LGBT Oral History 123: Maria Warren

Maria Warren grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, in a religious family with both her blood-related and adopted siblings. Maria was very involved in her mother’s church, attending Sunday services, Bible study, and choir rehearsal, but realized that she was gay around age 12. In order to escape her feelings, Maria immersed herself in religion and married her boyfriend after graduating from high school, but her marriage was fraught with tension and ended in divorce. In this interview, Maria discusses the issues in her previous marriage, her relationships with her three children, and the importance PFLAG [formerly stood for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays] played in her coming out process. She also describes her experience of couples counseling with her ex-husband, who eventually outed Maria’s sexuality to most of her family, and the LGBT community in Baltimore that she relied on when the two separated. Today, Maria is living her self-described “dream” life with her partner in York, Pennsylvania, and hopes that by participating in the LGBT History Project, she can help prevent other LGBT individuals from experiencing the same difficult coming out process that she did.