Long story short, I came out around 3 years ago to my immediate family. Our family is very religious, and my parents don’t accept my sexuality (gay) nor believe in it. It sometimes feels like we have trouble seeing eye to eye on many things, and we constantly argue. My parents love me, but it’s hard for me to show love to them when I don’t feel accepted by them. Anyways, a couple days ago my dad said to me, “I still don’t think you’re gay. And you don’t even act gay.” I took so much offense to that I didn’t even know what to say. I find myself not being authentic to myself when I’m at home and around them. I can’t be myself. It’s hard for me to smile, and be who I was as a child. However, when I’m with friends (I’m openly gay) I can truly be myself and act the way I feel genuinely myself. I just needed to vent. I’m 25 years old still living at home. I’m currently in nursing school, and I graduate in May 2020, meaning it will be so dang hard to be out on my own. Thankfully I’ll be moving out with a friend in January. It’ll be tough, but thankfully rent will only be half.
Was there anything in particular that prompted your dad to make those comments to you, or did he just say them quite randomly, out of the blue? If you are suppressing your true self at home there is little wonder he is seeing no evidence that you are gay, but then again, what does he expect to see? Presumably, he's looking for you to conform to all sorts of stereotypes and that really says more about his prejudice than anything else. It's incredibly sad when parents set their strict interpretation of religion against their children's sexuality. In truth, Christianity and Homosexuality are not incompatible at all. The incompatibility arises when the Bible is read without any sense of perspective or rationale and is weaponised as an instrument of abuse. In most cases it's entirely deliberate and fundamentally at odds with the most basic principles of the religion they claim to follow. I wouldn't suggest you confront your parents with these points, but I can assure you they are completely off radar. Try to hang in there until January when you will have greater freedom and the opportunity to build up your support network. That might be a better time to respond to your dad's comments and reaffirm that you are gay and always will be. You cannot change who you are, but they can change who they are. They have choices.
I came out to my family when I hadn't fully understood what being gay meant myself, years ago at the age of 16. They convinced me that it was a phase and made me have "sessions" with a psychologist. That's when I realised I didn't know what it meant to be gay myself and that I would need to discover myself before I could convince my parents. It took a long time for me to discover and accept myself. Last August, at the age of 28 I came out to parents again and the blow-back was 10 times worse. My parents are traditional and orthodox in many ways, even if they seem modern in other aspects. They blissfully ignored the fact that I came out years ago to them and had answers and explanations to every thing I said, trying to prove my sexuality to them. They love me and I love them, but they simply chose not to understand what I was telling them. My dad said something along the same lines as your dad said to you about not acting gay. Parents don't understand the concept of the "closet" and why most of us end up there in the first place. They argue that if we truly felt comfortable with our sexuality and were confident about it, we would never have hidden it from them in the first place. It's a convenient discussion, but a hard one and difficult to explain to them when they are in the denial phase. I'm 29 now and I still live at home due to financial difficulties. I am working on moving out of their house and the country i live in, in favour of a more LGBTQ+ friendly country where I can truly be myself. I'm being as patient as I can be while I work on making that happen. I'm happy you found a place with a friend to stay at. Gaining your independence, both in confidence and financially is a good first step. I'd urge you to be patient with your parents. It's hard for them, after living their lives for 40, 50 or 60 years in a certain fashion, it isn't easy for them to learn something new about their children and accept it. As difficult as it is, sometimes we take years to discover and accept ourselves, so on similar notes, I find that we should give parents similar time to get used to the new information they've been given. Feel free to send me a message on my profile if you want to talk. I feel I'm somewhat in a similar boat as you are and am able to understand (to an extent) where you're coming from in terms with what you posted. Take care!
