Hi Veronica!

I want to thank you for the question. Coming out to our own parents is not necessarily an easy task for everyone. However, it depends on the background of the family you grew up with. Are you close with your mother? Do you feel comfortable sharing personal things with her? Is she rather progressive and open-minded? How does your father, brothers or sisters (if you have any) fit in all of this? I don’t know if you’re from the Deep South, the East Coast, the West or the North but these are some of the questions you have to ask yourself wherever you are.

Even if you tell only your mother that you’re bisexual, even if you trust her very much, you can’t depend only on her to keep it a secret forever. You’ve got to keep in mind that some other family members can or could eventually discover your orientation so you also have to find ways to defend yourself if the need comes. Have you told that to some friends that you trust around you? Maybe it would be a good thing rather than only keeping this in your family. If you’re family is open-minded, you don’t have to be too scared. Maybe it would seem as a shock at first but they’ll probably get over it pretty fast. Now, if you’re family is conservative and traditionnel, maybe you’ll have to be more careful!

Most of all, you have to make sure that your mother feels okay about homosexuality and bisexuality. Try to place the subject in a conversation like “the other day, I saw a gay guy, he looked so gay, people looked at him in a funny way in the bus”. You can try the same for “two girls kissing while waiting for the metro” or “yesterday, one of my friends told me she’s a lesbian”. The goal here is to see your mother’s verbal and non verbal reaction, all of this speaks by itself usually! If she’s open minded, she’ll want to discuss those things with you. In the other case, she’ll be either shocked or try to be evasive on the subject. Now, if she’s evasive, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s completely narrow minded. Maybe she doesn’t feel comfortable to discuss it at that time so you can try another time to see if she has a different reaction.

Hope these little tips will help you, if you have other questions in the future, just write to us!

Good luck!

Sébastien

AlterHeros