Hide and Speak: A Coming Out Guide

Coming out is easier with this step-by-step guide. Here is practical help with the coming-out process for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people-and anyone else with a story to tell. Find positive ways to: Come out to yourself . Create a circle of supporters . Deal with family . Choose whether to stay "in the closet" at school or work . Live proud, free and balanced-no matter what happens. Hide and Speak guides readers on a journey that can change their lives.

"Kitt Cherry takes us on a life-changing journey into those hidden places where our secrets lie waiting in the shadows. With examples that inspire and inform, she helps us understand the difference between secrets that kill and secrets that give life. How much suffering I could have avoided for myself and others if only I had read this book before blundering out of my own darkness into the light. This handbook for `coming out' is not just for sexual minorities but for all people who struggle with secrets and their consequences.

And don't skip over the exercises at the end of each chapter. They work!"

--Rev. Dr. Mel White, Founder of Soulforce and author of Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right,

"A deeply honest, perceptive book. Kittredge Cherry helps us all to understand that the journey into the fullness of humanity is identical with the journey into God. She comes out of her closet and calls her readers to do the same, no matter what their closets might be."

--Bishop John Shelby Spong, Author of The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate in Search of the God of Love

"In HIDE AND SPEAK, Kittredge Cherry achieved a wise, witty and wonderful balance, honoring human secrets yet at the same time teaching us why, when, and how to reveal them to others. This is a helpful guidebook, reader-friendly and timelessly relevant for people in all stages and walks of life--but especially for LGBT people who are thinking about opening their closet doors."

--Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Author of Omnigender and Sensuous Spirituality

"Coming out is the heroic deed that every gay person has to accomplish. A lifetime of happiness awaits. It helps to do it well. It helps to have a guide. Hide and Speak is just that guide. Kitt Cherry gives sensible and wise directions for the lesbian and gay hero journey."

--Toby Johnson, Psychotherapist and author of The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell; former editor, White Crane: A Journal of Gay Men's Spirituality

"The road to oneness with the authentic self is a process all of us must consciously undertake. Kitt Cherry has written a masterful book outlining that passage to maturity. The human spirit aspires to intimacy with self, with our friends and, especially, our lover and, ultimately, with God. Kitt gives us directions for that journey. Her book is replete with extraordinary psychological and spiritual insights."

--John McNeill, Psychotherapist and author of The Church and the Homosexual