Serious @ LGBTQIA+ - Are you out of the closet?

[starseed galaxy auticorn]

I'm bi. Most of my online friends know. I also told my dad about it, but he's forgetful... so who knows if he remembers. I haven't told my mom because she has this issue with it. She'll swear up and down she accepts LGBTQ+, but she really doesn't. Hence, why I haven't really "come out" to her.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

Not out in real life yet but I am a very loud and proud gay online?? Wish I could be the same in the real world but unfortunately I am just not brave enough yet considering I live in a very uh....unaccepting part of the world. I think my family would be supportive as they are very accepting of LGBT people but yeah I am just not ready.

 

[juliorain]

Not out in real life yet but I am a very loud and proud gay online?? Wish I could be the same in the real world but unfortunately I am just not brave enough yet considering I live in a very uh....unaccepting part of the world. I think my family would be supportive as they are very accepting of LGBT people but yeah I am just not ready.

Take your time fam! Societal pressures are definitely the worst! At least you have an outlet where you can be yourself! Sending moral support!

Nah, My family is very religious and i witnessed what happened to my cousin when he came out, he lives pretty far away now but he shows up to family reunions and his mom was accepting unfortunately my parents have told me they don't like gay people and harassed me about not being gay because its "Nasty"

Stay strong, fam! I can't say I have been in the situation but I do know a lot of other LGBT people who have struggled with their families accepting them. Time heals all wounds!

 

[Her]

Not out in real life yet but I am a very loud and proud gay online?? Wish I could be the same in the real world but unfortunately I am just not brave enough yet considering I live in a very uh....unaccepting part of the world. I think my family would be supportive as they are very accepting of LGBT people but yeah I am just not ready.

At what point will you be ready?

 

[Sirfetch’d]

At what point will you be ready?

Probably when I'm seriously looking to pursue a relationship tbh. Right now I am content being single so it's no rush.

 

[Noblejanobii]

Yes and no.

Online I'm fairly open about my sexuality. The first time I came out was to my best friend about a year ago and I've announced it on forums a couple times since. Overall because online communities are fairly accepting, I've had no issues other than a couple people accusing me of "faking" because when I had first joined the discord server I was in, I had said I was straight (as at the time I thought I was).

Irl though, not as much. This past semester abroad I've come out to a few people. My study abroad program is a conglomeration of three schools, the other two of which are significantly more liberal than my school. As a result, most of the guys on the trip are openly gay or bi, and in discussions with them it's come up. But I have taken great care to ensure they don't blab about it to people who go to my school. Only one person from my school knows and the only reason she knows is because I got horribly drunk on my 21st birthday and it slipped out. Thankfully, she was rather accepting and even asked questions. But the other people from my school? They make homophobic comments all the time so that's a huge no. And unfortunately the same is true with my parents. So they can't know until I'm independent of them.

 

[Sydian]

i'm pretty open online, but not so much offline. there are a few people irl that know, but i don't feel like i have to say anything bc i'm in a het passing relationship so it's like. i can keep my mouth shut, but at the same time, it's kind of bleh. i don't like having to be quiet about it, but it's a thorn bush i ain't gotta get into so...i'll hold out. lol

 

[Starlight]

Very much so.

I am me and I won't pretend to be something I'm not. I tried that when I was younger and it really didn't work out so well.

If people don't like it (and not all do) then that is their problem, not mine.

 

[moon]

Mmno. Am just passing as "girl" irl because anything else is Complicated and I don't currently see a point in bothering. Online, idk. I've tried but probably not enough. I still have things to figure out about myself.

 

[Sawsbuck]

Very much so online but not irl

 

[Harmonie]

I'm out to my mom and a large number of friends, but I'm not out in general.

 

[Sorvete]

I told my parents last year, but I have been out for about 2 years now, I think. Some of my friends were the first to know. Sometimes it feels as if I had never had the conversation with my parents though

 

[Fairy]

Been out to friends irl and online since I was in 8th grade, haha. My dad never knew until about five months ago? I was never afraid of telling him but just didn't see the point since I'm in a hetero relationship that I'm not planning on leaving. I dropped a truth bomb on him with a bunch of baggage, but among some of that was the fact that I'm gay. He took it well! I don't think he was surprised at all.

 

[Palamon]

Not really offline, no. My parents are classic transphobe and homophobes and I don't want my parents to erase my identity. I am out to a few people irl, but that's about it. It's just easier to be open online. I don't think I'll ever come out to my parents. Tbh, I don't plan to.

 

[Charlie Brown]

I came out to one of my best friends in 2015 when I was 19. I struggled to tell him for literally the whole day - met up with him in the morning with the plan to tell him but we just talked shit about other things and then the time came for us to go our separate ways to class and I... let the moment slip by. I messaged him later in the day asking if we can meet up again after class and he said yes.

Physically struggled to tell him, to get the words out (as I'm sure many can relate to), and I think the words I used were "I'm not 100% straight" haha. He started crying not because it upset him but because he felt honoured to be told first and that I trusted him etc etc and it was great and I treated myself to bubble tea after.

