Written by Shane Smith, Editor of Stonewall Gazette

I've always liked actress Meredith Baxter and remember her fondly from the wonderful 1970's TV show Family. In the 1980's she starred in the wildly popular, Family Ties. Now, at age 62, she's come out of the closet! Welcome to the "family" Meredith!

People reports:.
Before Baxter, 62, first started dating women seven years a
go...

... she says of her many difficult years before coming out, "I was never comfortable with myself." But she's quick to add, "That doesn't mean I was questioning."

Now in a four-year relationship with building contractor Nancy Locke – the couple have lived together for two years – the actress, who continues to act and run a skincare company, says, "I feel like I'm being honest for the first time."

Baxter was open about her new-found identity almost immediately with her five kids. Her son Peter’s reaction, like that of his siblings, was both reassuring and supportive. "I just couldn't stop smiling," says Peter, 25, "because she finally figured it out."

Also, Jessica Grose, from Double X, has written an interesting post about Meredith coming out. See excerpt below:

Meredith Baxter Birney, "Late-in-Life Lesbians," and Fluid Female Sexuality

Jessica Grose writes:

I was watching the Today Show (again!) this morning, and Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira were teasing a segment with Meredith Baxter Birney, the former matriarch of Family Ties. "Meredith Baxter Birney has a SECRET," they kept saying ominously, and I thought she either had a previously undisclosed meth addiction or was dying of some rare disease. What a relief it was that she just turned out to be a (her words) "late-in-life" lesbian. This expression is already a meme of sorts, and ABC News wrote an article about it earlier this year: women in their late middle age leaving their husbands for other women. READ MORE