I can't tell if my family will be supportive.

[NothingForNow]

My (immediate) family seems accepting and tries to explain to my younger sister about the LGBTQIA+ community the best they can but they also have these moments where I can't tell if they're genuinely not supportive or are just incorrect. I've noticed they seem to really think of stereotypes as true and I don't know how to explain they're wrong without outing myself. I know that both parents have extremely homophobic relatives on their sides of the family so I worry about that too. Even if they are accepting I'm also worried about them keeping it to themselves, especially knowing how some of my family members would react. How can I tell if they are unsupportive or just incorrect?

[Picklethewickle]

Do you have a "friend" you can point to as your source of information? A website that has lots of LGBTQIA+ traffic in addition to other stuff your parents wouldn't consider odd? (Take Pinterest as an example. It has everything in the most random grab-bag. You can be looking at kitten pictures and get queer posts.) Can you say you heard something at work or at school? If you have these excuses for being aware of these issues, then you can open with "I heard from..." and then fill in the appropriate information to combat the stereotypes they believe, without actually saying this information comes from your own perspective. That can give you an opportunity to test the waters and see how they react.

If they reflect honestly on the things you tell them and take the time to consider how the stereotypes they believe might be wrong, then they may just be incorrect rather than unsupportive. The thing to watch out for is if they become argumentive or dismissive whenever you tell them something new or different from what they believe.

Edited April 24 by Picklethewickle