Slowly started coming out to people in my social circle until I was pretty much out and open to all my friends.

I moved interstate in 2016 without telling my parents, and when I came home that Christmas I decided to tell them. But I figured to ensure I wouldn't chicken out, I'd tell my cousins first to add some pressure on me. (Curry families are known for how quick gossip spreads!) One cousin was great, one was... pretty bad, she said she can't accept this, it goes against her religion, etc etc. We were going as a family to Sri Lanka that Christmas and I still hadn't told my parents and brothers. Cousin #2 came over with her family to say bye to us and IN FRONT OF EVERYONE she was like "So, have you told them yet?" and I looked at her like holy shit can you shut up pls. No one picked anything up. (She texted me saying that she feels like she's lying to my brother since she works with him. Cool mate!)

I didn't tell my parents that Christmas as I didn't want to tell them when we were overseas visiting relatives. Went back to Sydney and at one point got a text from Cousin #2's mum asking if I'd "told my parents about my situation" which obviously freaked me the fuck out as I didn't want them to hear that I was gay from my aunty.

I came back a couple months later and sat them all down and told them ("Well you know how my brother has a girlfriend? Well.....the reason I don't......is that I like boys") and they initially had A+ reactions which surprised me (given religious context and cultural context) like "oh this doesn't change anything, when did you know", etc etc.

I came back a couple months later for Easter and my parents sat me down and were crying and asking what they did wrong to make me be like this, etc etc.

That was April 2017, we haven't really spoken about it since.

We had the marriage equality vote in Australia in late 2017 and I wrote and published a blog online and I know at least my mum read it and she said it was a good blog and I'm sorry I felt that way (lonely, isolated, etc) growing up. I gave them their voting slips and stood over them saying that I was going to post them now - yeah it might have pressured them to vote 'yes' to legalising marriage equality but eh whatever. And about a year ago I asked if they wanted to watch 'Love, Simon' and they said no because my youngest brother didn't want to watch it. Haven't mentioned anything since, so it's still in this weird place of unspokenness/denial but at least I feel a LOT better now and lighter and more free.

 

[lyrataros]

Yes. I told my parents to change the topic to stop a fight. They were supportive of me and I eventually told my friends at school a week later and now pretty much everyone knows. The only thing though is my parents told the rest of my family without me knowing. I would've appreciated it more if I were the one to out myself and not them.

 

[Nina]

I'm in a weird limbo with the rest of the family because I've basically said "I'm some sort of queer" a few times but was never specific. Now that I have a girlfriend it's cemented, but my parents don't seem to want to talk about her much like they do with my sister's boyfriend. I know I've told my mom, but I haven't established it with my dad that my girlfriend is trans. I really don't know what he'd think privately, even if he was nice to me upfront. So I'm gay, but how gay am I??? Who knows.

 

[Emilia]

Well.. I consider myself Asexual and I have been for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't say Aromantic because I still crush on anime/video game characters (in fact that extends to both guys and girls), it's just that sex doesn't interest me. It actually grosses me out.
I might change in the future but I'm 20 rn and still find it sickening..
Pretty much everyone I know irl knows this though.

 

[pkmin3033]

I've never really had a closet, I tend to keep my clothes on my bedroom floor. Or in the cupboard where we air clothes before we're supposed to put them away...mine just kind of stay in there until I'm ready to wear them.

By which I mean I'm just me. No labels really define me because I don't associate with them. I don't have a sexuality, or a gender, or much of anything else for that matter. I wouldn't even define myself as the labels used for the absence of these things anymore, because it implies I put some sort of significance on it, and I don't. There's just me, doing my own thing, and leaving it to other people to do theirs. Honestly back when I tried to define myself in these ways during my teenage years and early twenties it was all just an act that I put on because I felt I had to - everyone has to have a gender and a sexual preference, right? It took me a while to shake that feeling, because everyone makes such a big deal out of it...which is fine, y'know. If it's important to you, it's important to you, and I think that should be respected...or at least tolerated, if respect is just too much for someone to deal with for whatever reason. I certainly never had a problem with it. But it's not important to me at all...it's completely irrelevant, in fact. Shouldn't that be respected too? I used to think there was something fundamentally wrong with me for wanting nothing to do with any of it, but now...well, I don't really care. It doesn't affect anything for me.

Both offline and online I tend to keep things to myself (outside of occasionally posting my thoughts in topics like these, of course) and let people make their own assumptions. Online, it's my biological sex. Offline it's the assumption that my sexual preference is the opposite sex. At the end of the day though, whatever labels they choose to assign me are about them, not me. The funny thing is that nobody ever asks - the information is either volunteered, or what is generally considered "the norm" is assumed. Either way I'm not overly bothered what people think of me when it comes to this. I define myself as an individual, and that's as far as I care to take it, because really I don't need to take it any further.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

since "the closet" is less about me and more about what I present to others, it honestly depends. In the States and other first world countries (so far just Singapore), I don't hide anything. But I'm just friends with my husband when we go to Indonesia. it's not a big deal.