It's remarkable to see how far the world has come. I'm part of that 20 years older than you generation and my closest friends are +/- 55 now - for us, closets are part of living memory, as is the "out but not talking about it to anyone who doesn't already know" variation. And I remember being in a diversity seminar 20 years ago when the (exclusively) straight men who worked in the mechanical arts department protested fiercely that the seminar was being taught by an out lesbian and therefore they certainly couldn't be expected to actually listen to her...

Things have changed. THings need to keep changing. But wow, yes, it is a different world.