Erick Q. sent this the way you send a message to somebody at two in the morning, while it is still happening. It is the only story in our inbox that has no ending, because when he wrote it there was not one yet.
"So I just came out to my very religious family. It went kinda good? I wasn't planning on coming out but I was unable to get hold of my emotions and my f**king mouth. It started because of a post I made earlier on FB about religion. I meant for it as something to think about but then my mother read it and went straight to me to assert her religious belief. The argument we had escalated and she asked the question if I was gay. Then I straight up answered her 'YES'. A big fat YES. Drama then settled in after.
My mother is upset about it, my sister was disappointed while our elder sister was fine, my father was being stoic and our youngest sister doesn't know it yet. My mother and 2 of my sister thinks I can be 'healed' and as long as I don't have sex with another man they accept me. I could hear the disgust they had from the way they were saying the sex part. I kept on insisting that being gay isn't some kind of illness that can be treated.
Now here comes my dilemma. My mother was clearly hurt from the nuke I just dropped on them. I feared that this would happen, I am the only son and the stories my mother and father would share about how happy they were when they brought me to this world. The story of when she was carrying me in her womb that she got obsessed about this diaper commercial that had a baby boy in it. Also, I am her favorite child. I may have broken her heart and it is worrying me so much right now."
"It went kinda good?"
Four words with a question mark on the end, written by somebody still counting. One sister fine. One sister disappointed. A father saying nothing. A mother offering a deal.
Erick did not get a yes or a no. He got a family that split five ways, which is what almost always actually happens and almost never what the stories prepare you for. Coming out to a family is not one conversation with one outcome. It is a separate negotiation with every person in the house, and they do not move at the same speed or in the same direction.
The conditional acceptance is not acceptance
"As long as I don't have sex with another man they accept me."
That is the offer on the table, and Erick heard exactly what it was. He clocked the disgust in how they said the word. He kept insisting that being gay is not an illness with a treatment. He is right, and it is worth saying plainly here rather than leaving it to be inferred: there is nothing to heal. Every major medical and psychological body on earth has said so for decades, and the practices built on the opposite claim are banned for minors in a growing list of states precisely because of the harm they do.
An offer to accept you minus the part that makes you you is not an offer of acceptance. It is an offer of silence with better manners.
The guilt is the part nobody warns you about
Read the last paragraph again. He is not writing about his own fear. He is writing about his mother's heart.
"I may have broken her heart and it is worrying me so much right now."
This is the most common thing in our inbox and the least discussed thing in the genre: the person who just came out spending the aftermath managing everybody else's feelings about it. The diaper commercial. The favourite child. The only son. He is holding all of it and apologising in his own head for a nuke he did not choose to drop.
If you are doing that, it is worth naming what has happened. You told the truth about yourself and somebody responded with grief. Their grief is real, and it is also not a bill you owe. You can hold both without paying.
If you are somewhere in the middle of this
Our coming out stories page is filling up with accounts like Erick's from across the community, and it exists because reading someone else's version is the thing that makes your own feel survivable.
If you would rather talk to somebody trained for it than to us, the Trevor Project runs free, confidential support for LGBTQ+ young people twenty-four hours a day.
And if you have a story of your own, we would like to read it. There is a form at the bottom of the stories page. You choose whether your name appears on it.
If a flag is not safe where you are, a pin or a ring carries the same thing more quietly, and you can read what each of the flag designs actually means on our flag meanings page. All sales benefit LGBTQ+ charities.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
