Coming Out Stories is a reality television

Reality television

Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 show that premiered on the gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 & lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 themed Logo

Logo (TV channel)

Logo is an American digital cable television channel owned by Viacom's MTV Networks division. Launched in June 2005, the channel's programs are geared towards the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community...

 television network with its first episode on February 16, 2006. Each episode follows a particular gay or lesbian individual's preparation and coming out

Coming out

Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....

 to a particular person or group of people. The shows were produced by four time Academy Award nominees Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman.

So far, there has been one season, which consisted of eight episodes, that ended on October, 2006 and has subsequently been rerun periodically. Episodes are also available on Logo's official website, and can be downloaded in the iPod

IPod

iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

 format via iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

.

The series won a 2007 Insight Award and was nominated for the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMEC) award that honors those who create outstanding content that depicts the world¹s rich, multi-ethnic experiences.

Episode list

Episode #	Title (Subject)	Airdate	Overview
1	"Mom, I'm a Lesbian" (Karen)	Feb 16, 2006	Logo explores the reactions, consequences, and rewards of coming to terms with one's sexual identity and sharing that personal discovery with others. In this episode, we meet a dynamic woman who comes out to her mother, who has a fatal brain disease and about one year to live, and her sister as well. The touching scene where the young woman comes out to her sister goes unedited for about two minutes, very unusual for an MTV station or for that matter, any broadcast documentary.
2	"The Mayor" (Chris)	Feb 23, 2006	Chris is the mayor of West Sacramento. Early in his career, he forfeited a personal life in order to enter politics. Now a respected mayor at age 40, Chris is unwilling to continue living a lie. Fueled by a desire to create positive change in community attitudes, Chris comes out at his annual State of the City address. The events depicted in the program were front page news in Sacramento.
3	"Son of the Islands" (Xavior)	Mar 2, 2006	Xavior is a counselor at a gay rights organization in Harlem Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands... , helping young men come out to their families. But his Jamaican heritage keeps him in fear of his own coming out. Realizing his hypocrisy, Xavior decides to practice what he preaches, and comes out to his father in Florida. Venturing further still, he then travels to Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...  to confront his heritage and Jamaica's homophobic attitudes.
4	"Gay in Kansas" (Tom)	Mar 9, 2006	Tom, a public speaking professor at a Kansas Kansas Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...  community college, encounters traditional Bible Belt Bible Belt Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the southeastern and south-central United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average.The...  values everywhere, including within his own family. Even his sister Gina, his closest relative and best friend, does not know he is gay. Despite the homophobia that surrounds him, Gina's struggle with breast cancer Breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...  forces Tom to come out so that he can share his life -- and what remains of hers -- openly.
5	"My Ex-Wife" (Scott)	Mar 15, 2006	Scott and his wife Tracy were married for 11 years and had 3 kids. Now divorced, they share joint custody of the children and maintain a rocky relationship. Scott's decided to finally tell Tracy who he is on the day he receives his final divorce papers, whether she wants to hear it or not.
6	"The Identical Twin" (Van)	Mar 23, 2006	For years, Van has hidden the fact that she is gay from her identical twin sister. Van is a liberal Liberalism Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...  and a lesbian; her sister is conservative and straight. Van has tried a number of times to come out to her sister, "the other half of my egg," but has never been able to get the words out. Now that she is a host for Boise Pride and the leader of a drag king Drag king Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of their performance. A typical drag king routine may incorporate dancing and singing, live as in the Momma's Boyz of San Francisco's performances or lip-synching...  band, she feels it's time to tell her twin.
7	"My Traditional Korean Mom" (JP)	Mar 30, 2006	JP is very close to her traditional Korean mother - she even has her mom's name tattooed down her arm. But she's terrified to come out to her -- so much so that she won't hold hands with her girlfriend if there are any Asians within sight in case word gets back home. Now she feels it's time to conquer her fears and tell her mom who she really is, even if it means losing the bond they share.
8	"Hip Hop & Ready to Drop" (Trish)	Apr 6, 2006	Trish (aka Feloni Feloni Trish Best, known by her stage name Feloni, is an African-American, lesbian and rapper from Detroit, Michigan. Her coming out as lesbian was featured on MTV's LOGO documentary show Coming Out Stories.-Musical influences:... ) is a rising performer in the Detroit hip-hop scene. Although she is already out in the male dominated world of hip-hop and in her songs writes openly about her sexuality; her family remains in the dark. She needs to drop the news before the release of her debut album. Feloni's songs can be found on iTunes.