well i'm sorry to hear that your family's like that. i honestly don't know why people make a big deal about being gay. i guess they're just afraid of change which sucks but at the moment there's nothing we can do about it. but i really do hope that you do find that someone that will make you feel comfortable about coming out to them so you don't have to live two lives cuz i know that feelin and its horrible. i do it every day with my friends and i just haven't gotten around to tryin to tell them. i work with most of them to so if they do hate me for it i still have to see them everyday and i'm not to sure i'm ready for the cold shoulder yet. its nice to have support from some of my family and the select friends that i came out to though. 

I really appreciate all that you are saying and encouraging me to do this. But honestly its not going to work. i have done the whole what if questioning with my family and the results caused a huge fight. they didn't talk to me for a whole 2 weeks, when i finally came to them and told them that those were just questions and that i wasn't asking them for me but for a friend that needed help. so being that i lied and hid the fact that i am gay made things better. they all now just think i am a big tomboy of a girl and that i'm not ready for a relationship with anyone. my mom still prays that the right MAN will come along so she can have her grandbaby's, cause thats God's will. but i can say this, when that person does come along and she is my soulmate then i will tell them. and i will be living a good life, with my own house and a great paying job. i want to be able to support myself and my partner. i want to have a family that i can support as well. i want to have my family to be there to support me too. and with time and change i will eventually tell them that i love differently than they do and that i can't help it. even though they believe that i can help it. that its just a choice not a purpose.

i understand what you mean about families disowning or whatever someone cuz of who they are but you will never know til you take the risk and find out if thats the case for you. my girlfriend is mexican and she's out to her family and they are fine with it. they said whatever makes her happy makes them happy. your family might not be the same and might not be accepting at first but you never know after a while they might just surprise you and face facts. you can't just ignore someone that you have that much love for amd  family is family no matter what. do you really wanna live two lives and lie to the ones that are the closest to you. i mean what are you gonna do when you find the love of your life and just wanna share it with the world. you're gonna have to keep something that big from your family. just give it a shot or try and beat around the bush asking "what if" questions or bring a friend around thats gay and see the reaction you get. i mean you were surprise to see how many friends of yours were gay and how accepting they were. that may be the case with you family as well. 

I think that its great that you did it. But its alot harder where I'm coming from. I come from a interacial family, half mexican and half white. In these two different families I have yet to hear anything about anyone in there being gay. If there is they sure don't talk about it. They are all very religious and can't ever get away with even something as little as a tatoo. My mother brings out the bible and calls a family meeting of prayer and scripture each time I get a new tatoo. And I have 5 of them. It can be a little annoying. And when my sister got pregnant before marriage, well lets just say I would be afraid to even discuss my issue. Deep down inside I do know that she may know about my life style, but we don't talk about it. My sisters know about it cause I told them. But I also lied and said that it was an experiment and I've changed. This is how worried I am. I don't want to be disowned. I here about all my friends that have come out to there parents and they have been disowned. I was happy when I could live my life away from my family. I was able to live who I really was. Now that I had to come back home I can't live the life that I want. I have to be extremely cautious. I have a friend that loves me for who I am and she is ok with the way I am. She to believes that people are born the way they are suppose to be that you can't just make someone be straight or gay. I've believed since I was a little girl around the age of 8 or 9 that I was attracted to girls. I never really admitted it to any of my friends until my senior year of highschool. And they were fine with it. It was a cool thing then when all your friends came out there senior year. I didn't know that I have so many friends that ended up being gay. Half the people I hung out with everyday came out and then one of them actually told me they had a crush on me forever and was to scared to say anything. But anyway, its easy to hide things from my family but then they start to call you constantly and ask you when you're coming to visit. And you don't want to cause you changed your look and your living the gay life you had to hide from them. When I lived a city away it was cool cause I showed my pride out loud and I went to all kinds of events. You could say I was the pimp in that town. I had what ever I wanted. Now I just am that same girl back in highschool again. And it sucks.

hey. i'm right there with you on that. for the longest time i wouldn't except that i was gay cuz it was a "sin" to be so but its who you are and how god made you. you don't choose to be gay. you can't help who your attracted to or who you fall in love with. i would sit there readin every passage in the bible on homosexuality and see what it said but if god created you in his image then how can it be sin??? i don't get it. but with my family i just recently came out to them and no one has really accepted it yet except my mom and siblings cuz my older brother is also gay so i got to hear all the comments they made about him when he came out and it only discouraged me for the longest time. but then i met my girlfriend and i thought i'd come out to family and friends so i didn't have to hide my feelins for her and i've gotten mixed reactions from all of them. it still feels so go to not have to carry around the burden of hidin who i am though and i couldn't be happier that i did. and i even got the lambda tattooed on my hand to show my pride and not have to hide!!!

Hi, I am a new member to this group. Let alone this website. I really appreciate all the things said in everyone's comments and reply's to your topic. I too have a big issue that has to be delt with by myself. I have gotten great incouragement from your words. And I pray the everything that has been said will reach the ears of those who rise against us. I love my family in christ alot but I can't stand when they rebuke me and my fellow gay people of america. If God made us in his own image and God knows what are fate is, and he gave us the power of free will then why do we have all these problems. I hate facing everyday not knowing if its ok to talk about my chance to come out. I try to find the right words. I live in a family that brings out the bible and sits and prays each time I come home with a new tatoo, and I have 5. When will it be time for me to say how I really feel and finally be free of these chains that hold me down. I have no way of being able to tell anyone in my family that I have a strong attraction to women, and that I have never stopped this feeling since I've been back. Could someone please help me?