My father has always and will always be a full-on homophobe. When I came out he beat me (to be fair, after I punched him first) and threatened to disown me and kick me out if I didn't go back into the closet.

After a while (and a psychologist session - see my comment on the Pride Month #1 post) he decided to start pretending I never came out. Nowadays we treat each other with basic respect (except when he gets angry, then he calls everyone names) and nothing more. There's no relationship between us, he just exists in the same house as my mom and sister.

My mom was very distressed when I came out, but with some careful explaining and patience she accepted me as I am. Nowadays she still doesn't comprehend the concept of a gay relationship (and she did once ask me "who's the man and who's the woman?" which made me cringe into the next dimension before I explained that she missed the point entirely, that there's no woman here).

My sister doesn't know yet - because of my constant denial of any romantic interest in anyone ever (despite me being in a very romantic relationship for the past 2.5 years) she suspects I'm aro/ace, which is funny. She had a brief moment where she kind of found gay people gross, but now that she has LGBT friends she's come around. The only reason I haven't come out to her is that I promised my mom not to, until she "grows up". We didn't define what "grows up" means, so who knows when I'll tell her. Probably when I'll get engaged, which will happen when marriage becomes legal here, which probably will happen sometime after the heat death of the universe, so fairly soon I suppose.

My extended family does not know, and I don't care enough to either tell them or hide it from them. If they find out, cool, if they don't, also cool. If they act like dickheads, they can go lick a cactus.

My partner's family is a bit nicer. His mom was very welcoming, and while his dad has his reprehensions (he really doesn't like seeing any affection between us, and was a bit upset when I kissed my partner before leaving home for a couple of days, for reasons I still don't understand) he never stepped in between us and never will.

In terms of acceptance it couldn’t be any better. But I rarely talk to any of them.

My parents are both dead. They both died relatively young. Both of them were fine with me being gay, but because I had originally come out as bi to my father there was a point where he would always say every time I was having romantic problems that a woman would be more willing to stick with a relationship, which always bothered me because it felt like he didn’t accept me for who I was - though I don’t think he ever really meant it that way. But then again, that was the parent who had long undiagnosed mental issues that lead to our estrangement that lead until his death.

The family I do talk to on a semi-regular basis is my sister, my uncle, and my grandmother, and once again there was unconditional love. It actually took me a long time to come out to my grandmother. She was from a very different time and it really meant a lot to have her in my life. I didn’t really do much hiding, and I am pretty sure that she knew for years before I told her - which was probably around when I moved in with my now-husband.

My family isn’t terribly supportive or reliable, I’d say, so this is actually one of the more positive things I have to say about them. The only branch of our family that is well socially adapted is my Uncle’s. He is actually a retired Air Force chaplain. He’s probably the only positive male role model in the entire family, TBH.

I've gotten lucky that my family, both nuclear and extended, is incredibly supportive of me being aroace. At worst, I have some guilt that my parents won't get the typical experiences of a child getting married or having grandchildren since I'm an only child. That guilt has slightly lessened since my dad died though, weirdly enough.
Also, when I had the revelation about being aromantic on the recent Tildes thread about asexuality, I told my mom and she said "I was wondering about that!" She was also curious if I was having crushes on girls or just really wanted more female friends, same as me. So got a laugh about that xD

An interesting side-note I want to mention though is my maternal grandfather. He was a conservative working man who grew up in the Depression, and could be pretty dang stubborn. Not a bad man by a long shot, but was pretty serious about his faith and the sanctity of marriage.

I got to ride with him once a week after college classes, so of all the grandkids I probably got the most exposure to his views. And as a young college student who was fairly active on Tumblr... Yeah, I wasn't afraid to discuss and debate politics with him. In retrospect I never stood a chance at changing his mind, the man was in his 90s and set in his ways, but we never really fought. It was pretty enlightening in some ways. (Helps this was all before 2016, so I never got to see if he'd fall for the Trump cult.)

So of course gay marriage came up. I knew he wasn't a full-on raging bigot because two of my cousins are gay and he never treated them horribly after coming out, but he still had some objections to gay marriage. And the keyword there is marriage.

He cited the classic "the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman" line, but unlike most bigots who spout that, his focus was on the word marriage. He didn't object to gay people or same-sex unions, he specifically objected to the use of the word "marriage" for them because he viewed "marriage" from a biblical definition rather than a legal one. I don't remember if I ever directly confirmed this with him, but I was left with the strong impression that if same-sex unions could be recognized under a different term/name, he'd have no problems.

It's just an interesting little memory that I felt was relevant to the topic. I see a lot of people treat accepting LGBTQ+ friends/family as an "all or nothing" game, where if someone is not 100% supportive in every possible way, they're just as bad as the worst bigots. However, sometimes it can be more nuanced. Acceptance and support can come in different forms from different people, especially the older generations. What matters is whether they're coming from a place of hatred or something else.

Well I cut contact with my father and it's been nearly a year since I last him. Even my grandfather who was 95 at the time of my coming out was better at my pronouns and name change than my 70-something father. 70+ is pretty old, but he is cognitively perfectly fine, so I let my brother convince me that his age was why he was so awful at the change - something I deeply regret. Everybody has a period where they need to get used to it. It took the majority of my family and extended family less than 6 months to stop deadnaming and misgendering me. The rest was a year at most. My father kept doing it though, even 5 years after my coming out. The last time I saw him, I felt it was intentional too, to hurt me - I'm biased, so it might not have been on purpose. But if it wasn't, would he not have apologized?

