Dear Straight People,

After interviewing over 60 openly queer Asians from all over the world, I’ve found that Asian parents don’t generally react positively when their child comes out to them. Coming out to a tiger mum then, would seem like a terrible idea.

This recent post by ‘greenghostt’ on Reddit about coming out to his tiger mum however, yielded the most unexpectedly uplifting ending. Check out the post below to read the unexpectedly inspiring post in full.

Been contemplating this for a long time and didn’t really know to approach it.

My mom and I never had the kind of relationship I wanted and saw others have with their mom because she was really strict about everything. It created a distance between us over the years and I didn’t know how she would react to her son being gay since the subject is very taboo in our culture.

Coming out to my dad left a lot to be desired because his reaction was basically to sweep it under the rug and deny the conversation ever happened. He was surprised but didn’t freak out and told me to not bring it up again and just focus on school. My sister knew too and I told her about how alone I felt at home most of the time. Both my dad and sister said to not tell my mom about it because she would freak out and its unnecessary drama for the family. It made me really sad because I felt like they both only cared about keeping up a normal appearance for other people and it didn’t matter how I felt. Even my best friend told me to wait until I moved out before I came out in case my mom had a bad reaction.

I mulled over the decision for over a year because everyone I spoke with was against it but I had a gut feeling that I should tell my mom. So a few days ago, I told her while we were on a walk around the neighbourhood and she was very surprised and confused. I said I never told her because she was the one most important person in my life and I was scared things may change for the worst between us. She told me she never knew or suspected even though I never had a gf. She got visibly sad and started raising concerns about my future i.e. me needing to get married in a church and having children etc which can’t happen if I’m gay. I didn’t say much because it was starting to sound like the same conversation I had with my dad and I was beginning to think that this conversation is a mistake. We got back to the house and she was crying now. I asked her if she hated me and she stopped to look at me and said she could never hate me. We hugged and I went inside feeling uneasy about the whole thing.

Yesterday she came into my room after dinner and said she wanted to talk. She told me that she had been taking time in the last few days to read online articles and educate herself on the subject. She said that she was ok with it because she understand that we don’t choose our sexuality and we are born this way. Told me that she wasn’t upset with me at all but was more upset with herself because she was living life without a care while I had to deal with all of this on my own and didn’t think I could talk to her about it. She said (she) loved me no matter what and that she doesn’t care what other people think so I shouldn’t feel ashamed about being who I am.

I’m so glad I decided to trust my gut and didn’t let this drive us apart despite the naysayers. I feel so loved and so grateful for having such a loving, cool mom and thought I would share this with you all.

You can check out the original post and its accompanying comments here.

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