I thought that everyone who's come out could share their stories below to help others come out and for support. You don't have to if you're not comfortable to but if you are happy to, you can share it below.
Here's mine; I haven't come out to everyone I know yet, only my parents, one of my best friends, and I've given hints on my social media.
For my friend, I brought up the subject of secrets on a FaceTime call (we were already in quarantine). It turned out that we each had a big secret. We had talked about questioning our sexualities in the past and she basically already knew. I told her I was queer and she asked what that meant. I told here that it meant that I knew I wasn't straight but I wasn't entirely sure exactly what to label myself as yet. I now always use queer. She was completely fine with it and basically knew already. She then told me her secret and we talked about that and then something else and moved on completely from the topic.
For my parents, I drafted a letter on my computer secretly before writing it out neatly by hand (the school I go to got me used to writing things by hand). I put the letter in an envelope and crept downstairs in the middle of the night to put it on my table. In the morning, my dad brought the letter upstairs to my mum. I was hiding in my bed because I was so terrified. My mum opened it and scanned it before coming in to my room and giving me a hug and telling me it was fine. My dad then came in and told me 'Love whoever you want to, it doesn't bother me'. I cried some more and then got ready for online school ( we were once again in quarantine). I have since then had some conversations with each of them openly.
I have also given hints to everyone else I know by putting LGBTQ+ flags in my bios on my social medias, but I haven't been sent any messages about it; I've only got more LGBTQ+ followers even though I barely ever post.
I've had a really good experience of coming out and I wish that was everyone's experience but unfortunately it isn't. Hopefully that will change one day. If you haven't come out yet, good luck! And remember, that's fine and you are still amazing and don't pressure yourself to come out before you are ready. If you can't, I'm so sorry and I hope that one day you will be able to thrive. You are amazing and you can do this and you are strong. If you have come out, well done! It's a really hard thing to do; you're amazing. 💗💗💗
So I decided that I wasn’t going to sit down and have a serious talk or what I connect to a stereotypical „coming out“ moment. But a few months ago I started dropping hints to my parents for example when talking about future relationships I always say „girlfriend or boyfriend“ and when they ask me if there‘s something going on between me and a guyfriend I tell them that they shouldn’t be assuming that just because it’s a boy because it might as well be a girl. They‘ve been really fine with all of it and a some point even started shopping me with one of my female friends who is openly gay.
Just to say that you don’t have to put so much pressure on that „coming out“ moment if you don’t feel comfortable with it xx