Popular Culture Review 30.2
positive , sometimes its negative .” Thor continued , “ Well , I was scared to death for the longest time to come out to my parents .”
Then Thor shared their coming out story :
When we told her our stories�our coming out�sometimes it ’ s positive sometimes it ’ s negative . I ’ m like ‘ You never know . Like I thought my dad was going to hate me ; I thought my world was going to end because I love my mother and my father . And I thought it was going to kill them .’ And they were just ‘ Meh . It ’ s probably just a phase .’ But they love me for who I am ( Thor . Personal interview . 18 March 2016 ).
Yet another interviewee , Mal , shared his coming out experience , concluding , “ While the Queer community has taken great strides in the past several years , I believe I has a long way to go before it reaches general acceptance and equality . Not everyone has a positive experience when coming out ... I barely made it out alive myself ” ( Personal interview . 18 March 2017 ). This deeply ingrained pain in the LGBTQIA + community appeared often in discussions about the motivation to participate in panels . Several expressed the desire to share a brutally honest truth about the experience :
I constantly hear “ It gets better ” but that just isn ’ t true ... It does not always get better . Actually it can get worse . However , what did get better was me . I got better . I rose above it . I surrounded myself with loving incredible people who make me happy . I married a wonderful man and he is my family now .
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