How NOT to come out.

[pirateninja]

One thing I should have learned before coming out is to be sure that people aren't going to overreact. This happened a couple years back but I thought I should share it with you guys. This happened when I was 14 and my sister was 10 or something.

Basically I was with my sister and she randomly said to me "so do you have a boyfriend yet?" and because I had already come out to my friends I thought she deserved an honest answer and I said "I don't like boys, I'm gay" she kind of looked at me and ran to my mom crying. By the time I got to where she was she was going on about how I had "ruined her life" and "wasn't normal". My mom sort of looked at me and told Bec to go wash her face and calm down. Then when Bec went, she sat me down and said "So you finally decided to come out then? I wanted to ask you all the time but I didn't want to offend you in case you weren't". Of course I was a bit shocked at that reaction so she said "Holly, you're as masculine as your sister is feminine, how could I not at least think that you might be gay?" Apparently my mom guessed ages ago and so was able to get over it beforehand. So things worked out okay with my mom, but if I could come out to her all over again I certainly wouldn't do it like this.

Nowadays I think my mom is proud that I don't hide who I am, and am able to talk to her about stuff. My dad doesn't talk about it with me really, but we get along. My sister on the other hand is a different matter. She will never talk about it, except when we argue
where she makes some homophobic comment or claims that I'm not "gay" but just going through some strange phase. Oh well, maybe someday she'll learn to accept it.

[TriBi]

Holly - all I can say is - Thank God for Mums like yours! She is probably more important than anyone else in your family - so I'd take that as a plus!

[Louise]

Sounds like your sister is very immature. Let's hope that with age she will mature and accept you for the lovely person you are and stop judging you on the stupid homophobic comments she is probably just parroting.

Is there some jelousy because you get on so well with your mum and she is so accepting? Most people who are spiteful are lashing out because they feel hurt about something. If your sister is being mean to you there is probably a reason behind it, I don't say a fair or logical reason, but there is something motivating the spiteful comments.

As the older sister maybe you could talk to your mum about your sister and see her pain (or has she simply always been one of those pain in the butt sisters?) in order to help her through it and eventually into accepting your homosexuality. :kiss:

[Zec24]

I'm glad your mom took that so well. I know its not the way you might have wanted to come out, but well it was done and it was easy. I'm sure you'll have time to have more meaningful (if thats what you were looking for) coming outs (sp?).

On the topic of your sister...my brother is 14 and my sister 19. My sister knows and reacted very well and thinks its awesome. My brother on the other hand doesn't know, but this summer my sister and I got into a huge argument with him over some homophobic remarks he made in my presence. He still doesn't know, and I think I will wait until he is older and away from the peer pressure of high school to tell him. My parents tell me he will be so disappointed because he absolutely idolizes me and looks up to me. I tend to think that given a little time to mature he will definitely not care.

In my case I still have the opportunity to come out to my brother in a way that will allow him to have the best response, in your case your sister already knows. I would suggest that you give her time, she probably hears things at school about gay people and allows her friends ideas to override her judgement. She is still young so give her a chance to get away from that peer pressure.

Good luck, and congrats on having a great mom.

[pirateninja]

she probably hears things at school about gay people and allows her friends ideas to override her judgement.

I personally reckon thats why at the moment. Shes currently going to the same middle school as I did, and all I can say is that it is very homophobic, or at least it was when I went. And if you don't conform to what is seen as normal, then you're ridiculed and generally pushed out. Thats why I left early and luckily went to a school where people are generally more accepting of people who aren't as society expects them to be. I can only hope that when she leaves it and moves up to other schools then she will learn to be more accepting.

And thank you for all your comments people! (!!)