Should I come out to my mother?

Well, you may want to think twice before you make the decision. Since you are only 15 and not independent (= you live with your parents and will do for a few more years), it would be bad if she didn't take it well and your relationship wasn't that good anymore. I am not trying to make you worried, she may take it good as well but since you say she is homophobic, it seems unlikely that she will be super-supportive. If I were you, I would wait a year or two. But it's your life and it's up to you! Good luck! (*hug*)

 

Well, with your parents being homophobic as you said, telling them now has both it's pros and cons. The positive aspects of telling them now is that they have plenty of time to get used to the idea and even come to accept it. It could also change their views of gay people. The drawbacks are that they could take drastic measures to prevent you being who you are and treat you very differently.

I think this is something that you need to decide carefully, but I do think coming out could help relieve them of their homophobia and change their views on the subject. Hope everything goes well!

 

hi i know u must be fed up of ppl saying you are jus 15 but i ll say the same. you first be independent and make a safety net of friends around you. as ur family is homophobic they ll take der own time to accept that. so till they do so u need to have other ppl with u. u can come out to frens and cousins etc whom u trust and u know that they are openminded even i come from a family where gays are unknown. they cant even dream of having a gay child. i dnt know how they ll react. i can understand your fears they are jus like mine .. anywy u feel free to mesg me EC is great we all are here for each other

 

If you tell your mother, what will she do? Would she possibly try to change it somehow? If she is really homophobic, it could be dangerous to you for her to know.

Will she be willing to keep a secret from her husband (your father, but to her, her husband)?

What makes you say that they are homophobic? What is the basis of their homophobia? Are they religious, and believe it is a sin? Do they just think that gay people are strange and foreign, and feel uncomfortable around us? What do they say about gay people that makes you think they are homophobic? In particular, what does your mother say?

I want you to be able to safely share your true self with your mother, and the rest of your family. If it would be safe to tell your mother, you should go ahead and tell her. Even if she is not completely accepting right away, that would be okay. What wouldn't be okay is if she would kick you out of the house, or abuse your verbally or physically, or send you to some kind of "treatment" (torture) to turn you straight. Or if she would tell someone else who would do any of that, that would also not be okay.

Having a big secret about who you are, that you keep from the people who are supposed to love you the most, is really terrible for you psychologically. It creates deep and lasting feelings of shame, and has a horrible effect on your sense of self-worth, which can lead to depression and even suicide. It horrifies me that I sometimes have to advise young people to live this way. Unfortunately, the appalling and grotesque truth is that sometimes, if you come out to your parents, they will put you through things that are even worse.

My best advice to you is to think very seriously about everything you know about your mother. She will probably resist the idea that you are gay at first. What will she do about it? Will she stop at just trying to persuade you? Will she tell your father? Will she send you some kind of therapy to "cure" you? Will she kick you out to starve in the street? Will she call a minister to "pray the gay away?" Or will she just try to talk you out of it?

If she will just try to talk you out of it, you can tell her. If she's going to do any of those other horrible things, you can't. And you need to be fairly sure.

If you can't tell your mother, I strongly recommend doing whatever is in your power to build an accepting emotional support structure for yourself as quickly as you can. Find as many people as possible that you can come out to. Build deep, close friendships with people. Have a plan for what you will do if your parents find out, and you can't stay at home any more.

Someday, you will come out to your family. And they will almost certainly accept you--eventually. But not necessarily right away. And you need to be in a position where they won't have so much power over you before you tell them. Because during the time before they accept you, if they have power over you, they can do you profound harm, even while having the best intentions.

So, think carefully about what you need to do. If you can tell your mother safely, you should absolutely do it.

But you know your mother, and we do not. So we can't really be sure what she will do.

 

As others have said, if you feel the need to come out to her do so. But, you may want to come out to someone else first, someone you are sure will support you (this means friends AND their parents), and have a safety net. You definitely also want to figure out (if you don't already know) what makes her a homophobe. Some people are easily moved from this position with a little education, others are so far stuck there that you'll never change their minds. Actually, I would recommend NOT coming out to her until you have these things. Unfortunately, some kids do get kicked out of their homes for coming out as gay. At work, I've seen too many kids (no idea if they are gay or not, doesn't matter really) that have been basically abandoned by their parents, and in foster care. The ones that have guardianships seem to be happier, as they usually knew the people caring for them. It is always best to plan for the worst case scenario and be pleasantly suprised than to plan for the best case, and get something worse. Very rarely will either the worst case or best case happen, but you can always scale back the plan from worst case much easier than panicing to make a plan stronger when you don't end up with the best case.