It was a slow progression. I didn’t come out to myself until I was 18, though I had only started entertaining the feelings of being not straight when I was 17 or so. I suppose I was a late bloomer in this regard.
I wrote my mom a letter a few months after graduating college (2009). I had a bunch of other personal shit going on, including struggling with my sexuality and coming out to her, and knew that I would be an emotional wreck if I tried to explain everything verbally. I walked into her bedroom one night, when it was just the two of us in the house, handed her the letter, and sat beside her as she read it. We discussed a few things and afterward she asked if I wanted her to tell my father— I declined, but that’s something we’ll get back to.
Next was my younger brother. I came out to him sometime in early 2010 over IM, given that I was 1,500km away at school. I really wish I saved the dates along with it, but I still have the transcript of our conversation. His response was “figured.” Aha.
As for my dad, I never directly told him. According to my mom, he did question my sexuality and, growing tired of lying/avoiding the question, she finally caved and told him. My first thought when she told me this was “wow, awesome, means I don’t have to do it!” Haha. I can understand her reasons why, and I was somewhat relieved I didn’t have to do it, but I still felt that it was still something I had to conquer. So one evening in late 2010, I phoned him up on Skype and gave him the “I know you know” talk, which ended fairly well…if not a tad awkwardly (my dad definitely is not one for emotional shit).
My older brother was the last person I told in my immediate family. And once again, I copped out and did it over IM. I think it was also sometime in 2010, According to my gChat logs it was May 25, 2011, lol. I wasn’t at school this time around but he was living on his own and we didn’t get to see each other very much.
As for how they all reacted, they didn’t really bat an eye. It was more of an adjustment for my parents (understandably) and it took me about a year since coming out before I could comfortably start talking about it, but they told me that I was their son and they loved me regardless. My older brother questioned me a bit on my use of “queer” versus “bisexual” but that was about the only issue he had with it. Interestingly, since I came out to my younger brother way before my older brother, I told him that I was bi (nowadays I prefer queer anyway), but his attitude, much like everyone else’s when I came out to them (friends and family alike), was pretty much “k, cool.”
My extended family don’t really know directly. I have my paternal grandparents on Facebook and I don’t see that as a reason to filter what I post. They have to be pretty blind or in one huge pit of denial to not see past the amount of queer-oriented stuff I post and occasional outward flirting I do but they’ve never brought it up.
