They Love Me, But Not All of Me: Coping with Homophobic Family
Your family loves you, but they don’t seem to love who you really are.
As a queer therapist in Minneapolis, I’ve worked with countless LGBTQ+ therapy clients who describe being close with their family while also dealing with microaggressions, erasure, or outright homophobia from them. It leaves you with a sense of being alone. You feel like your family doesn’t really know or get who you are.
Being loved only when meeting certain expectations is called conditional love.
LGBTQ+ people experience this when family members are loving, caring, and interested in them, but this same type of love, care, and interest is not shown when expressing their queerness. Families may show their love for you only when you hide parts of yourself, such as your queer identity, your partner, and your LGBTQ+ community. It makes you feel as if they love some parts of you, but that ultimately they wish you were straight.
It’s akin to the message many of my LGBTQ+ therapy clients have heard: ‘Love the sinner but hate the sin.’ It leaves you longing for unconditional love from your family; to feel like they see you, fully, and love all of you.
You don’t want to feel tolerated, you want to feel loved.
What is Conditional Love?
Examples of conditional love from homophobic family members:
“It’s fine that you’re gay, just don’t talk about it around the kids.”
“We love you, but don’t bring your partner to Thanksgiving.”
Referring to your partner as your ‘friend’ or ‘roommate.’
Going quiet, making disapproving faces, or changing the topic when you mention anything LGBTQ+ related.
Why It Hurts (Even If They Think They Mean Well)
Receiving conditional love from homophobic family feels confusing. It’s a disorienting mix of sometimes feeling loved and sometimes not. I’ve heard many therapy clients describe this confusion and say ‘A part of me just wishes they’d be even more homophobic so that it’d be clear to me.’ Being loved conditionally as a LGBTQ+ person hurts for many reasons:
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Messages from family that your LGBTQ+ identity isn’t lovable leads to shame, self-editing, and invisibility. I’ve heard therapy clients describe how they start censoring out parts of their life when talking to homophobic family. They edit out mentioning anything LGBTQ-related in front of family; such as the fun they had at a recent drag brunch or the news that they are dating someone new.
Homophobia and conditional love from family robs you from getting to share some of the most exciting things in your life with your family. You aren’t able to share the joy in these moments because your family doesn’t see it as good news.
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So many of us as LGBTQ people know what it’s like to struggle with internalized homophobia. It takes resilience to push through that and come out. But when you’re surrounded by homophobic family it’s hard to completely break free from it.
There’s a lot of pain when family members state the hurtful things you also used to say to yourself. It leaves you thinking ‘maybe those awful things I’ve thought about myself are true.’ As a queer therapist this breaks my heart. It’s something I work on often with my LGBTQ therapy clients: helping them unlearn these messages and replace them with self-compassion and queer pride.
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There’s a big difference between feeling tolerated versus genuinely accepted. Being tolerated is very isolating. Tolerance is most evident from family members who say things like ‘It’s ok if someone’s gay, I just don’t think they need to talk about it all the time.’
Messages of tolerance make LGBTQ people feel like we are allowed to exist, so long as we follow other people’s rules and expectations of us.
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Family members will sometimes downplay their homophobia by stating they are just concerned for you.
Comments like this show that family members are aware of homophobia. They are worried about how this type of oppression will impact your life as a LGBTQ+ person. But they mistakenly direct this concern and worry towards you, instead of towards the people and systems that perpetuate homophobia. It makes it seem like we, as LGBTQ+ people, are the problem.
Dealing with Homophobic Family
Strategies for recognizing boundaries that protect your identity.
Unfortunately you can’t magically take away your family’s homophobia and make them more affirming. What you can do though, is acknowledge and validate the boundaries you need.
What are some changes you can make for yourself to continue feeling good in your LGBTQ+ identity?
Here are some examples from clients I’ve supported in LGBTQ+ therapy:
I’m going to shorten the length of time I spend at gatherings with homophobic family members.
I’m no longer going to censor myself when talking about my partner in front of family.
When family members ask homophobic or intrusive questions about my identity I’m going to respond with “I’m not going to talk about that with you” or “I don’t know how you want me to respond to that.”
How to emotionally prepare for interactions with conditionally loving family.
If you know in advance that you’ll be spending time with homophobic family members, you can emotionally prepare for these interactions. As a queer therapist in Minneapolis, I’ve helped my clients mentally prep for family gatherings, especially over the winter holiday season.
Two coping skills I recommend to my LGBTQ therapy clients with homophobic family:
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The more you can be in tune with yourself, in the moment, the more you’ll be aware of your emotions when interacting with family. These insights help you understand the emotional needs that aren’t being met by your family.
Mindfulness is also a useful form of self-care and a tool for affirming yourself while spending time with family. When practicing mindfulness you can do a general mindfulness practice or you can look up queer-affirming or gender euphoria guided meditations online.
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Take some time before, during, and after interacting with family to write down what these experiences are like for you. What is something compassionate and loving you can say to the part of you that is hurt by your family’s actions? Let this be a mantra you can repeat to yourself during future family interactions.
Knowing when to engage vs. when to detach for self-preservation.
Oftentimes the advice to cut off your family isn’t as simple as it sounds. On one hand it hurts to repeatedly have conditional love from family when they disapprove of you being LGBTQ. On the other, you still feel some connection and love with your family so it’s hard to let them go. It’s important to know when you want to engage and when you need to detach.
One of the most empowering things for my therapy clients is to help them have more choice and intention in their family relationships. Instead of feeling like you have to pretend everything is fine with your family, what options do you have for letting them know you need more support from them? What is your capacity for patience and putting in the emotional work to try deepening the relationship? Once we are clear on these questions, then you can make an informed choice on how to proceed, instead of feeling stuck in the current dynamic.
Building a Support System That Loves All of You
Finding chosen family and affirming community.
It’s valuable to have people in your life who love you unconditionally, regardless of how you choose to proceed with your family. For a lot of LGBTQ+ folks this includes community with fellow LGBTQ+ people, affirming friends, and chosen family. Before putting more effort into changing the relationship with your family, I recommend that clients build up their chosen family and affirming community as a source of support.
The importance of LGBTQ+-affirming spaces (online and offline).
Sometimes affirming community and chosen family is found by participating in LGBTQ-affirming spaces. This can include online communities, such as groups on discord or social media, or local communities.
One resource I love to refer my LGBTQ+ clients to is the Everywhere is Queer app. This is a map that displays local LGBTQ-owned businesses. Odds are, if you frequent these businesses you’ll find fellow LGBTQ+ people and may start to build connections with them.
Minneapolis LGBTQ+ Therapists.
Therapy can help while you navigate the relationship with your homophobic family. It may be especially important to have a LGBTQ+ therapist who understands what you’re going through.
A queer therapist can help you clarify the type of relationship you want with your family, support you in building LGBTQ-affirming chosen family, help you heal from trauma enacted by your homophobic family, and challenge any internalized homophobia you learned from your family.
You deserve to be seen and loved, fully.
If you’re looking for a therapist who gets how stressful and painful it is to be around homophobic family members, reach out to me for a free consult.
I am a bi/queer therapist in Minneapolis. I provide online therapy for LGBTQ+ people across Minnesota. You can have a life where you feel supported and secure in your queer identity.
Let’s connect and nurture what your LGBTQ+ identity means to you. I’d love to support you.
