The Three Best and Worst Ways to Respond When Your Kid Comes Out to You

by Elena Joy

TLDR: download your Coming Out Responses Cheat Sheet

National Coming Out Day is coming up on October 11 and is often celebrated all week. October is also LGBTQ+ History Month. For many of us within the community, this is a celebratory time! We get to reflect on the joy we have found in coming out to ourselves and our loved ones, allowing us to live beautiful, authentic lives. 

If you have a child that has been trying to figure out how to come out to you, the most important person in their life,  National Coming Out Day might be the nudge they need to share their sexual orientation and/or gender identity with you. 

If your kiddo is anything like mine, they told allllll of their friends and even social media, before they told me. Their Mother. Yeahhhh. Just kidding, it really is fine now. But at the time, I remember feeling pretty upset that I didn’t get to hear about it first....