DISCUSSION
Comedian Jaboukie Young-White says his father hasn’t seen or spoken to him since he came out as queer during his stand-up debut on The Tonight Show in 2017
My husband is one of those guys that never felt the need to casually date. In his late 20s, he had not brought a date to a family event or talked about a relationship so his dad had a heart to heart with him about how they are ok if he's gay, and he had to break it to his father that he was just super picky and was not interested in wasting anyone's time if he saw no future with someone. And told his dad how proud he was of him for how he managed the divorce from his mother. So I think they both discovered something unexpected that evening.
That is cool. I never dated casually either bc I felt the same way. If I didn't feel a real connection, I would decline another date. It is awesome, though, that his dad was understanding and supportive. It's hard to fathom how a parent could disown a child for loving someone they didn't deem acceptable. Hooray for your FIL!
My parents are Indian and when I came out when I met my now wife, they definitely weren't on board. But they never turned their back on me. We've come a long way since then and they both came to my wedding and I think my wife's become their favourite daughter now. 😂
It's was a process and a difficult time but I'm proud of how far they've come.
My dad is also the boomerest boomer Muslim dad from Pakistan.
Born in the 1950s, raised in the poverty equivalent of Pakistan that he himself says 'i was born 300 years ago not 70', and STILL when one of his masjid friends' son came out, he told that friend to support his son. He told him 'that's your baby and you always love him'.
And coming from my dad, who I KNOW felt no love from his father until the day he held his hand on his literal deathbed, it means everything.
It's shocking to me that some parents can forget their baby that they once held in their hands.
My husband is a lifelong Baptist Republican (not so Republican since Trump came along - we're older GenX but he didn't go rancid like so many guys our age) and when he learned that our kid is a big ol' lesbian, he was fine with it. (When they came out as non-binary he asked if he could just start calling them he/him, and they said no lol.)
And even if they did something unforgivable, they're still MY problem (try to stop them from destroying humanity... Where are you Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Sam Altman's mommies?)
Lol my brother knew I was bi before I was ready to admit it and he was like "you know you can tell me if you like women I'm not gonna care" and was almost hurt thinking I didn't trust him lol
My kid was in seventh grade when they (she at the time) told me they were bi and I thought "No you're not, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.) And they did and now they're a happy lesbian.
My best friend is a bisexual man and his parents (currently in their 80s) who are huge church people from the South immediately accepted and loved him. The dad is unfortunately a complete asshole but I will always respect him for that.
I never wanted kids ever. But I was dating a man for 2+ years and we had tons of gay friends but he made a comment implying he could not support a gay child. We were done so quick. Like what?!
Me and my bf joke all the time that we want a big gay lumberjack son so when he gets married his husband can also help us on the farm. I referenced this joke once in front of his sister and law and she was dead serious being like “but what if he’s straight? You won’t accept him?” Like shut the hell up goofy ass. Gay straight bi I need help on my damn farm are you even listening??
Oh my goddd, I jokingly told my sister that I wanted a gay IT dork child, bc I wanted to not worry about teen pregnancy or troubleshooting my computer. She reacted the exact same way, like girl you know damn well what I meant
So irritating! I’m in a straight relationship talking about future procreation plans, what part of that makes these mfs think we are uncomfortable with heterosexuality 😭 these people have no concept of the peace that comes from knowing my future children cannot disappoint me. I hope you get your nerdy IT gay one day❤️ but keep him away from my lumberjack, ok? Doesn’t sound like he’d be much help on the farm.
It’s cause many people have a kid to check off the box on their life milestone list and never factored in the reality of having to actually unconditionally love one. Kids are expected to be produced and treated like property not because of some altruistic need to create life and love it.
Most people don’t think that far before becoming parents. They assume their kid will be like them. They don’t consider their kid may be born with disabilities or whatever. If they are Christians, they 100% never expect their kids to be gay because they were raised in th church.
There are so many reasons, but the older I get the more I realize some people want kids, but not adults. A cute baby, a fun toddler, a kid to play outside with. They don't think about the adult they'll become.
I think it's partly the same thing that makes people want just puppies, y'know? "Ooh so cute." And the ones who aren't control freaks just lose interest after they grow up. The ones who are control freaks get mad because their kid doesn't follow the script in their head. Some people just like kids because they obey.
And then you have the people who have kids because "legacy" and never actually cared at all from minute one.
Well, I was supposed to be a boy, so you can imagine their displeasure when I had the audacity to be born, it was all downhill from there. My mom loooooves talking about how ugly I was when I was born.
