Take Me For What I Am: Em on Coming Out, Losing Her Mom, and Becoming the Parent She Needed

For The Hayters: The Stories We Survive · Jun 7, 2026 · 45m

TW: outing, homophobia, sudden death of a parent, complicated grief, body image.

Em was outed at 13 — before she ever got to say the words herself — and spent years being told she was too young to know who she was. This episode is about what it took to stop hiding: coming out for real on her own terms, finding her wife Paige, and building a family the way they wanted it. It's also about loss. In 2024 she lost her mom suddenly, with a thousand things still unsaid between them, right as she was stepping into motherhood herself. We talk about grief that doesn't come with a clean story, the voice…