Dear Prudence: Should I Tell My Brother's Girlfriend He's Gay?

[minoanmiss]

Content advisory: Christianity, conversion therapy, internalized homophobia, and an honestly well meaning LW.



My younger brother and I (he’s 28, I’m 30) were raised in an extremely conservative evangelical household. When he was 18, my brother tearfully confessed to me and my parents that he is gay. I told him I would support him no matter what, but my parents made him listen to lectures about how being gay is a sin, and how he could change if he really tried, and sent him to a “conversion therapy” camp. Since then, he has gone out with a series of young women and is planning on proposing to his current girlfriend. He appears happy on the surface, but to me, he seems broken and deflated, and I see no real joy in his relationships. It breaks my heart to see him so miserable. I’ve always tried to counter my parents’ preaching, but I’m worried it’s too late. She doesn’t know that he’s gay—my brother told me he’s never told her. Since all my pleas have fallen on deaf ears, I am wondering if you can tell me: Should I say something to his girlfriend? I am afraid that if he goes through with this proposal they will both be unhappy. I think telling his girlfriend about his confession might be the only way to save them.


—Saving the Beard

I can’t quite see my way to saying, “Yes, you should out your deeply closeted, self-loathing brother.” That said, I feel a great deal of compassion for his girlfriend, especially as it seems likely that she has no idea the man she loves is gay. For what it’s worth, I believe that your read of the situation is accurate, that the conversion therapy your brother suffered as a teenager likely “cured” him of nothing but contributed to a great deal of pain and self-hatred, and that a marriage between your brother and his girlfriend according to their current understanding would be ill-advised.

I think you should begin by appealing to your brother: “I love you so much, and I think the world of you just as you are, and it breaks my heart that you think you have to ‘fix’ the fact that you’re gay. I don’t think that you do. But I want to respect however you choose to live your life, and if you’ve decided you would rather marry a woman despite being attracted to men, I could find a way to support that if your relationship were not based on hiding this information from her. I don’t doubt that you care for her. If you two had decided to build a life together after she made an informed decision, that would be one thing, but I think you will only hurt both her and yourself if you try to start a marriage this way. I’m asking you as your sister—as someone who loves you and wants you to be happy, joyous, and freely and fully known by your partner—to please reconsider your decision to propose. This is a part of your life that she should know about, regardless of how you identify now, and if there’s any chance she could find out from some other source later in life, I think you’d rather she heard it first from you. You’re the best person to share this information with her.” You say that he hasn’t responded to your pleas in the past, so I’m aware this request may also go ignored, but it is absolutely worth saying, if only for your own conscience. If nothing else, at least one person in your brother’s life should be able to say, “I love you, and it’s OK that you’re gay, and I want you to know that.”

If worst comes to worst, and your brother never tells his girlfriend that he’s gay and they do get engaged, let him know that while you’re not going to out him or cut him off, you’re not going to actively help him lie to her either. You’ll have to determine for yourself what that compromise will look like and how much time you’ll be able to spend with them as a couple, but I urge you to remain an available and loving presence in your brother’s life—even if it’s at a distance—so that if the day ever comes that he does decide to come out again, he’ll have someone who can support him.

Comments

[mommy]

I had to stop and sit for a bit when I realized that this man's parents shoved him into conversion therapy in 2011.

I sympathize with the LW, but I don't see an ethical way to out her brother to his girlfriend.

[azurelunatic]

oh my god what a terrible situation for everyone.

Clearly the LW needs to be Team Brother all the way. Where do they live in relation to the parents? To the church? Is moving an option?

Is his girlfriend all-in to the hateful aspects of this religion? How about Team Her? Will she want kids?

[ashbet]

I... feel like this is weirdly homophobic, and plays on a lot of stereotypes about gay men?

Not saying that he might not be unfaithful, but this sounds more like the reasons straight women are told not to date *bi* men, because their attraction to men makes them deceitful and dangerous.

[ambyr]

I also found this comment homophobic.

Look, I think this marriage will end in tears too, but the marriages like this that I have known have ended in tears because the repressed gay person finally filed for divorce, or (at most) because the straight spouse caught their repressed gay spouse looking at same-sex porn videos.

[azurelunatic]

I was thinking less unfaithfulness, and (in the good scenario) a possibly messy divorce in the vicinity of a midlife I-can't-live-a-lie-anymore.

In the bad scenario ...

... the stats on queerfolks' suicide are better than they were, but that's what I'd be afraid about for the bad scenario of someone who has gone through the abuse of conversion therapy.

[ashbet]

I was responding to a comment that later got deleted, sorry!

[azurelunatic]

This makes much more sense! I see the "deleted comment" up there now, ha.

Admin: Thanks!

[cereta]

Thank you all for self-policing. Kinda fell asleep at the computer last night, and I mean that literally.

[shirou]

How could LW be an "available and loving presence" for her brother "even at a distance"? The advice doesn't make sense to me. Either LW plays along or not. (I used a female pronoun for LW because the columnist describes LW as her brother's sister, but I couldn't actually find an indication of LW's gender in the original letter. Perhaps it was edited out.)

