Hello all, I was raised in the US, but my background is Middle Eastern (not even first generation because I wasn't born here, and my family is not "Americanized"...i.e. more traditional Middle Eastern which means super conservative). For those of you who aren't familiar with Middle Eastern culture, their attitude towards homosexuality is one of absolute intolerance. Yes, intolerance exists everywhere but only fellow Middle Easterners know that their kind of intolerance is like exponentially worse. Families will try to "cure" you, others will ostracize the family for "raising" a gay person, and the repercussions and shame that is brought on the family as a whole are incredibly worse than what I see in conservative American families (though I'm not negating those are bad as well....just saying, take that times 100, and you have my situation). Anyway, I'm curious to know if anyone who is Middle Eastern has come out to family. If so, how bad was it? What helped? What didn't? I'm so not ready to come out but to family but would really like to hear your stories. :help: Thanks.
Idk about any people in real life, but I'm pretty sure Riyad's (he's a gay youtuber) supportive family has at least some Middle Eastern culture. Perhaps he made some videos about it. As far it goes for me, I think it's fair to consider my parent's view as individual as well: My parents are Chinese, and most Chinese people are very homophobic. (something about a mix of communist, confucian, and christian ideas) But my parents don't have any malice towards queerness (mainly because they made LGBT friends in college in the US) although they do have a lot of misunderstandings and have most of the people they have associated with are very homophobic. After all, your parent's acceptance is generally more valued than someone else's. Idk how it is for your family but despite me not officially coming out to my mom, I suspect she knows I'm not straight, but she never asks me. But I can tell she has become more understanding about queerness over time as she notices that I'm queer. She has begun to refer to a potential partner on gender neutral terms. (ex. When you have a significant other...vs When you have a boyfriend...) But also, I've heard from other friends that it's common for suspicious parents/relatives to try to force them out of the closet and get mad. Although time may be the only thing needed to have people become more accepting, it might be more difficult, so please take care Good Luck!
I'm Indian (South Asian). I'm close to the same culture where-in LGBT is taboo and a no-no, so I understand what you're going through.
