Recently Came out to my Mother ( A week ago) and Sister (Yesterday) I got nothing but love and respect from the both of them which made me very happy..Here comes the tough part though, I'm not quite sure how to do this with my brother and father. How does a Gay male come out to the other males in his family? This is a tough one for me.
First of all, welcome to EC! That's really awesome to hear that your mom and sister were so supportive. Congratulations! This is I think is one of the biggest steps -- certainly it was for me. Moving forward, Is there any particular reason you are worried about your dad and brother apart from the fact that they are male? Honestly, in my experience gender didn't really matter. I told my twin brother and he was totally supportive and cool and didn't miss a beat, except for the initial one where he was kind of surprised, and we both were actually banking on my dad being more accepting than my mom. (other circumstances have delayed coming out to him) There are plenty of other stories of males being totally supportive. I mean they are family, they care just as much about us as the females in our lives, but men in general have a different muted way of expressing this. If your mom and sister were so supportive, my intuition tells me that probably they will be supportive as well. Best of luck and let us know if there is any other way we can be of help.
As stated above, gender doesn't necessarily matter. Not only are males starting to care less about being 'macho' or not; but when it's family it's about love, and especially as a parent.
I agree with Marlowe - if the ladies in your family were so supportive, chances are the men will be as well. I'm not a male, nor am I gay, so I have no personal experience or advice to offer...But if you're really concerned that your dad or brother will react negatively, or you're worried about the best way to tell them, you might discuss it with your mom and sister beforehand, to get their feedback on how to proceed. Your mom at least should have a fair idea of how your dad will respond (assuming your parents are together). Good luck!
Have you asked your mother and sister how they think your father and brother will react? What do they think?
I want to thank each of you for your replies. I don't really know how they will react the thing is my brother and I are very close and shared in some activities that are stereotypical of straight males (Watching football, strip clubs, poker) I would not be surprised If he thought I've been lying to him all this time by sharing in those activities but the the thing is I love football and Poker and bantering with the guys...I appreciate female physical beauty like any straight man does so I enjoy strip clubs as well. Father is a different story...we don't really share in any of those activities but he is my father. I'm telling each individually though that's for sure.
Why are you so convinced about this? I also think that your use of the word lying is not quite rightly placed. Do you think that he will think that this is all a charade to cover up the fact that you are gay and that secretly you hate football and what to [fill in whatever stereotypical activity you like]? The thing is that your brother knows you much more as the football playing, poker betting, strip club going guy and he is more likely to say wait you can't be gay you like blah blah blah rather than saying oh you're gay how can you like football and poker (though he might ask about the strip clubs, but honestly if you enjoy going keep going with him there is nothing stopping you.) Your brother might be surprised, just like my brother was, because you don't match what his idea of a gay guy probably is, but if you are that close to your brother, he will probably be happy that you can finally tell the truth, rather than focusing on the fact that you were not telling the truth about your sexual orientation for so long.