[julian]

Guh.

WHILE I obviously think that most people who are exclusively gay should be able to come out to themselves and to the world, sometimes shitty circumstances (and parents) dictate that won't happen.

AND ALSO, while it's often true that they will be unhappy in a heterosexual marriage, it's not *always* true. The blend of sexuality, romantic orientation (not necessarily the same axis), and personal choices do play a part in all this.

Basically, I think it's possible that her brother and his partner could be happy, and that swooping in to try and salvage the situation will only make it worse. He may not have explicitly said he's gay to her, but you don't know the kinds of interpersonal promises and understandings they have.

So I'm actually coming out on Pru's side here -- stay close to them, stay friendly, be supportive, and try and help. And meanwhile I'll be here stomping on the parents from afar, mentally.

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, I totally didn't disagree with Pru at all here. I just posted it because, argh, people can make each other's lives so messy and awful for no good reason.

[julian]

Oh, no, I didn't assume you did. I was just trying to feel my way around the landmines of heterosexism and distress.

[tielan]

I guess the question that would concern me if it were my brother is how honest brother has been with his fiancee. Like, any marriage arrangement should come with honesty, whatever the agreement in how they're going to live out their marriage.

After that's been established, whatever configuration they're going to live in, I'd back them up in it to the judgemental parts of the fam.

But, yeah, if the brother hasn't been honest (with himself, with his fiancee) then I'd advocate honesty. And if he's not going to be...then at that point, it's just supporting and working out where the lines are drawn regarding who keeps what secret and what is going to happen when (not if) things come out of the closet and start having to be dealt with.

[heavenscalyx]

I mean, I hope that what happened is that brother discovered that actually, he's bisexual, and he and this woman really are in love and make a go of it. LW meddling would only fuck that up.

In reality, I expect this will end in tears (for everyone), a feeling of lost time (for him), and a feeling of betrayal (for her). Because Christianists (and their fascist homogenization) are one reason why we can't have nice things.

[minoanmiss]

This is what I wanted to say about this situation but I was too busy flailing in distress. agrees entirely

[ioplokon]

I think one thing to emphasize is that conversion therapy is inherently harmful regardless of the sexuality of the person subjected to it or their future relationship configurations. If brother is bisexual, or even if he were heterosexual all along and genuinely mistaken, the experience of undergoing conversion therapy has undoubtedly caused him serious wounds (though the letter makes it sound like when he and sibling talk, he is open about being gay & the most likely scenario is that he is and has always been gay). I think it's pretty awful that many assume conversion therapy is somehow less harmful to bisexuals who enter hetero-passing relationships... If he doesn't recognize that what happened to him was fucked up, I think it will be hard for him to have a happy relationship regardless since he can't directly counteract the abuse he suffered.

My reading of this is that brother is gay but not out to his gf, for obvious reasons, rather than "ex-gay." If that's the case, sibling might be able to at least get him to connect with resources for dealing with the shame, guilt, etc. of conversion therapy (whereas I think it would be a harder sell short-term to someone who thinks it "worked").

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, yes. Conversion therapy is torture and torture is harmful, full stop. Besides, .... being bisexual I have had gay anf lesbian people tell me, "At least [your parents/church/other homophobic authorities] must be relieved you're still part het", but in addition to "part het" not at all being what bisexuality is, I have never found such an authority to differentiate very much. If my parents had found out I'm into girls they would not have cared that I'm also into guys (and various others, but I digress) they just would have sent me off to be tormented into being "normal". And I can't imagine being subjected to that being at all ameliorated by being bi, not least because conversion therapy is as much about a narrow form of heteronormativity as it is about 'heterosexuality' however defined.

[ioplokon]

Yeah, I think without full acceptance, visibility is something that cuts on both ends and it's hard not to be jealous or the the other path (being recognized vs able to blend in) is easier. Especially when people are actively playing us against each other. Ime with non-accepting parents, whatever you identify as on the LGBT spectrum is somehow the 'worst' one. They take a bargaining approach to get you to compromise your self-conception. Which kind of gets to the heart of conversation therapy which is only nominally about producing heterosexuals and chiefly consists of annihilating your sense of self as well as your instincts about your body & intimacy in order to replace it with external standards and constant self-surveillance.

[minoanmiss]

annihilating your sense of self as well as your instincts about your body & intimacy in order to replace it with external standards and constant self-surveillance

This is SO true and SO well phrased. My whole experience of being raised Evangelical Christian was like this, and from what I've seen conversion therapy is this process turned up to 11.

[azurelunatic]

So, like masking except for sexuality. Fun! D:

[likeaduck]

WAIT. I just realized this is not just very similar to, but actually IS the letter discussed in the most weirdly-layered-by-subsequent events episode of the Dear Prudence podcast. So. There is more discussion of the letter here, in the first 7.5 minutes of this recording. And also...some layers.

(I tried to find a transcript but am having no luck.)