I feel for posters with emotionally charged situations and problems from coming out as themselves. I have a more slow-burn bad experience.

Pan male here. In my pre-teens any non-hetero part of my personality was very much rejected by my Dad, backed up with the threat of physical abuse. My Mom never spoke out against this situation, but she did help makeup and let me dress up when he wasn't around. As adolescence hit my friends, romantic interests, where I went, what I was wearing, were monitored and controlled, but this time Mom was, "Better do as he says."

Surviving my own family repressed my sexuality for decades. That part of my personality and my life was ruined. Coming out middle-aged, inexperienced, with unresolved gender identity is a special kind of sucks.

Not me--but a friend of mine came out in high school. Her mom kicked her out of the house and sent her live with her Dad (divorced parents). Her dad made her go to conversion therapy. She got so depressed that her mom eventually let her come home with the unspoken agreement that "it was a phase" and they would never discuss it again.

I'm not sure it was surprising, but it was awful.

OP, somehow my favorite aunt onky recently figured out I'm queer. I swear I don't remember hiding this from her. She was SHOCKED. I'm 46.

I'm bi married to a woman. I have more kids than any of either of our siblings. So, the whole grandchildren thing is such an outdated concern.

My best friend's mother sobbed for weeks and grieved as if he had died when he came out to her. She still occasionally tells him she hopes he will find a nice wife someday. He's in a 20 year relationship with a man and they have a child.

My mother was strangely angry that I “hadn’t told her sooner.” She held that grudge for almost a year.

I had a bad experience but it was not surprising.

I’m a bi woman. My parents are your typical NY liberals and really are tolerant in most ways. However, when I came out as bi to them, my mom was horrible about it. My dad was fine, but essentially didn’t engage.

Admittedly I did it badly — it was on the phone sort of randomly — but my mom told me that:

1. I was depriving her of grandchildren.

2. I was probably a closet lesbian.

Then when I put it on Facebook, where I’m friends with some relatives, she got upset because basically she didn’t want to deal with what she considered an embarrassing thing.

She’s since apologized, but will tell me “you shouldn’t have sprung it on me on the phone like that.”

I’m now married to a man, so her tolerance level for my sexual orientation hasn’t really been tested. I often wonder what would’ve happened if I had fallen in love with a woman instead.