What to do if you’re afraid your family will disown you for coming out
YouGov study, which surveyed 10,175 adults across eight countries, found that 16% of Britons were either not sure they’d be supportive if child, sibling, or a close family member came out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, or they were sure they would not be supportive.
That percentage increased to 29% in the event of a close family member coming out as trans or non-binary.While the survey does suggest that the majority would be supportive in both cases, those numbers aren’t low enough to erase all anxiety around coming out.
Especially when data from charity AKT found that, of the 161 LGBTQ+ young people who’d experienced homelessness that completed the survey, half of them said they feared that expressing their LGBTQ+ identity to family members would lead to them being evicted.So how can people deal with the fear of coming out?
Firstly, Counselling Directory member Ruth Parchment says the idea you need to come out to every single person in your life to be complete isn’t necessarily true for everyone.She tells Metro.co.uk: ‘It’s important to allow yourself to come out at a time that feels right for you. ‘There has been a popular notion that you aren’t living your most authentic self if you aren’t out to everyone.
