Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan wants everyone to come out to Pride Weekend

It's Pride Weekend in Seattle, and Mayor Jenny Durkan is the grand marshal of the annual parade. She sat down with KUOW’s Paige Browning to talk about coming out ... at work, to her mom and as a role model:

Jenny Durkan: Coming of age, I think you look back and you think, of course you are gay. They called that tomboy in the day. I didn't come out until my late 20s, and like many people coming of age, you encountered issues you didn't think of.

Through my professional career the number of times people tried to set me up: “No, I'm actually in a relationship.” “Really? I've never met him.” “Nope, you haven't met HIM.”

It hasn't been a big secret. When I was in the Obama administration, I was the first openly gay appointee by any president in the Department of Justice. People were really concerned at the time that I wouldn't be confirmed by the Senate and it had its tricky moments. Jeff Sessions was in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Maybe it's generational, where you make sure you maintain some privacy. My zone is my family. I really try to give them as much buffer as I can.

One of the really hard things was coming out to my parents: Irish Catholic, eight kids, didn't want to disappoint. My mother and I were very, very close, and when I first came out to her, she pretty much didn't speak to me for almost two years, which was really hard.

We became close again when my partner and I went to tell them we were having our first child. And you feel like you're coming out all over again. Here I was almost 40. My mom, very dramatic, an Irish Catholic and a smoker, lights a cigarette, takes a drag and says, “Well, I've always believed that children were a gift from God. Who am I to say where God should send his gifts?” And she was done and they were her grandkids and that was the end of it. My mom loved children. She saw a kid who is loved, a couple who loved each other, and the barrier was broken.

Part of my mom's resistance was there was such a prohibition in society at the time. It still exists today, sometimes unstated here, very stated in other places, but her view was no one will ever let you around their children, you're never going to be a success, you can't practice law, all the things you couldn't do. Because in her mind there would be just this societal reaction. And so you're constantly pushing against that.

And I think (it’s important) for kids to see that it's not going to be easy, coming of age isn't easy for anybody, but if you can embrace who you are and see that you will get through -- you can be someone who's mayor, you can be an actress, you can be a journalist, anything you want -- and that shouldn't stop you.

This story has been edited for length.