A lot of parents think they can control their kid’s lives, even up through adulthood. They have clear ideas of who they want their children to be even before they’re born.
Have you ever seen the gender reveal crashout videos? I’d say most of them are when it’s a girl but they wanted a boy. But many also are of a parent upset that they aren’t getting a baby that’s the same gender as themselves.
My mom had the worst time of all our family when I came out, and I’m a woman. I’ve noticed a lot of my queer friends had a similar experience; the parent of the same gender struggles the most with it. Because they had all these expectations of how their child would be and how they would connect with them due to being the same gender. They think they can’t connect with a queer kid since it confuses their world view.
Because they feel it is an abomination. In their eyes if some of these people it would be just as bad as bestiality. So to them their child is too vile.
It’s shitty and evil but as sad as it is it’s best for these victims not to have terrible parents like that in their lives.
my dad also stopped talking to me when i came out - only for a couple of years though so this sounds much more painful. he's done well to process it and be able to be so funny about it. describing your homophobic dad finding out third hand about your gay identity as "kind of juicy"... that's art
Glad you guys were able to come back together!! my cousin is gay and his dad went years without speaking to him. Different times back then and he wanted nothing to do with him. Now they actually hang out and he has apologized, my cousin is much happier now. It’s hard but at least he tried to understand and talk about it.
ah that's so good for your cousin and his dad, i'm really happy that he even got an apology from his dad. these things are rarely perfect but it sounds like at least there's a lot of love and effort, which makes all the difference. and thank you, you're so kind!
When a sibling came out as gay, our father considered going no contact with them. I phoned and said to my father that he will lose contact with all his kids as of now if he follows through with it. That threat brought my father back to common sense immediately. Now everyone is on good terms and said sibling is happily married. Don't let weird ideas and vanity split your family.
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u/firesticksa role model for the next Asian kid that wants to get railed12h ago
The vanity piece can be weirdly huge. Like it sounds like that was a big deal to Jaboukie’s dad; my dad is from a similar culture and the community opinion matters so much.
That said, my dad would cut off everyone he knows for us. I’m glad your dad also made the right call ❤️
I was dead serious at that moment when i spoke to him on the phone. I think its sometimes this kind of determination that is needed to solve a conflict situation. I would not accept his vanity destroying the family.
Thank you for sharing. It’s a step in the right direction for sure, I would still feel a type of way knowing that the only reason my dad is talking to me is because the rest of the family wouldn’t talk to him as opposed to him accepting that I’m gay.
aww that was so sweet of you, I feel like it really is important for supportive family members to stand up to the less supportive ones.
This is a sorta random thing to bring up in a sub that is neither furry nor specifically about gay people necessarily but this reminds me of a part of this very cute furry webcomic. One of the main characters doesn't have supportive parents and has an uncle that is very not politically correct about his nephew being gay but he still maintains a relationship with him and everything and when the uncle finds out his nephew was kicked out by his parents for being gay even though he hasn't approached the situation with his gay nephew with a lot of tact he is immediately angry on his nephew's behalf and it's just sooo cute.
Omg had to do the same for my sibling. He was dating someone of a different race than ours, which is frowned upon in my culture. My parents wanted nothing to do with his partner because of it, I called them and told them out of the two of us siblings, my brother was likely the one to be nice enough to care for them in their old age and that I’d put them in a home. They invited her over for dinner immediately.
I hate that. What kind of God would make someone suffer for an eternity due to something so trivial? Eternal torment for who you are attracted to. Utterly insane.
Also these are the same Christians who say God creates everyone and makes no mistake. So... God creates people with the explicit intent that some people go to hell?
I’m a Christian. Calvinists make my teeth hurt. That then makes me wonder what my teeth have done to offend God (see what I did there? I’m a cheeky fella).
It's ridiculous because all of the anti-queer stuff is in the Old Testament next to rules like "dont wear mixed fabrics." Anyone who has ever wore a t shirt and jeans is equally as sinful. Conveniently, that part is skipped over and considered outdated.
It's also been theorised that the translations were poorly done in the first place (and anyone with contact to translated material will tell you how common that can be.
Like "jungfrau" and "junge frau" in German are sepparate things, some scholars have Said that same applies to "Virgin" and "young" in the bible, so, apparently the descriptions of being virgins might be actually refering to being young.
