Okay, I'm 16 years old and I'm lesbian. I felt really bad being closeted so I came out to my dad, grandma and mom. My grandma and dad are very accepting and supportive and honestly, I had expected no less from them. Last week I came out to my mom tho.... See she is Ukrainian and even though she is not very homophobic (unlike most Ukrainians) she does have some misconceptions about lesbians. Furthermore, she basically wants me to be a copy of her and she has a hard time understanding other people and empathising. She feels like when something is a certain way to her it applies to anyone else. When I came out to her last week we were walking outside. The weather was great and her mood was great so I thought okay this is my chance. Our conversation went like this: Me: mom can I talk to you about something? Mom: sure, what is it? Me: Okay so basically ehm, I am not straight. Mom: Oh please. You can't know that yet! You haven't had sex yet! Don't decide on this too quickly! You first have to try with a guy! If you don't like that you just need to find one that's better in bed! Ugh why do you have to be so against everything! I can't tell this to my friends and family in the Ukraine! You know I also find women attractive and that is normal! Me: You don't have to tell them anything yet and maybe you might never have to tell them. Also, it really doesn't just work like that. And I don't think that for me it is not just finding women attractive. Mom: A man can do everything in bed a woman can do, only better. Me: Do you really think it works like that for everyone? Do you think it works like that for R? (R is a male gay friend of her) Mom: Oh please stop. Me: Even if I did do what you said and experimented with men first and ended up with a girl friend anyways, would you mind? Mom: Your life, your choice, but I tell ya, men are better and much easier to find. So she ended up sorta like half accepting it while on the other hand completely invalidating me. She thinks that women turn to other women bc of bad experiences in bed with men or just bad experiences with men in general. She kinda sees it as a choice I get or at least something that silly women do and can get cured. I didn't tell her a lot about the reasons why I'm pretty sure I am lesbian. I did try talking her out of this mindset about lesbians multiple times already (also prior to coming out). I am afraid that when I get a girlfriend she will be very disapproving of her (like the way she disapproved of my friendship with my best friend to the point of making it nearly impossible to be friends with her). I don't want to lose her, but when she keeps acting like this about it I will have to break contact with her (this is theoretically fairly easy for me now already as I live with my grandma). So basically right now I am torn between trying to get her to fully accept my sexuality now or wait until I have to bring it up and introduce her to my girlfriend when I get one. So basically for when I talk to her about it again I want to be prepared with actual scientific backup and maybe some other things that will help convince her. Any ideas?
Hey what about giving her the link to some information like this www.pflag.co.uk/parents.htm, or printing it off and giving it to her to read. Hopefully she will come round in time, I know it's tough but be strong.
Thank you so much for that link! I doubt she will understand what it says but I will definitely give it to her and translate to her where necessary.
No worries, you could see if there are any LGBT centres near you they may have groups for family and friends as well.
Hey JustLisa, I'm sorry that your mom isn't as understanding and accepting as you'd like her to be right now. It sounds to me like it will take time for her to come around. You just have to remain consistent and never give her false hope that you might still be heterosexual, just to appease her or make her happy. In other words, you are Out to her, so just be you. She indicated that you will accept you for who you are even if she doesn't understand or fully accept your sexuality right now, so, in the big picture of things, that is a definite win for you. It really sounds like your mom is fully indoctrinated in societies traditional gender roles and that her expectations stem largely from that. Helping to educate her about LGBTQ people and issues, as Creativemind said, may help her move forward towards fuller acceptance. But I really think that the best thing you can do for now is to just be you and show her by your example how truly comfortable (and hopefully happy) you are with your sexuality. Just some thoughts.
Yeah she really tries to push me to be as feminine as possible and that is mainly bc in the Ukraine you have to be super feminine to have a chance to succeed in life. One positive thing: yesterday we were watching a movie together and I was joking with 'I want a foot massage I had a tough week, school started' and my mom responded 'yeah get a boyfriend to do that for you' and I gave her that angry cat stare and asked 'does it have to be a boy' and then she said 'or girlfriend'.
Hiya! So, I'm a lesbian planning on coming out to my family pretty soon (so I'm not an expert on this or anything), but I wanna say to you that I think you're really strong for coming out even though the response you got wasn't ideal. You seem like a lovely person and I hope things get better for you <3
Sigh. Well congratulations anyway. On what? On keeping your cool, staying calm and reasonable. At first! Then there was that angry cat stare lol, which was probably a good idea. It's tough to resist the temptation to ask "Oh yeah? And how exactly is it that you know men are better?" And anyway sheesh! do we pick our lifetime mates based on their skills at plumbing? (OK, well literally, maybe a partner who could fix the sink would be a good thing hehe.) But you did well. Good luck!
I was already 35 when I came out to my mom and she didnt accept it LOL She said I didn't look or act gay so I wasn't gay. End of history! It's normal to suffer from rejection when you are gay...
