It’s possible she wouldn’t have known what it meant to be gay, or that it applied to me, even though I came out to the rest of my family only a few months after that long-ago talk in the car, had been out and proud in college, and once brought a girlfriend home to stay with us for two weeks. Katie was only three years old when my ex ( coincidentally also named Katie ) came to visit. For all she knew, the other Katie was my really good friend. And even though neither I nor my family purposefully hid the fact that I’m gay from my sister, no one had sat her down to explain what that meant, either. So, I knew it was my job to make sure she understood that women can and do love other women romantically — and that it's just as normal as when they love men.