My mother suspected that I was homosexual when I was a teenager as my girlfriends often stayed for a night.
There was a time when I lived abroad and my family was in Ukraine. Once, going through my things, my mother found a letter that my ex-girlfriend wrote me. Having read it, my mother called me – and I didn’t expect it and was really confused. Mom asked me “Are you lesbian?” and I understood that she was shocked and disappointed by the tone of her voice. I tried to explain to her that this was not an illness and it’s normal to be a lesbian but my reasoning didn’t work.
Afterwards my mother pretended that nothing happened and there was no such talk. However, she got used to insult me in a homophobic way. Soon my grandmother joined her in these insults.
I tried to live under this “pressure” from my relatives. But I got tired of it. For a long period of time, before some recent events in my life, I made up “straight” storied for my relatives. I avoided them, trying not to let them into my life and told that I was seeing a boy. My mother used to stick her nose into my life and it was very difficult to hide the truth.
So recently when my mother made me hysterical with rowing I decided to make my meaning perfectly plain and tell her the truth. Though I realize that coming out during a quarrel is far from being the best thing to do… What is done can’t be undone.
As the result of my coming out of closet now I live with the girl I love in domestic partnership so to speak, and my relatives gradually get used to us as a couple.
I know that me and my girlfriend have a lot of difficulties to overcome on our way to being accepted by our parents, not to mention having minimal tolerance from the state.
I often think about this situation when I as free, civilized and educated person must FIGHT for my LAWFUL rights for love, happiness and safety, and it hurts me to the bottom of my heart.
Автор: Gay Alliance Ukraine
