Hello, i'm new to reddit i usually check different subreddits but once I saw this post I couldn't help but subscribe and sign in just to tell my story.

Being gay in a country that is plaged with homophobia and general hate due to the myths created by the majority, who's yet to understand us as a community of human beings can be incredibly tough. I've always being a little bit on the soft side when it came to what's considered male manerism, in my country the norm of what is considered manly is the over the top "butch" guy who emanates testosterone and has very little consideration for their peers and a severe lack of empathy. [personally I don't belive such archetype exists considering we all have to some extent decent levels of understanding and empathy but I digress]; being able to somewhat fit the norm I lived the idea of what I thought was the heterosexual lifestile considering what was socially established by the norm. Questioned my sexuality in silence, dated some girls and dated some guys in a very underground enviroment, some if not most of you might know the drill. Even tho I have always had a very healthy relationship with my family in general it was very hard if not impossible to build a good foundation for a healthy relationship with my father for different reasons other than my views when it comes to sexual orientation and aidentity amongst others related to sexuality, truth of the matter i decided to treat sex as a taboo and shielded myself stating that it was unconfortable for me to talk about it wich was considered as me being shy. I decided to come out once I finished college at around 23 years old, their reaction was very viceral i think in a lapse of 3-5 hours they visited different issues from mental dissorders to failure in my upbringing hells I belive they even mentioned I was being manipulated by openly gay friends and/or was probably confused. never felt so insulted in my entire life, they basically discussed how my whole life would be based on the stigmas that my culture pinned on the gay community dehumanizing us, alienating us and leading this humble minority to belive there's no posibility for us to be decent and well adjusted human beings. This was a taste of what being part of an openly diverse group meant, I somewhat learned to live with the ghost of homophobia lurking around and i'm well awared of how big of a struggle it is to hide your sexuality for fear of being atumatically disqualified, lost jobs not because i admitted my sexuality in the workplace but because colleages started to asume I was based on how little of my romantic life I was willing to share. So after that terrible reacting I wasn't disowned per se, but took me hell of a time to understand they were just confused, very uneducated about LGBT challenges and issues and leaning towards rejection so I saw myself with no other choice but to swallow my pride, recognize that somewhere in between hate comments and terrible misinformation there were coming out of a place of love and concern because either love of hate shows a person "Care" but complete apathy towards it is another story. I realized i needed to forgive them for not understanding but I at the same time taking back my statemet wasn't possible so i asked for them to disregard any conversation about sexuality, relationships, family amongst other issues and see me as an "eunich" since it was such a tough deal to accept it was best to forget about it althogether as i would forget the idea of finding acceptance inside my very heterocentric family. That was perhaps one of the hardest desitions I have made, taking aside the family in my situation it is on my best interest to keep my sexual orientation to myself only revealing it to who really matters and is important, but at the same time living in the shadows once more after coming out is even worse, but such is the fate of a lot of people around the world. closing this somewhat bittersweet story i found acceptance on my peers, my generation luckily is growing more educated about LGBTQ issues and the community is growing and slowly finding a voice and ways to be noticed and altho the future sounds like a scary and big undertermined bleak we're slowly paving the vay for future generations wich i really hope never have to find themselves fighting against such a behemoth as rejection, homophia and prejudice are.

thanks for taking the time to read all of this x.x

oh and my suggestion for someone trying to come out in similar conditions would be that it won't be easy, if the need of acepting yourself and expecting some degree of acceptance is a big motivator do it. Is best to evaluate the possible consequences of doing so and above all find a place in your heart to forgive if acceptance is not granted, i know it's tough but find some solace knowing that you're not alone and you shouldn't be ashamed finding worth on yourself is a driving force that will keep you going no matter the circumstances...