I told my mother sitting in the driveway after she brought me home from therapy one night - I was 15. She told me she was unsurprised, but to make sure I knew it wasn't something I thought just because of the awful mess that was my life at the time. And she told me not to tell my father for a while.

I told my father the summer after my freshman year of college. He'd come up to Austin to pick up the things I wouldn't need over the summer, and we were at lunch. I told him I was "really happy," and then explained that it was because I had a boyfriend. Five minutes later, my boyfriend showed up at the same restaurant - by chance - with his high school girlfriend. That was awkward. My father drove me back to the dorm, and said "I have an easier time with you being...bisexual.." "I'm gay, dad." "Well, whatever - than I do with that fucking piece of metal in your mouth."

That was the best moment I'd had with my father in years - and the best since.

One night my dad and I went out for a drive and parked by the beach with two coffees, and I told him. It was getting to the point that it was pretty obvious, based on who I was hanging out with and where I was going out. He was as good with it as somone who deep down inside thinks I'm going to hell can be.

Then he asked if I had a boyfriend. I did, at the time, a really masculine guy who I had brought by to meet dad several times. They really hit it off. I was surprised by the question, I thought it was obvious that Mike was my boyfriend. But when I told my dad he couldn't believe that Mike was gay. I think that was harder for him to accept than it was with me. :)

My mom ... well, I wish I had had the chance to tell my mom.

I don't! Or more precisely, I have several diverse types.

My parents found out from my ex-wife before I was ready to tell them. It was HELL. They were Baptists and it pained them at first, and me too. A few years later I met my first partner and my relationship with my parents improved. Fortunately they grew to accept me and grew to love my partner before he passed away after being together for 18 years. Now 5 years later both of my partners have also passed. I am grateful that they did a complete 360 and grew to love me as their gay son before they died. Both of my parents enjoyed meeting and being around my friends.

Cool for me to see SoGayTV again!

Well, my story. I was "outed" by my father when I was 17, in March of 1984. I had my 1st b/f sleep over at my family home on the first Friday night of March break. He wasn't supposed to stay, but we were having a late-season blizzard, and I asked if he could spend the night.

Was dressed in a wild outfit, Flock-of-Seagulls hairdo, earrings... mom took one look at him and knew that he was here to corrupt her little boy.

We slept together that first night in my basement bedroom which was two storeys away from the rest of the bedrooms in the house.

When I awoke the next morning, I was less than subtle, walking around the house with my in the clouds.

Two weeks later, he was visiting again and we played the "Wake Up Little Suzy" routine whereby he had supposedly fallen asleep and ended up spending the night. There was not a whole helluva lot of sleeping going on.

It was after this second encounter that my dad sat me down and asked if I was in a "homosexual relationship." I still remember that very phrase he used. He was perfectly cool about it, coming from a background of psychology and Social Work. He said that he would look after telling my mom, who was an arch-conservatice Catholic at the time. She did not take it well in the least, but years later, she did finally come around.

I came out later in life.
The year I turned 40, my wife and I separated and divorced that same year. My parents were devastated as they were very close to my ex-wife, and continually asked what went wrong, how could this happen? Eventually we sat down and had the "talk" and I told them I'm gay. Dead silence. Five years later, it has never been mentioned or alluded to. My siblings know and the whole family met my partner. It just simply isn't talked about.

JamesR

I wish I had a beautiful coming out story but I don't. I just seemed to confirm what everybody always thought about me and what I was oblivious to, and subsequently I was the last one to know. Even though my mother went through the motions of being hurt and shocked by it all. Still my family always knew. I was strangely attracted to my sisters' dolls for goodness sake!

Um...I was replying to a particularly annoying email from my mother and let it slip that I was moving in with my at the time bf. I'm pretty sure she was more bothered that he was black and older than she was that I was gay. She took my abandoning the Catholic Church far worse. It remains a mostly untouched topic these days, esp since I left that bf in late 06 and have been single since. Meanwhile, my sister came out this past Saturday at my youngest brother's wedding reception by introducing her roommate - really her gf of 9 years - as her 'ball and chain.'

I like how one of the "guys on the street" is actor PJ DeBoy from the movie Shortbus. (And a complete cutie.)

I never actively came out to my parents. I just waited forever until my parents finally confronted me and asked if I was gay. I said, "Yep!" Fortunately, despite their religious conservatism, they had seen enough Donahue and Opra by that time to have come around to more reasonable views on the subject. So it all worked out.

I rarely say that I would do things differently but in this instance my answer is a resounding "yes"!!

JamesR

Well that depends how much I could do over! If I could do my entire childhood over, I'd probably flee from my parents' religion at a very young age, even before coming out. Man, THAT would have caused conflict!

But as far as just the coming out part, my passive approach worked pretty well for me. It gave my folks time to get educated before there were any confrontations.

I don't really have a coming-out "story." It just happened gradually over the years: When I lived in Santa Cruz (right after college), a few very close friends knew; the next place I lived, in Berkeley (grad school), a lot more people knew, and by the time I lived in San Francisco (after grad school), everybody knew. I worked in a gay bathhouse for a while, so that might have been a tip-off! : )

favorited this one, man