For those of you who are out, who was the first person you trusted to come out to? Why? How did it feel? Even though I am still in the closet 99.9%, the other day I came out to a friend of mine. I told her I was gay, And that was the first time I said that to another person out loud. She is a lesbian whom I have shared lots with. So she knew already and has been helpful and supportive. After I said it, she asked me how I felt about that. And I told her it felt amazing to actually say it to another person.
A guy friend at school when I was 15 (at the time I came out as lesbian). He’d come out to me as bi and we’d talked about questioning ourselves due to same-sex attraction before, so I felt comfortable admitting it to him. There were not many non-straight people at school and I was very reserved about myself. But it felt nice to be out to at least one person, until I eventually told my close female friends as well.
My son, the year before last. I was 51, he was 21. That was right after I accepted my authentic self. He was very cool about it and even happy for me, because he could see the relief and ease in me. Our relationship is very close and we can share anything and pretty much do. Now I am only out to him, my wife, my pastor, counselors, and a few friends. I won't deny it if asked directly now, but I also don't flaunt it. Not because I think that is a wrong thing to do, but because that just isn't my style. That and I am not 100% comfortable with some of my acquaintances knowing for business and volunteer organization politic reasons.
The first person I came out to was a co worker, who is also gay and on whom I realized I had/have a major crush. He doesn't know that part, but the evening I spent with him (it was his going away happy hour, but the 3rd person never showed) was absolutely pivotal in my decision to try and come out further and try to make this work. Even if he doesn't like me back, that evening really planted the seed that got me wondering the joy and happiness that might be possible!
As nice as that story is, I should clarify that I'm only out to him, my wife, 2 of my 3 kids, and one other gay friend. So, I have a long way to go!
I came out to a friend when I was still kind of figuring things out completely. For me it was a total mix of emotions, it felt good and also a bit overwhelming emotionally but also kind of underwhelming in some ways too because I still had to finish figuring everything out and also had many more coming outs ahead. I was definitely very glad that I did though.
I'm still in the closet as well and have only told 2 people in my life. The first time I told anyone was when i was 16, I had become very close friends with another girl online and we soon began texting and facetiming everyday. After a few months of talking, I decided that I wanted to test the waters and tell her my biggest secret. We were on the phone one day and I really just needed to have someone hear my situation and how it was really tearing me apart. As I spoke the words "I'm a lesbian," I instantly regretted it. I became very nauseous and panicky and tried to think up a way that I could take it back. I explained that I felt very sick to which she responded "me too." I was very confused as to why she would say such a cruel thing but I just left it at that and said I had to go and we got off the phone. From then on, we went from talking everyday to texting maybe once a week and then in the coming weeks we stopped talking completely and I haven't spoken to her since. From time to time I wonder where life's taken her and if she misses our friendship. I'm not sure if this first coming out experience is the reason why I cannot bring myself to tell many more people, but it was truly one of the worst days of my life. Soon after, I continued to date boys until this past year when I gave myself permission to stop this form of self-betrayal. Still not out, but working on it.
A friend I met on twitch who I was kinda flirting with without realising (she is girl, im a boy) and eventually I had to come out to her because i felt like It was leading somewhere where she'd get hurt (and probably me to tbh). That was like 2 months ago. im 27
Unfortunately, I had mainly negative reactions when I first came out. To say that my friendship with the first person I came out to was complicated would be an understatement. It was frankly a little toxic but we'd been through traumatic experiences together and at this point we were just keeping the friendship going just for the sake of it despite it being unhealthy. So I confided in her because I wasn't sure who else to tell. Her reaction...well, she mainly remarked she was glad that she wasn't gay. At one point she started questioning because she'd never thought about it until I came out to her as questioning. So we held hands, awkward pickup lines and such but this didn't last very long and she came out as straight. Which fair enough. However, we did almost kiss one time after that but we didn't actually kiss and we never really spoke about it. She made a fair few "I'm not homophobic but ..." remarks and overtime it was abundantly clear that this friendship needed to end. It should've ended a lot sooner than it did. Then I came out to someone else but others overheard and let's just say it didn't go well. I've talked about that incident here before and yeah...not a fun story. I was in a fake relationship. At the time I was best friends with this guy and our peers pressured us into dating. So I gave it a go, I assumed that feelings would just develop if we tried dating since we were such good friends. They didn't. We only really held hands, hugged and there was a brief kiss on the cheek but it was clear that we didn't have a romantic connection. We never felt like kissing. So we never did. I came out to him as gay and at first he came out to me as bisexual but only physically attracted to men, but then he later came out to me as gay. To which I remarked "Well, that explains a lot" and we both had a good laugh. It was an amusing friendship because we'd pretend to absolutely hate each other in public since we were both still closeted. So it'd switch from "ugh, how dare he swan around in my presence after he broke my heart?!" to "Hey check out this meme I sent you".
The first person that I came out as being bi to was a friend from high school. I came out as being transgender to a friend in college. I'm very lucky, most of my friends and family have been very accepting of me. Most of my friends and family were not surprised at all when I came out as being transgender. They just were surprised that it took me so long to come out.
My best friend first through email and then to my psychiatrist. I don't know if that counts being out to a few people. I haven't had preferred responses, but feel like I have overcome my fears a bit.
I came out to my girlfriend first. The second person was her hairdresser . The third person was a friends mother who lived next door to me and only a few years older. Then was some friends and family