"Am I The Jerk For Moving Out When My Dad Told Me To?"

If there's one thing that helps us get through challenging times, it's family. Having people who know and support you no matter what provides a sense of belonging and security that allows you to keep going forward.

However, in the case of Reddit user ThrowawayMoving_out, his dad had become more like an enemy instead of an ally. When the young man came out to him, the parent became hostile and eventually even decided to kick his son out of the house.

Attitudes in many societies may be changing, but plenty of prejudice still abounds across the world.

In the US, for example, LGBTQ+ people are nine times more likely than non-LGBTQ+ people to be victims of violent hate crimes, according to a report by the Williams Institute, a policy research institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In the UK, about 20% of LGBTQ+ individuals have experienced a hate crime in the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted for the LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall.

So it’s little wonder that LGBTQ+ couples avoid holding hands with their partner in public for fear of hostile reactions. Or coming out altogether.

As writer David Robson points out, families cannot protect their LGBTQ+ relatives from all the challenges they are going to face, but the quality of support can make a big difference. In fact, family support is a serious predictor of the well-being of LGBTQ+ people across the lifespan.

However, declaring tolerance for additional money and having someone’s back are, of course, two very different things.

“Parents may be really well-meaning, but they might not fully get what it means for their children to be who they really are,” says Rin Reczek, a sociologist at Ohio State University.

Reczek emphasizes that we should certainly feel no compulsion to come out when we do not feel comfortable doing so. “It’s quite rational to maybe not share everything with people who might be homophobic or transphobic.” As much as we would like to live openly all the time, the sociologist believes we have to weigh up the costs, which can exceed the benefits.

At their best, our relatives act as a buffer to our anxieties, making it easier to cope with the challenges we face. Unfortunately, as we just saw, family interactions can also do the opposite and generate more stress.