We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melisa Raney. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melisa below.

Hi Melisa, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My co-host, Alli, and I started The Lesbian Chronicles Podcast back in 2019 because we saw a need within our own community. We both came out as gay later in life after long-term marriages to men. We met in a therapist-led support group for late in life lesbians that was truly a lifesaver for both of us. We were in a room of people from vastly different backgrounds, but we shared the same pain, fears and uncertainty of what coming out later in life carried. Alli and I formed a fast friendship with a few other women in the group and found that the power we found in each other… sharing our stories and fears… was a space that was truly needed within the LGBTQ+ community. We realized that a lot of people come out later, but they felt too shameful to share their own stories. We decided to create The Lesbian Chronicles Podcast to talk about our own experiences and allow others to do the same. We’ve now published more than 270 episodes — covering topics about dating, lesbian relationship dynamics, mental health, co-parenting and so much more. Our most notable guest was Rosie O’Donnell! (Episode 219)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The Lesbian Chronicles podcast was developed to help women coming out later in life navigate the hardships that come with divorce, co-parenting and being a newly out woman. Alli and I share our own personal experiences with leaving long-term marriages and dating. We also encourage and offer tips on how to cultivate their own community of queer women because coming out goes far beyond just dating women… It’s about finding the support we lacked and building friendships with strong, like-minded women. This is a labor of love for us both and we truly enjoy helping people push through the hard stuff to get to the freedom of being out and proud.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Our podcast was truly built on social media and word of mouth. Over the years we have spent very little on advertising and instead focused on utilizing social media like Instagram, Reddit and TikTok.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

We definitely had to pivot during COVID. We went from always recording episodes in person to recording via Zoom. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it opened up our eyes to doing Zoom interviews allowing us to interview people around the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lesbianchroniclespodcast.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesbianchronicles/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leschronicles1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lesbianchronicles8980
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lesbian-chronicles-coming-out-later-in-life/id1468550568

  https://open.spotify.com/show/72DJhKQMVHlGI17jnksEc6