Let me just preface this to say I love my family. I have two extremely loving parents and a younger sister starting her freshman year of college. I'm a 20yr old female junior in college wanting to come out as a lesbian, but my relationship with my family is weird. We're a family of people who love our jokes and puns, and we don't really do the whole "serious conversation" thing. My parents are pretty open-minded for baby boomers that grew up in the deep South, but they have their moments, not understanding people like Caitlyn Jenner and making jokes about the sexuality of famous people like Ellen Degeneres. Or the one women's college in our state my mom often refers to as the "lesbian school" because the few people she knows that attend she calls "ugly" or "butch-looking." It's not in a mean way when they say these things, it's all fun and games to them, they're happy people that like to joke and don't get political correctness in their old age, but as a result I don't know how they would react to find out their own daughter is gay. They expect me to joke along with them when they tell these jokes, not realizing how offensive they are to me, so I usually just make an awkward chuckle and try to change the subject. It's impossible to have a serious conversation with them, and I feel like coming out they'd take as a big long-running joke if I tried to tell them, and this is one conversation that NEEDS to be taken seriously. HELP!
I know the feeling - I can't stand it when straight people make jokes about SGA people. It's not even about political correctness, I'm just so paranoid that I always worry that they're not really joking. Would it maybe be easier for you if you just told your sister to start with? How do you think she would react? If you did tell her, do you think your parents might be more likely to listen seriously when there's two of you? You could always try letting them know that these jokes upset you next time they joke about the community. You wouldn't necessarily have to come out at that point, and I'd hope that they'd be willing to seriously listen if you told them you were upset.
See, with my sister even though she's younger than me and in college, she has similar beliefs to them, she's actually the most conservative of the family and definitely wouldn't get it, our relationship is even less serious than my parents. I can't even remember the last time I had a serious conversation with her, she just wouldn't understand, that or she'd make it out to be the most dramatic soap opera moment ever and it'd be too weird. My family is just really weird about how they react to serious things, like they can't be normal.
Maybe try to tell them you're an LGBT ally and see how they'd react? It's a good step to test the waters, and tell them it's not okay to demean people for their sexual orientation. All the luck in the world! Remember you can come out whenever you want.
I've considered that, I try to get them to see that I am open minded, like when they make some joke about a dress Caitlyn Jenner's wearing I might make a witty comeback like "Ooh that's a cute dress but maybe a different color, why do y'all think there's something wrong with it?" to catch them off guard and give subtle hints.
My parents often make similar jokes about the lgbt community and what I do is let them know that what they're saying is offensive. You don't necessarily have to say it is offensive to YOU, but just make sure they know that you don't like these jokes and you don't find them funny. If you laugh along or try to change the subject they probably don't know that you are getting offended. And if they ask you why you don't like them making these jokes and you're not ready to come out to them yet, just do what i do and say that you have some lgbt friends and that's why you are defensive. idk that's just how i handle the situation. hope this helps
