How to deal with being gay and having religious family members

Yikes, that sucks. My family's Christian too, but they're not super-religious or particularly homophobic/transphobic. I guess the safest thing to do in your situation would be to not talk to your family too much about you being gay. Stay closeted or semi-closeted. If you come out to your friends, make sure they're close friends and can be trusted to keep quiet about it.

Again, I'm really sorry your family is this way about LGBT+. If you don't feel safe coming out, don't. Just remember there's nothing wrong with being gay, and there'll always be people who accept you. (Like everyone on EC, for instance.) Good luck, dude (*hug*)

 

Hi, that is a tough situation, but you may be surprised to know that, while your specific situation is, of course, unique to you, the basics of your story/dilemma are not uncommon in the LGBTC community. To me, the first, most important thing is to be comfortable with knowing who you are inside. It sounds like you are – or at least are very close.
Staying silent sucks. It eats at you and keeps you from fully expressing who you are in everyday life. But you are a unique and wonderful individual and only you can decide if/when/how you want to approach coming out. You have to do it on your own timeline; whatever makes you most comfortable. Also, if you are not yet able to live on your own, you may want to take into consideration that the worst-case scenario for some LGBTC people when coming out is that their parents disown them and throw them out of the house. If that seems like even a remote possibility, you may want to wait until you are ready and able to live on your own before coming out to your dad.
It is always hard to talk to family about sexual orientation. Parents and grandparents can be the hardest. It is super hard to simply talk to parents about sex, let alone homosexuality – it is very personal, private information. Personally, I don’t recall ever having a conversation that really touched on sex with any of my grandparents. My grandfather (on my mom’s side) was the person that I was closest to in the family before he passed away and he doted on me. I never told him about my sexuality before he passed away, but I am pretty certain that, even though he wasn’t strongly religious, he would have had a hard time with the idea. I THINK he would have taken quite a while to adjust and then just accepted me as always. But people can surprise you. Some people you think will be accepting turn out not to be so accepting and some people you are certain are going to reject you turn out to have warm, open hearts. Some people with strong homophobic beliefs (even religious beliefs) turn out to be quite accepting when confronted with the homosexuality of a loved one or close friend, but you never actually know how they will react until you tell them. If your grandfather truly LOVES you, he has to accept you unconditionally. If you decide to come out to him, he may take a long time to digest and understand, but if he can overcome his religious beliefs long enough to remember that you are the grandson that he loves, he should at least be able to continue to love you, even if he makes a distinction in his own mind between who you are and your sexual preference. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in life.
It’s disappointing that your brothers aren’t more supportive, but people are people. You can’t change them and they can’t change you.
Your father sounds more open-minded from what you wrote. Do you think he will accept the fact that you’re homosexual? I know of one guy whose brother always told gay jokes around him and when he came out to his brother, the brother said “Oh my God!”, then, after a pause, “I’m so sorry!” At which point the kid was thinking that his brother wasn’t taking this well. Then, the brother blurted out “I apologize for making all of those gay jokes around you. I never meant to hurt YOU!” At which point they hugged and the kid coming out was completely relieved.
Do you have any friends to whom you are out and who support you? If not, do you have at least one close friend you can completely trust and whom you think will be accepting of your homosexuality? A lot of LGBT people (myself included) come out to friends long before coming out to family. A friend who knows about your homosexuality, accepts you and will keep your secret while you decide when/if the time is right to tell your family can provide a support net and a relief valve to talk about your frustrations.
Unfortunately, if you are involuntarily ‘outed’ to your family, you really only have two choices. You can admit it or deny it. A common occurrence in strongly Christian families is that when a child Comes Out (voluntarily or involuntarily) they want to ‘fix’ the child. Maybe sending them to a camp to fix the problem, or a therapist, or a religious figure to ‘pray the gay away.’ Of course, that doesn’t work because there is nothing to fix. You’re not broken. You’re the person God made you to be.
If you haven’t already, you might want to search YouTube for coming out videos – assuming you have privacy with an Internet connection. There are several that are specifically about people who grew up in and came out to very religious family members. That can at least give you an idea of how they approached the situation and some of the reactions different people got to their coming out announcements. Some of those websites even have contact information for the person who posted them, so you might be able to establish contact with someone who has very direct experience with the kind of situation you are in.
For information to support you on the Christian part of the issue, you might search for and check out the “Not All Like That” (NALT) Christians Project website.
I hope some of this helps. Feel free to Private Message me if you want to ask more specific follow-up questions.

 

If your family (or some members of your family) are implacably opposed to the LGBT community and they regard homosexuality as the "worst abomination" it's going to be hard to move forward without rocking the boat. When people hold views as strongly as this there is no middle ground or compromise I'm afraid.

You said that you have come to terms with your sexuality and you've told your brothers already, even though they seem to be lacking in support and empathy. If they are disrespecting your wishes and blurting it out to other people, it seems like only a matter of time before the news reaches the extended family, including your grandfather. In these circumstances, it might be better to take hold of this issue and break the news yourself. I assume you would prefer it to come from you and not from your brothers?

My greatest concern is for you though. You are anticipating a bad response and I wonder if you have a safe place to go to if things get tense and heated. If not, I would suggest you try to keep it quiet until you have somewhere to go, or a place of your own. I know it's hard, but don't put yourself in a difficult position that will lead to even worse depression.

If you need a safe place to come to and talk, so you don't feel alone, we are here for you.