How I Found Support When I Came Out

I have not come out to my family because my family is very conservative and that’s a scary thought. I would like to do that when I’m able to when I move out and I feel that it’s safe because I’m not living there, which would be nice to do next year.

I don’t really talk about it to my friends. I’m very open to them about it in general, like, if I see someone cute, I’ll be like ‘Oh, that’s a cute girl.’

I talk to more about it with people who I know are also part of the LGBTQ group like me. I don’t hide it, really. It’s not something I bring up a lot of the time, but, in my friend group, I feel very accepted.

I haven’t come out to my family because I know that they would treat me differently and probably react in a very negative way.

The people that do know have always been very supportive to me and very kind. They just treat it as a normal thing, as they should. I’m happy to have supportive people in my life.

When I was younger, I would think about girls in certain ways, but I thought, ‘This is totally weird, that’s not supposed to happen,’ just because of the society that I grew up in.

The word lesbian was already weird. I didn’t like saying it because of the way I was conditioned.

It hit me around college, around the time when my friend came out. I was like, ‘Wait, it’s not just something on the internet?’ and I was like, ‘I feel this too.’ Before, it was just a weird thing that I didn’t understand, but now, seeing other people being comfortable in their skin helped me realize that what I was feeling was actually valid.

I definitely think coming out is still an issue, even if it’s more generally accepted now. That doesn’t change a lot of families.

My family is super conservative and if I came out, I would probably get kicked out of my family and they would never want to talk to me again, at least a lot of them. If I went to my home country I could face a lot of backlash, even violence.