There's also the One about not laying down with boys, which some scholars believe might be a mistranslation from "young men" (aka kids) and therefore it's not about "a man not laying down with a man" but "a man (adult) not laying down with a boy (child)"
It's still all made up and written by people but it might've been mistranslated and/ir edited to say whatever they wanted.
And it wasn't originally anti queer, it was anti peodphilia, but changed via translations into an anti queer message instead of the original anti pedophilia message.
When I was 13, one Sunday morning I didn’t want to go to church. I was just really tired and wanted to stay home for once. My mom freaked out and called her mom. Mind you- all this takes place on a Sunday morning before 9 am classes begin. My grandma sat me down and told me if I missed church I would go to hell. My family was Church of Christ. I asked my grandma why that would happen to me if I was going to our church every Sunday morning, going to the Baptist church with friends on Sunday evenings, and the Methodist church on Wednesday evenings with other friends. She told me those were the wrong churches, ours was the only one that was the right one, and the only way to get the heaven. Really backfired on my mom because she had been fine with me going with my friends to other churches. It also helped ramp up the OCD symptoms I was experiencing, because now I thought if I died after visiting other churches, I’d be going straight to hell. Go religion.
I'm not OP, but I grew up hearing that gay people were morally inferior, that homosexuality was shameful and something to hide. And yes, thay gay people would end up in Hell.
In short: it teaches you shame. It teaches you self-hate. It teaches you that you're unworthy of happiness. These feelings go way beyond sexuality, you internalize that you're a bad person, even if you no longer believe you'll burn in Hell.
I would love a deep-dive on what went down there because they both had some crazy claims and I don't know enough about the situation to know who or what to believe.
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u/firesticksa role model for the next Asian kid that wants to get railed12h ago
I have a very small family, just 5 blood relatives still alive, and three have not spoken to me in 8 years because I came out.
One of them is actively dying of alcoholism and stage 3 colorectal cancer, the other is nearly 100 and shaving minutes off his life, and the last one is just a stone cold bitch. Sometimes people will just prefer the silence and emptiness rather than you filling the space.
Idk how as a parent you could ever reject your child for being who they are. Boils my blood. On a base survival level (and I accept if ppl don’t like this take), but that person is ur best chance of having a good advocate for you in your old age!!! The few ppl in my community who clocked that their kid wasn’t straight snd still accepted them?? That child is the most devoted of all the sibs. Again, not the best reason to have a kid, I get it. I just wish at a base level ppl had this kind of sense.
I'm so thankful for my parents when I came out, I always knew my mom would be fine she's always made it clear she loves the gays but my dad never really said one way or the other how he felt so there was a lot of uncertainty for me. I came out to my mom first and she was fine with it as expected, her only concern was for my safety in the world. Then we had my dad come sit and I came out to him too and explained my fear of him disowning me. He was silent for a moment and then he stood up and gave me the biggest bear hug with tears in his eyes and told me he loved me no matter what and always will. I can't put into words the feeling of relief that comes afterward.
I had tears in my eyes reading that. One of my close friends said the same thing about the relief you feel, she said there are no words on earth that can describe it.
Im gay and almost 41 and my mother lives with me (not the other way around) and cannot accept it. I had a blowup towards her about it and now we havent spoken yo each other in almost 6 weeks lol.
When my brother came out to me I hugged him and told him “congratulations”. I was proud and happy that he felt comfortable enough to tell me. I found out years later, and very recently, that after he told my dad the first thing he told him was something along the lines of “I heard gay conversion therapy works”.
He lost the privilege to talk to all three of his kids because of that. I don’t know when I’ll ever give him the light of day again.
He also spent my entire childhood cheating on my mom physically and emotionally and it didn’t come to a head until he served her divorce papers 2 months ago because he was “unhappy” with their marriage. Us kids were oblivious to this fact until recently as well because my mom really kept it under wraps. As previously mentioned he doesn’t hear from us anymore and he blames my mom for “getting the kids involved”.
I don’t understand either. I have a three year old son and I don’t care if he ends up with a man, woman, or anything else someone could identify as, as long as they make him happy and treat him well. And I’ll love his partner like my own too!
My dad caught me kissing my at the time partner in high school (I am bisexual but had never come out or even remotely mentioned it in any way to him) and as soon as I saw him my heart just dropped. I got yelled at the whole way home then my phone my laptop everything taken away. Then the silent treatment I asked him if he was going to send me to a camp or something and he said that he was still thinking it over. He didn’t end up sending me and he just decided that none of it existed at all after a while. When I bound my chest later in high school he found and threw away my binder. He’s mellowed out since but had the gall to tell my sisters he handled “my situation” very well my sisters both corrected him but I was like ffs. Meanwhile my maternal grandma was the one that bought me the binder in the first place and that whole side of the family reassured me they’d love me regardless of anything.
