Well I just found out that my grandmother's cousin is gay and it is something that I was never told before even though he came out decades ago(before many people came out...somewhere in the '50's or '60's).My great aunt and uncle are visting and since my grandma and great aunt are sisters,they got to talking about their cousins while they were visiting my house.I had never known that there was a gay member in my family.I know it is 1 in every 4 families has a close family member who is gay,but I never knew that I was in a family that already had a gay family member. So now I am much more comfortable with the idea of coming out to my grandma (despite her strong Catholic beliefs) and coming out to my great aunt because they have already had a gay member in the family and apparently his father was the only one that had a problem with his being gay.It was their reactions that I was most afraid of and now I feel so much better knowing that they will be okay with it and they won't reject me when I do come out.
I feel I had a bit of an advantage over the first gay family member when it came to coming out. They might have a more difficult time coming out..especially considering the stigma most likely present in most grandparents, but alas! you never know until you give it a ago. My grandmother turned out to really not give two shits about it =P
Seeing as they've had fifty-ish years to get used to the idea of being related to a gay person, and as views have liberalised in general recently, that definitely seems like good news
That's great it should make comming out to your family a lot easier.I have a gay cousin, but my family rejects him. It really scares me because I have got a glimpse at how they treat him and it's horrible. I can not stress enough how lucky you are to know that you have an accepting family.
I had no idea how accepting they would be until last night and I am so greatful that I found out that they would in fact be accepting when I do come out to them.That just makes me want to come out to them sooner just to get it off my chest.
