Coming out as gay to parents

Knowing what to anticipate and how to respond in a helpful way will enable you to take the big step with some degree of knowledge and support. Just because you've explained something once does not mean they heard it. Coming out to your parents can seem intimidating and daunting for many LGBTQ+ individuals.

You'll want them to understand and grasp this important part of your life right away. The purpose of this is to inform gay and lesbian young adults about the process most parents go through when their child's homosexual orientation is disclosed. Consider your own journey; you've been working on this issue for years!

As your parents deal with your disclosure, you must assume the "parenting" role by allowing them time to express their feelings and make progress toward new insights. Although most are likely to follow the stages outlined here, allow some latitude for your own parents.

Breathe! A caution: Each family is unique. However, it. When you come out to your parents, you may find your parent-child roles reversed for a while. The stages to be explained are: shock, denial, guilt, expression of feelings, personal decision-making, true acceptance.

The illustrations and suggestions given here will be drawn from conversations with parents who have attended the Philadelphia Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays meetings. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross describes the stages related to the death of a loved one as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Coming out to parents is a vulnerable situation to be in, and can bring up a range of emotions. Many families take the news as a temporary loss -- almost as a death -- of the son or daughter they have known and loved. Deciding to come out to your parents. Feeling pressured to come out to your parents?

This will not be easy. This page offers ideas for coming out to parents, because this usually feels like one of those “big deal” moments. If you decide to get involved with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, it may be unrealistic to expect friends and family to take part right away.

Be patient. Few parents are "model" cases that perfectly fit the following description. It will be easy for you to become impatient. You'll need to repeat many of the same things. Allow them time and space.

COMING OUT A GUIDE

The approach and suggestions offered in the following are based on the assumption that you suspect one or both of your parents will be understanding, if not supportive, given adequate time. Coming Out to Your Parents is Done Congratulations!. For many people, your parents have spent more time around you than any other person, and coming out may shatter their perception of you.

With some people in your life, telling them you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer will feel casual and easy, while with others the conversation may feel like a game-changer. Their understanding will evolve slowly -- painfully slowly -- at the beginning.

8 Tips for Coming

This guide for young adults, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or another orientation, can help ease the process. They will need to learn from your experience. This pamphlet may not be helpful if you have serious reservations about their ability to cope and you suspect they could sever their relationship with you.

Coming out as LGBTQ+ is a process of sharing aspects of your identity–which may include your sexual orientation or gender identity–with specific people in your life, such as friends, a therapist, or your parents. Just as in grief, the first reaction of parents of gays and lesbians centers around separation and loss.

The process assumes that you have wrestled with the issue of whether or not to come out to your parents and that your decision is affirmative. Although the issues your parents will work through are similar to those you've dealt with, the difference is that you're ahead of them in the process.

Their emotional reactions will get in the way of their intellectual understandings. There is no need to take this personally; it may just take time to for them to accept the news.