Ok, so I've been gay my whole life. I don't act gay, I act normal and nobody suspects anything. I live in Utah, where the vast majority of people are Mormon, and against LGBT, including my best friends and parents (horrible situation) my best friends treat me amazingly, and I know they love me and the same for my parents and family, but they're all against LGBT. How can I come out? I really need help. I'm in highschool and am scared of the repercussions of coming out, especially with the vast majority of mormons. I'm scared as soon as I tell my friends especially my number one best friend, he and they won't support me in this and I don't know if I can handle that. We get along so well I'm scared it will ruin our relationship. Im torn between staying in and coming out, but I feel so sad staying in and I feel like I can't be happy pretending to always lie about who I like and pretending my whole life to be something I'm not. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
When our circumstances are as difficult as you describe the best thing we can do is to bide our time and work towards moving nearer the closet door, but avoid opening it right up. If we live in a hostile community and fling open the closet door with no plan B we can actually make a difficult situation so much worse, putting at risk our safety and security, and it's just not worth it. The idea of coming out is to make life better, not worse, and nothing is more important than your welfare. At this stage you should focus on school and get the best grades you possibly can, because it will open up opportunities for freedom, self discovery, friendship and support and allow you to come out from a better and more secure position. It's really important to look at coming out as a process, rather than a moment in time when you just blurt it out, so if you think of your education as a stepping stone in that process it will nudge you a bit closer to the closet door. You can also spend some time thinking about when and how you will come out to parents and friends and start making some plans for it. Do some reading and research and talk to other gay people about coming out. This forum has a huge archive of threads and posts, so it's a good place to start and we're here to offer advice, support, suggestions... and friendship. Also check out PFLAG and all of their resources. Remember, stepping stones towards the closet door. I know it's hard to live in the closet and maintain an uncomfortable level of denial, but we do need to think about how we come out. We can make it a fairly good and positive experience with a bit of planning and forethought, or we can just throw caution to the wind and blurt it out with no idea how the cards will fall. Is that a risk you want to take?
You can wait or tell to someone that don't seem to be homophobic at all, i know what you feel because i loose a friend, telling her that I was lesbian, you can wait to be older and tell to your family correctly.