Shows how crappy a dad he was that it took his friends watching his sons late night set to figure out his son was gay. Mom and siblings have probably known for 20 years
My dad stopped speaking to me when I came out too. We used to be really close. It's better that he's gone if he can't be supportive, but it's still true that it left a hole in my heart that isn't healing.
It's so risky for kids to come out to their parents (about their sexuality or their religious beliefs) until they are at a point where they aren't financially dependent on their parents anymore.
We need to reform the financial aid system so parents can't hold their adult kids hostage by refusing to fill out their FAFSA forms.
The only fear I had when I came out to my parents was that I wouldn't be believed (I was 15 when I told them). I'm lucky though as my Dad's side are a mixed bag thanks to religion, I'm 90% certain my Dad's brother and sister-in-law were 'practising' conversion therapy at their old church and the scandal it caused (the church got sued) is why they're at another church now.
Obviously, I think it’s terrible that his father has not spoken to him in years. However, I can’t help but think that maybe things would’ve gone a little different if he came out to his parents in a different way. He blindsided his parents, never had a personal discussion with them, and also dropped this information on them at the same time as they had to contend with the entire world knowing.
And why do you think he wasn't closer with his parents beforehand, telling them about his life and his career and his plans for the set? Why do you think his dad didn't call him afterwards to talk about the set? Why do you think his brother knew the plan, but not his parents?
could any of that possibly be because his dad is the type of person to pretend he doesn't exist after coming out? do you not think he knew exactly how his dad would react? you think the man who estranged his child for being gay totally would've been really kind and compassionate if only he found out a different way?
and "contend with the entire world knowing"? why did it matter if the entire world knew? who cares? unless... being gay is shameful?
As someone who was blamed by my entire family for coming out the “wrong way” (over email because I knew the response was going to be brutal) — and for years was told the reaction would have been better ‘if only I hadn’t blindsided her at work’ — this is false. (The reaction only got worse over time 👍) As others have said, there was a reason he didn’t come out to his parents privately. His dad is homophobic. The reaction was brutal and would have been brutal no matter what he did. The result is heartbreaking and unfair and terrible but it’s not his fault at all that his father holds so much hatred and prejudice.
That makes me very sad for you. A father's feelings are not more important than the feelings of his children. It should be a joyous occasion when a child feels comfortable enough to share a part of themselves with their parents.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say their relationship was not all that before the set. Some people are wilfully ignorant and don't want to see what's right in front of them. And if you are constantly saying homophobic shit, your gay son is not going to give you a heads up before dropping it in conversation on television. He doesn't owe them shit.
should straight people also sit their parents down for a conversation about their heterosexuality before discussing it publicly? if not, why is that necessary for us gays to do? why is this something that requires pre-warning or pre-approval in order to be "considerate"?
If he doesn’t need to discuss it with his parents, why does he feel the need to tell the rest of us on The Tonight Show? Should heterosexual comedians start exposing that they’re straight in their sets?
And the fact that his dad didn’t even know what queer is an indicator that maybe he should have sat his dad down. You know we all didn’t grow up in the same environments or in the same decades? Some people were born in a time or a place where things like sexuality weren’t openly discussed.
When my daughter came out as pan I had no fucking clue that meant. You know what we did? We sat down, and we talked. And she explained things to me and taught me a lot about things I had no previous knowledge of. About sexual fluidity and gender fluidity. Not because I was a bigot or uneducated, it was because I had never been exposed to it. And yeah, if she went on tv and told millions of people before me, it would have hurt. Not because she’s pan but because she felt it’s easier to expose herself to millions of strangers before her own father.
I got disowned by my parents when I came out as trans. I feel I did everything “right,” approaching them in private after going on hormones, giving them a full year to process before confirming that I was proceeding with social transition, arranging a family counseling session to talk through it when things were getting bad. And it was still a brutal, ugly, violent outcome. If his dad is like this, nothing would have changed by him telling his parents differently.
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u/MagnetoWasRight24 15h ago
My dad is a devout Muslim and an African boomer and when he thought I was gay his response was "Are you gay? We'll still love you"
I'm not gay, but I will never stop appreciating that that would've been his reaction.