About an hour ago I was working on homework and my sister came into my room and started looking through the music on my phone. She ended up on the song "Brave" by Sara Bareilles and said, "Ugh. I hate that song. She wrote it because her friend was too scared to come out of the closet." My sister is not one to make gay jokes or anything, and yet her tone was so disrespectful, like coming out is the easiest action ever. It just freaked me out to the point that when she left I started crying. I'm speechless at the amount of her ignorance. I thought she would be superbly, immediately accepting but now I'm not sure. It's not my priority to come out to her at the moment but I know I will someday and her words sting.
Understand there is a difference between being accepting and recognizing what it takes to come out. There are plenty of people out there who seem to think that if they refuse to believe a problem exists, it goes away. So in my mums case, and it seems also your sisters case, she believes that being gay actually isn't that big a thing because nobody cares. Nobody ever worries about coming out straight for example. To paraphrase my mum "These gay groups would be a lot better off if they didn't draw so much attention to themselves!". These people, while theoretically well meaning and supportive, ignore the fact that a lot of people and society in general STILL look down on the LGBT community in a lot of respects and thus think that coming out doesn't actually take any courage. Simply, they have no idea what it means because they've never had to do anything like it, or if they have they assume that what ever THEY had to tell the world was more important. She may well be accepting, but she probably has no idea what you are going through in needed to come out.
I agree she might have no idea what you are going through and when she does might be supportive because coming out is huge for anyone and I really hope when you do finally come out to her hopefully she will be supportive xxx
I am shocked at her ignorance. That song was co-written by Jack Antonoff! All sad attempts at funny aside, I'm sorry that your sister upset you. I don't think that siblings know how much their words hurt. Also, hopefully that's just an isolated event. People can say some pretty shit things that they regret later on when their world view changes.
That's horrible, but I think that it most likely comes from a place of not understanding. Hopefully she will get there! Wherever there means.
It sounds like your sister is accepting of LGB(T?) people, but she just doesn't understand the difficulty of coming out (which is hard to imagine for people who never have to come out). Even if she does have a negative outlook on LGBT people, you may be surprised just how much someone's opinion can change when the person who is LGBT is someone they love. One of my friends at college would see trans* students walking around and call them he/she/it/freak in conversation with me (I knew I was trans but was trying to be cis at this point). About a year later I came out to him as trans and he had no issues with it at all since it wasn't just a random person, but a friend.
I, of all people, understand being hyper-sensitive. But try to stay calm. The vague hurtful statement your sister made may reflect nothing about her actual opinion on the topic--especially once it touches her own life. My sister has always been aware of my interest in women, in fact, most people were. So by the time I came out at the age of 23, fifty percent of my responses were "Oh, I already knew that." The reactions of my friends and loved ones were mixed, loving, hurtful, and reversed in some cases. My only advice to you is this. Love yourself, and do your best not to jump to conclusions. People will surprise you.
