My parents are both homophobic. When I came out to my mom in 2008 she told me that she would kill herself if it was true. It is true and she is still alive. She has come a long way in a couple of years IMO. From not being able to imagine that anyone is gay to telling me that she thinks that a girl or woman is interested in me. Some things definitely do get better - others, however, don't. Directly after my coming out my mom told me that in Yugoslavia they were taught at university (in the 1960s) that homosexuality is an illness and a perversion. Even though I was in my late twenties when I came out to her for the second time she didn't take it seriously and called it a phase. Most of all she was concerned about what other people were saying about me and how this affected her. She once asked me whether I could fathom what it was like for her as a mother to hear other people ask whether I was a boy or a girl or using pronouns such as "he, him, his etc." when they were talking about me because they assumed that I was a guy. I asked her what was more important to her what other people were saying about her daughter or that her daughter is happy. She doesn't believe that I'm happier since I came out even though I have told her that I am. My mother told me that I'm just provoking in her opinion. I asked her who I was provoking and with what (she replied "with how you dress and by telling people that you'r gay/a lesbian [my mom doesn't use the term queer]". She thinks that life would be easier for me if I assmilated and if I were like everyone else. I told her that I would be extremely unhappy if I lived a lie because that wouldn't be me and that I neither can nor want to live a lie and that I don't see a reason why I should pretend to be something I'm not.
My dad still can't accept that I'm gay although he pretended a few times that this in not the case. He once told a relative behind my back that I can "fart" (talk) as much as I want that there's enough room for it. I noticed anger, incredulity, and disappointment in his voice.
In 2010, a mutual acquaintance asked my dad whether it was true that I'm gay after I had come out to her. My father laughed it off and told her that I'm only joking. Therefore I think that he is still in denial about my sexual orientation. What's more, he still at times talks about some men with admiration in the hope that I will like them too. In 2008, he introduced me to a guy in his early twenties who was a medical student and later on proceeded to glorify the young man without really knowing him.
