While driving to see her then-girlfriend, she heard an episode of the podcast Making Gay History about Jean O’Leary, a former nun who organized the first meeting of lesbian and gay-rights activists at the White House on March 26, 1977, and co-founded National Coming Out Day, first marked in 1988.Īfter listening to that episode, Helayne, 18, began to come out to friends, family and classmates.
