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For many years, researchers assumed so-called “late-life lesbians” were simply repressed by society until they felt comfortable coming out. But that’s not entirely the case, says Lisa Diamond, a researcher at the University of Utah who is studying whether sexuality is fluid or fixed. Diamond has been studying a group of 79 women for 15 years to track changes in their sexuality.

“It does appear to be that women’s erotic desires are pretty tightly linked to their emotional feelings,” she tells NPR’s Guy Raz. “So for some of these women, they authentically did not feel attracted to women before they met one particular woman that they completely fell in love with.”