How to Tell Your Family You’ve Gone Straight

It’s hard coming out of the closet, admitting you’re heterosexual after all. Your parents have joined PFLAG, your sister has an HRC sticker on her Volvo, your brother has allied himself with you and your oppression; but now you have to tell them you’ve gone over to the dark side, and fallen in love with someone of the opposite sex—or want to. How do you break the news without negating your gay life, rejecting their support, or confusing them to pieces? Consider the following as you ponder how to tell your family you’ve gone straight:

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Don’t date; announcing your latent heterosexuality while still in a same-sex relationship will simply confuse your family; wait until you’re single to break the news.
2. Test the waters; make positive comments about opposite sex people and heterosexual relationships, to see how they fly. Some family members may cluelessly assume you are as liberal about them as they are about you, others may grasp your comments like life preservers, hoping against hope that your inner heterosexuality survives.
3. Bring up stories about gay friends who’ve gone straight; relate them with a positive slant—leave any stalking, depression, religious conversions or admissions of adultery out.
4. Take the plunge. This is easier when you have a love object in mind: “Mom, I’ve fallen in love with a woman” might make more sense to your mom than, “I think I’m straight after all,” though this is a fine beginning to a complex conversation.
5. Be honest. Share your inner struggles if you are the sharing type, keep mum about the details if you are the strong silent type. Be yourself, but heterosexually inclined.
6. Be the same son or daughter they love so well, only straight. Heterosexuality can be a lifestyle, or an aspect of your life; there is no need to change neighborhoods, get a new wardrobe or a different social circle because you've rediscovered the love that shouts its name from the rooftops.
7. Keep communication with yourself open; straightness may be a phase, or your genuine orientation. Be honorable and honest in your relationships, so that you can look back on them with a clean conscience, no matter where you end up on the Kinsey scale.

Tips & Warnings

• Admitting heterosexual tendencies while still in a same-sex relationship can make sense if your family members are your support system, but expect that they will see this as a major paradigm shift, rather than just a repositioning on the Kinsey scale.
• Don’t be too disappointed if your news is treated as a revelation; this shift in your orientation may reveal how challenging it has really been to accept you as a gay person.
• Gay or straight, it’s that simple to most people, while biology tells a different story. Many straight people find gayness tolerable because they believe it is determined by genetics; coming out as straight (after being out as gay) defies that biological basis. Defining yourself as bisexual may be more acceptable socially--and biologically accurate--but opens up another social can of worms.
• Focusing on your love or attraction for the new opposite sex person in your life takes the conversation from the general to the specific; love is a wonderful thing (even if it doesn’t conquer all), and helps families understand your new direction.
• Taking on stereotypical aspects of heterosexuals can make you feel more acceptable to the culture, and more easily identified, but aren’t necessary for a happy, healthy heterosexual life.
• Don’t negate your gay or lesbian life to prove your newfound heterosexual identity; former lesbians and gay men need no public renunciations or religious conversions to justify their attraction to the opposite sex. It just is. It would also tick off your family if they’ve made lifestyle shifts to embrace you: changing churches, persuading friends into acceptance, joining pro-gay organizations, only to have you make an unapologetic about-face.
• Don’t expect an easy time if you are in a committed gay relationship when you drop the straight bombshell. If your parents have attended your commitment ceremony, they may be committed to the marriage, and your partner, and want you to work on the relationship, especially if there are children involved.
• Don’t be blind to the part heterosexual privilege plays in switching teams back to the major leagues. Many gay men and lesbians grow tired of being second-class citizens, having their relationships treated as inferior, and long for the unquestioning acceptance that heterosexuals enjoy. Do a reality check to ensure that you have an affinity for the opposite sex, not the privileges heterosexuality brings.