Coming out in India: a practical guide, not a pep talk

Everything you read about coming out comes from a country where the worst realistic outcome is an awkward Thanksgiving. Here the worst realistic outcome can be losing your home, your money and your freedom of movement in one evening. So this guide starts somewhere the others do not: with whether you should.

You do not owe anyone this

Coming out is not a moral duty, a stage of growth, or a test of courage. It is a disclosure of private information, and like any disclosure, the question is what it costs and what it buys. Plenty of people live full, honest lives out to friends and not to family, and that is not cowardice; it is judgement.

Before you tell family, answer these

• Do you depend on them financially? For rent, fees, food, a phone. If yes, and they might cut it off, wait until you do not. This is the single biggest predictor of how badly it goes.
• Do you live with them? Could you leave tonight if you had to? Where would you go? Have that answer before you need it.
• Have they ever said what they think? A parent who has spoken with contempt about queer people on television is telling you something. Believe them the first time.
• Are you safe from being taken somewhere? Families in this country have taken adult children to "doctors", to religious figures, to relatives in another city. If that is a possibility, it changes everything: you are an adult, nobody can lawfully confine you, and you should have a friend who knows to raise the alarm.

If you decide to

• Tell one parent first, the one more likely to hear it, and let them work on the other.
• Do it somewhere you can leave. Not on a road trip, not at a family function, not the night before a festival.
• Say it simply. "I am gay." "I am not a girl; I am a boy, and I have known for a long time." Long preambles make people brace.
• Expect the first reaction to be about them. What did we do wrong, what will people say, is this because of that friend. That is grief talking, not their final position. Most parents move. It takes months, sometimes years.
• Give them something to read or someone to call. Sweekar in Mumbai is a group of parents who have been through it, and a parent will believe another parent long before they believe you. The directory has more.
• Do not negotiate your identity. "Maybe it's a phase" is a question you can decline to debate. "I have thought about this for years" is a complete answer.

If it goes badly

• Leave if you are not safe. A friend's place, a hostel, anywhere. Nothing they say in the first 48 hours is their last word, and you do not have to be present for it.
• You are an adult. Nobody can lawfully stop you leaving, hold your documents, or take you to be "treated". If they try, that is a police matter — and the police cannot lawfully return an adult to a family against their will.
• Get your documents. Passport, Aadhaar, degree certificates, bank details. Keep photographs of them on a cloud account they cannot access.
• Money. Move what you can to an account only you control, before the conversation if possible.

Coming out to friends

Lower stakes, higher frequency. The pattern that works: tell the one person you are surest of, let it settle, then the next. You will learn quickly who is safe. Friends who react badly usually come round; friends who out you to others were never friends, and you will not need a guide for that.

At work

You are not obliged to. If your company has a written diversity policy and an employee resource group, they are safer than the law alone. If it does not, weigh it the way you would with family: what does it cost, what does it buy. Many people are out at work in one city and not in another. That is allowed.

On this app

Everything above is why the privacy settings here are built the way they are. You can have a profile that is invisible to everyone but your matches, photographs that only unlock for people you choose, and an exit button on every screen. Being on a dating app does not have to mean being out. That is the point.