. I needed intimacy in my life and I wasn’t getting it. I just wanted to be with them, to know them, to be emotionally intimate. It really didn’t have anything to do with sex, though it sometimes felt that way. But that was a mistranslation. It was all emotional lack. Allen’s emotional energy was so strong it was overpowering. Sometimes I felt consumed by him gobbled up. I needed feminine energy. I needed their energy and to talk to somebody, not about my problems but about them and share myself. I “came out” to a select few but that was not always productive, and sometimes dangerous for any kind of intimacy, and I invariably lost their friendship. I had made covenants to be faithful to my husband, and I intended to keep those sacred covenants I had made with God. But I needed intimacy with women. Period! I placed myself in a vulnerable place. But at that time, I didn’t really care. I was at the point of not caring about many things except my kids. I was worn out by the roller-coaster ride we were on. I wanted a break.
This is the stage I was in when I met Pollyanna. She and I both needed a friend to care for, one who cared back. I was so excited to have a friend who would go and do and be with me. I was so giddy and twitterpated, so excited to have an intimate friend. I was excited, so ecstatic about having a friend again. Pollyanna and I were so heavily involved in each other’s lives that if felt like we had done more together in those six or so years than some people do in their lifetime. It was like we were going steady. I loved it and I loved her. God sent her to me to get me through this stage of my life.
I have already written about Pollyanna and me in I Can’t Miss the Encore (Encore), my memoir, my book I released on Amazon, September of 2026. Go here to find it on my website: www.kristineday.com or Buy Encore HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Miss-Encore-Straight-Rainbow-ebook/dp/B0FNPPFBCY.
Stage Five of Identity— Pride: At this stage of coming out, identity pride is sparked by the need to publicize one’s orientation. The person wants everyone to know who they are, that they are “gay.” This intense pride phase of their lives is when they embrace themselves and other LGBTQ people. When they overcome shame, change their pronoun and throw themselves into pride parades and rainbow flags, where they choose their family from other LGBTQ people, and sometimes abandon their real family. This is when they tell everyone they’re gay and they’re proud of it.
I wasn’t proud of my gayness, but I wasn’t ashamed of it either. I didn’t shout it out to the world nor rebel. Well, I had my own insignificant rebellion, which only I was aware of. Any shame I had eventually left and was not an issue anymore, as you can read about in my book, Encore. Eventually I didn’t have a problem with being what others called “gay”. This is the stage where I had great compassion for my gay brothers and sisters, because I understood some of their pain. I understood some of the longings and the shame and all that goes with being gay. I understand the pain of those who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who don’t feel accepted and know or fear they must leave the faith they love and have grown up in because they can’t be gay and active in the church. Being gay is the most complex of all social issues. I have deep feelings of empathy for those people like me because there seems to be no answer, no resolution to their orientation, only a hope of reconciliation sometime, somewhere, and usually, anger. “Their anger masks their pain,” writes Charlie Bird.
Friends, I understand your pain because I have felt it most of my life. I have learned that pain comes from love. I learned that the deepest love there is in the world is painful. I learned that the love of Jesus Christ is the most painful kind of love. That may seem like a paradox, but it isn’t. I believe the LGBTQ community has a corner on love. Sometimes their love may seem distorted but their passion and the depth of their love is so deep that it has no end. And that love is pain! I have felt His love and I know it is pain and ecstasy. (Read my experience I wrote about this subject in my second awakening with the Savior, Jesus Christ on page 117 of my book, Encore.)
Stage Six is Identity Synthesis: Years after I left Lynne, during one of the many gay pride days and rallies and marches, my girlfriend, Lynne and her wife attended, they looked at each other and asked the question, “What are we doing here? This is dumb. Let’s go home.” They didn’t need to fight anymore, they had synthesized. They had passed through the identity pride phase and moved on. They just wanted to go home and live their lives together in peace and harmony. They didn’t care if anyone knew they were gay. They didn’t need to prove a point anymore.
I did not reach this stage consciously, because I hit menopause first. At age 53, before realizing this stage, something hit me. It felt like a disease. It was dis-ease. Though it was not easy, as I eased into middle age, I eased out of any type of same sex attraction. I did not know that my passion for friends and intimacy would leave me. I thought I would be passionate forever. However—it left. It left and took all my passions with it. What the heck? It’s true. This was a curse and a blessing. I was glad I no longer craved intimacy from women like I had, but I also lost my passions and zest for life. Who knew? No one told me this part of maturation. My need to know everything about, intimately with, care deeply about, envelope myself around, merge with, become one with, try them on, become one, kiss, hug, play footsie with, play anything with, eat with, spend all day with, sleep all night with, hold all night, comfort and be comforted by, love and cherish, admire and adore, all just left…gone, gone, all gone, gradually at first, then,* Shazaaam*, *Baaam*, it was all gone. Got it? And it is still gone! Oh, where, oh where did it go?
Do I want it back? Well, yes, and no. That desire and longing have plagued me long enough, but can’t I please have the passion I used to have about everything else back?
It looks as though that it is not to be. Looks like I have to sacrifice whatever gave me the zest and passion for life, for some rest, rest in God, rest from pain. I am in the Identity Synthesis stage today. It’s a relief, really. I should be happy about it. Whatever else I am, I’m grateful for the gift I had because the struggle I have had made me who I am today. And I like being me.
Thank you, Charlie Bird, for introducing me to these Cass Identity Model stages. I know you did not create them, but you shared them with me through your self-published book, Expanding the Borders of Zion: A Latter-day Saint Perspective on LGBTQ Inclusion, and it has made all the difference. I finally get, me. Thanks, my gorgeous friend, Jan Skousen, for sending me Charlie’s book!
After reading about these identity stages, I realized that I had to go through these stages as an adult. I recognized that I had gone through many of the steps as an adult even those steps I “skipped” because of getting married. When I met Pollyanna, it was as if we were both emotionally 3 years old, so full of life and love and excitement and discovery and passion about life and each other. (Pollyanna is a pseudonym for a real-live character in my book, Encore.) We matured together from three-year-old selves to adolescence, then through the teenage years and all that emotional experience that many teens get when they’re, well, teenagers. We then matured on through high school age and into adulthood, then we continued to mature relationship wise to where we finally grew up and became mature women. Okay, I can’t speak for you, Pollyanna, but that’s what happened to me. It took me a while, but I finally grew up.
I could not have matured without you, Pollyanna. You came when I needed you. You took the risk. You put yourself in a precarious place when I was vulnerable and you kept me safe and you kept yourself safe. Your values and your virtue remained strong long enough for me to mature from a toddler to an adolescent then into womanhood. For reasons I don’t understand, I was stuck in those ages from age 3 on and could not progress until you came along. You did not tolerate nor accept my identity crisis, which made my little girl angry I felt like you didn’t stop to listen to my whole story, which also made me mad, but you stuck by me and distracted me long enough until all my longings and desires for a constant female companion left me. Those years spent with your friendship saved me from leaving my husband. We were meant to meet each other at this time of my life. I know God sent you to me. He didn’t let me leave you on the mountain like I wanted to. (See Encore.) God showed me in a very profound way that you were sent by God, just for me.