I would sit him down and look him in the eye to make absolutely sure he knew how big of a deal it is to me that he gets this one thing right. I had those talks with him probably a couple of times a year since I came out. Like, one time I even sent him a list of reading materials but when asked about it months later, he hadn't even looked at it. He was always outwardly supportive and accepting, too, which is what really fucked me up for a long time. Always talking a big game but never following up. Ultimately, his actions spoke louder than his word for me. I should have pulled the plug years before I did because I could just tell that he had something or other against me. I just kept giving him more chances. There are a lot of other things that don't even have anything to do with my transness, too, so it all adds up to a hundred reasons for him being a toxic relation and a shitty father, a person I doubt anybody would freely choose to have in their life if he acted towards them in the way that he did to me. Self absorbed, self serving, always uninterested - neglect and manipulation throughout my life. I won't diagnose him but he certainly has many deeply narcissistic traits. So yeah, that time last year was when I decided I wasn't going to keep trying to explain things, to be patient, take the high road.. I was giving all of me and getting nothing in return, ever. So I'm done with him for good. I sadly don't have contact to my cousins on that side because of this, and I mourn not having them in my life. I don't know how it could be different though.

The rest of my family have thankfully been really good. There were some hiccups and difficulties when I initially came out but it's been years since there were any problems.

Especially my mom has really educated herself on LGBT+ topics and really expanded her vocabulary. She's a boomer and was in the past completely ignorant about this stuff. But she's often taken an interest in these things since I came out, asking me really specific questions that I sometimes can't even answer because of how deep it goes. For example, one of my trans friends is married to a cis woman, but they are both bi. So it took some explaining to tell her that while they are not lesbians, they are in a lesbian relationship. And she also asked about my ex's non-binary roommate, and despite only going to their apartment like two times, she was highly focused on practicing their pronouns.

Extended family asks a lot less but I think it's mostly because they just don't know what to say or ask. Maybe a little afraid to tread wrong? I mean, a couple of people do ask about it and my cousin's girlfriend is particularly nice, telling me how lovely it's been to see me grow etc., how amazing it is to see me in a pretty dress. She made me jewelry for my graduation 2 years ago and it's the most thoughtful, incredible present I've ever received. Those plastic bracelets are by far my most treasured belongings. But yeah, in the extended family it's really just not a big deal anymore. Literally everyone fully respects me, accepts me, and supports me, and I feel very privileged to have been so lucky!

:')

I might just revisit this later this year after I actually come out to them (or, less "coming out", more "showing up and acting as if nothing has changed").

I already know who will be enthusiastically supportive, who will be passively accepting, and who will be distinctly transphobic, but it doesn't matter. I don't care what they think of me anymore. In the years since I moved out of the country, I've lost most of the relationship I had with my family, immediate and extended. Hiding my real self from them until I'm ready means there's a lot of recent events I can't share, which has hurt our connections. It's fine, I don't really enjoy their company anymore, and we'll probably talk more when we move back to Norway but... I wouldn't mind it if we never talked again.

I don't have much to do with my family, but I think that's less bc I'm queer and more bc I'm a commie queer and my parents are uhhh. Just shy of maga republicans.

I never explicitly looked at my parents and said the words "I'm gay" but at this point, with the number of context clues I've given them they either don't care that much or are being willfully ignorant lmao. tbh given that I call my mom once every 3-6 months when I remember we haven't talked (bc she sure af wont call me unless she needs tech support lol) and haven't spoken to my dad in years (legit I think the last time I communicated with him was sending this ecard for father's day.....I thought it was hilarious but he just straight up changed his number after that so I guess he didn't 🤔) I don't really care what they think about it. I don't really bring it up but I don't hide it either. my aunt (moms side) and I text once or twice a year, and that's pretty much the only other "real" family member I have contact with. I genuinely don't know if she knows. Again, never said it to her face, but I know she and my mom talk so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯.

I had what I considered a second family, but we weren't legally or blood related. My mom and uncle from that family both died a couple years ago, they were both super chill with me being queer though. My uncle was a truck driver, and the epitome of "guy who'd call you a slur but respectfully" lol. my mom was the "it's super not my business, I just want my kids to be happy" type. My brother from this family moved overseas after everything, and we keep in touch on birthdays and the occasional life update when something cool happens. He's some flavor of queer himself, and has always been supportive.

I have a great relationship with my family, though I've never told my parents that I'm bi. I'm 37M. I've only ever dated women, though there have been a few times where they've kinda danced around the notion that "they know."

I remember one time, only a few years ago, my mom was talking to me about a friend of my parents who had three sons, all gay. And how the husband, their dad, was mad/disappointed. Apparently my mom asked my dad about it and how he would feel, and that he said he'd be disappointed at first but not mad and in the end wouldn't care, and how my mom was like "wtf, why would you be disappointed? That's not OK" Which was nice to hear her say. Regardless, I understood the subtext, lol.

My dad has, I think in his own way, mentioned he'd be OK with having a gay son. By his own admission, he doesn't get it, but he also doesn't care what others do as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. To him, it's far more important his sons are educated and successful in their careers and life than who we partner with.

My younger brother knows, as we're pretty candid about things. And he's cool with it. Though boys being boys, I get the typical ribbing and banter about it, which I toss right back at his dumb ass. He's a stereotypical (and literal) 'Chad,' whereas I'm not. Couple that with my my mom's discussion with me and it becomes pretty clear which son she's directing that to!

Looking at the larger extended family, if I were to come out, I wouldn't be the first. I have an older cousin who's an out lesbian with a family. And there's been a question or two about some of the other male cousins. It might also be worth mentioning that, even though I'm American, I come from an ethnicity with a culture where non-hetero sexuality isn't that big of a deal.

Either way, I feel like I don't have to come out to my parents or greater family. Probably because I'm not in the dating game anyway and haven't been in a long time. But I also feel like if I did bring a guy home, my parents would be alright with it. I think at this point, they just want to see me with anyone, sex/gender be damned. They might even, *shudder*, ask about grandchildren...