When I came out, my dad told me I’d hurt him worse than it hurt when his mother died (he was 8 years old). My mom told me she wouldn’t be able to face the family or any of her friends. They told me they would move far away to escape the embarrassment. They wanted to take my brother out of school (UC Berkeley) to “teach me a lesson.” I was sure that the only way to end all of the pain I was putting them through was to end my own life.

Thank God I didn’t.

Over a year later, things are far from perfect. I’m still struggling with coming out and letting my parents in.

But (and this is just my opinion), those experiences that Broom described are my goal. Planning a family, throwing dinner parties, sending out family cards every once in a while, having pictures of my family up in my home, etc. They’re my reason for continuing the internal struggle.

I guess each of us has to decide for ourselves whether those experiences are worth it. They may not be worth it to everyone and that is totally okay and understandable.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Good luck, kiddo.

It’s true that a lot our parents have had a completely different set of expectations and values ingrained into them their entire lives. It almost doesn’t even matter that they emigrated here, into a society with such drastically different views. At least in my case, my parents have surrounded themselves with friends and family who shared their culture and had no interest in associating with people whose views differed from theirs. Because they had their views and I grew up here, we often clashed on insignificant issues. (Of course, I didn’t think the issues were insignificant at the time of the argument). Things like concerts or sleepovers were totally unacceptable.

Now that I’m a bit older (24 yrs), I have such a deeper understanding and appreciation of where they’ve come from and the values they’ve held onto despite being surrounded by Western society. Our parents know us better than anyone else can. They’re usually the closest people to us who have known us our entire lives, right?

I guess my point is that it’s not up to our parents to improve the quality of our relationships with them–it’s up to us. We have to make that effort to show them how much we appreciate them in order for them to understand that we do have good judgment and they can trust us. We have to be the ones who react to negative situations with grace, patience and love. Believe me, this takes conscious practice. However, your parents will see those qualities in you eventually and will respond to it.

I hope a little bit of that made some sense. If nothing else, consider this: “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

Respectfully,

Sonia

Physical danger is one factor to consider, but what about ostracization? Verbal abuse? Emotional damage can be just as painful as physical wounds.

I’m also a queer Indian woman and I’m out to most of my family. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’m not exaggerating when I say I very nearly didn’t survive the resulting backlash. It’s an issue that is still swept under the rug and ignored and I continue to struggle with determining the extent to which I want to let my family be apart of my life.

In my humble opinion, we in the South Asian LGBT community desperately need the support of the straight majority. The hate and the stigma have gone on for too long.

Thanks again, Taz.

I think, unless you’re physical danger you owe it to yourself to come out to your parents, sooner or later.

really? didn’t know you’d done some serious research and concluded that it’s so easy and open to be a gay white person. i’d like to introduce you to some people…. (i don’t deny it is harder in some communities than others, but unfortunately being gay is rarely a piece cake).