I know that for quite a lot of us, this tweet really hits close to home. Sad to say! In both instances, it seems our families have this unwholesome need to “save face” and protect the family name from being tarnished should word reach outsiders that “immorality” resides in the family. Again, if we look closely at the reasons behind such doings we will see that the common denominator is religion. In the former case, the family usually believes they cannot condone homosexuality as it is a sin. If your family happens to have a theologian, one can only brace themselves for endless, taxing and unsolicited lectures on this,
Coming Out
The first time I thought about killing myself and why I’m glad I didn’t
I was 14 the first time I thought killing myself would be easier than coming out. We had gone to a 60th birthday party for a family friend, the whole family. It was supposed to be a fun saturday night that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. But that night I heard my dad say something that has stuck with me for years. Looking back it was just a conversation between too drunk men that they both wouldn’t think about the next day and I should have viewed it as such. But I didn’t, I cried myself to sleep, wishing I could change who I was and thinking that it would be easier just to die than face who I was.
I was outed, forced to quit my job, raped and almost got arrested.
My life in Cairo Egypt was normal, I was in the closet and I didn’t even think about dating, I just had my fantasies and dreams. In 2011 I decided to come out of my shell a little bit, I started wearing what I always wanted, tried to experience my gender fluidity even for few hours every week. I even created a super private instagram account and started celebrating my identity as a homosexual gender fluid with very few people I met online not knowing that my new look will provok my coworkers. One of them, who is a software developer, hacked my Instagram account, took screenshots and sent them to over 250 co-workers, in 24 hours these pictures reached my family’s mobile phones.
My Story (Gay In Pakistan)
I am Malik from Pakistan, I am gay and belongs to a conservative Muslim family I was 14 when I discover that I have no sexual attraction towards girls, my male cousins mostly asked me about my likeness in my female cousins however I always says no and they thinked that its because of shyness. Life was passing through peacefully but now as I get 23 years old now and my my parents are forcing me to get married with my cousin. As in my family cousin marriage is being done from 3generation.
Lesbian, not Bisexual
I was thrown out of the closet when I was 16. Here is my story. I met her at school. Her smile drew me in and her warmth and personality made me always want to be around her. We joined the basketball team. Fantastic because not only was it my favorite sport,but it gave me a reason to spend more time with her. We saw each other at school and at practice daily and it wasn’t long before we were spending weekends and other moments together. Then it happened. We met each other in a classroom before class started and had a few moments alone and she kissed me. The moment I had dreamt about and couldn’t wait for had finally arrived.
Coming out at Coffee House
Now to remember correctly, I was twenty-four when I came out. I had less than twenty percent of a relationship with my birth mother for reasons that had nothing to do with me being gay. Let’s just say I lived the whole cliche religious household thing. I was out loud and proud yet highly uncomfortable putting it on social media where my birth mother and siblings would find out. Then as if a light clicked on I said, “who gives a damn?” I didn’t.
Cyber bullying almost killed me
I am a 22 year old lesbian in the South of the UK. I grew up in a pretty ordinary household, not stereotypical but ordinary. I lived in a house with my mum, brother and two sisters and spent every other weekend with my dad. School was pretty normal for me up until I started high school because that is when I knew. I mean I had always had celebrity crushes on women and not men but I hadn’t really understood what that meant and just thought that everyone felt the same as me. So high school was when it clicked, my friends either had boyfriends, were talking about boys or talking about heterosexual sex.