Following on from another thread I had seen about your children knowing you would have no problem if they were gay, I’d love to hear other people’s experiences of coming out and they age they are now. Also if you have experienced any homophobia .
I am a 40 year old married lesbian with 3 children. Coming out to friends was fine, my own parents were very upset mostly because I was going to “have a hard life”. Still find myself coming out on a weekly basis if not more often than that when people assume I have a husband, or even this morning when was at a medical gynae appointment and they were aghast I wasn’t on any birth control. I came out nearly 20 years ago now. Lastly, coming out to myself was probably the hardest person to come out too as I genuinely had never considered I was gay before that but with hindsight I can see that I had no interested in men.
in terms of homophobia- I have experienced blatant homophobia where people have directly challenged me on being gay and said it is wrong. But more often it’s indirect. I’ve had work colleagues (professional medical staff) make comments that something is “gay” in terms of being bad or silly and have said I was too uptight when I challenged it. I have had a work colleague equate being gay to being a child molester. But more often it’s when people don’t yet know I’m gay and are talking about something (not knowing someone not hetero is in their company) and say something derogatory of offensive and then totally try to backtrack when challenged
also being a gay parent comes with its own challenges and the question that bothered me most is when a health visitor/midwife/gp turns to me and my wife and says “so whose mum”? We both are
it still happens