Hiii... I have really been wanting to come out to a lot of people recently, but I'm really scared and have no idea how a lot of them will react. Does anybody have any idea how to tell? Obviously there's no surefire way since people are not programs, but like a way to tell if someone is likely to respond well. Thanks!
The most common advice I've seen is to bring up recent LGBT news and see what the person has to say. This is a large part of how I've gauged my parents' thoughts, since it isn't the sort of thing we'd bring up as part of a normal conversation. To be honest, I don't know much of Canadian news, but it looks like you've had a few LGBT officials elected up there in the past few months? As far as American news, they may have heard about Caitlyn Jenner's transition. Anything else LGBT-related and relevant could also be a conversation starter... for example, at my high school there were occasional GSA posters that popped up, so if I walked by one with a friend I might have asked "What's that for?" or "What do you think of this club?" Another method is to simply ask something like "Hey, what would you think if I turned out to be [gay, trans, bi, insert whatever here]?"-- which I think is a potentially risky approach, but if they have a bad reaction you can always pass it off as "I was just joking!"
I like those ideas! Thanks, I'll probably at least give the first one a try. Maybe the second one if it's not working.
See how people respond to lgbt topics and people. If they're fine with those topics, you're probably fine to come out to them. Invent a hypothetical gay friend or talk about a news story and gauge their reactions.
