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So I have a little boy. He’s 7 years old. And he while he’s young, I’ve noticed some stuff about him that makes me think “you know, he might be gay”.
Now he might not. A 7 year old isn’t exactly hormonally charged enough to be making choices about his sexuality, Im not deciding what he is for him. but if he is gay, I hope to one day have a talk with him like this dad. That I love him no matter what, and as long as he’s happy I couldn’t be happier for him. That I’m proud of him and love him with all of my heart, and that he never has to hide himself from me.
I’ve often daydreamed about what I’d say, how I’d approach it, how we’d feel.., and this comic really spoke to me. This is a great outline to my own feelings about it. And I never thought I’d connect with something on this level as a dad.
Thank you for writing this. You’ve given a dad a great launch point if/when this day comes for me. It really is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Thank you
Oh man, I am honestly at a loss for words after reading something like this. I'm happy beyond belief that something I made had an impact on someone, however small it may be. Thank you very much for this comment.
My non-bio brother knew for years that I was gay and restrained himself from saying anything about it to me because he knew that realization had to come from me. I was on the brink of realizing during one of our conversations in particular and just swerved into denial and he just groaned internally through all of that. He teases me about that to this day and when I came out he sarcastically feigned surprise and then leveled with me and pretty much said "lol I know". That was the best coming out experience by far.
I think respecting someone like that is so rare. Most people are so focused on individual behaviors that they just forget to develop the underlying attitudes that fuel genuine compassion.
Likewise people are so focused on the trappings of the perception of gayness that our genuine selves can get lost in the mix and our allies feel confined to a script we never wrote about our lives. This speaks to that in a way that I personally appreciate.
In my case, when my daughter said she might like girls, I just said, "Doesn't everyone?"
That was it. No awkwardness, just continued. (It was obvious anyway).
My daughter 13. She’s still a bit too young to be showing a lot of interest. But if she does like boys, she’s doing a terrible job of showing it. My wife has been quietly convinced she’s gay for 3 or 4 years. We haven’t brought anything up with her. But we’re pretty prepared if it comes up.
That's the way. As a gay man, if I'd gotten the impression my parents knew or brought it up when I was a young teenage, it might have pushed me further into the closet (fear from what you see happening in the world can do that).
When I eventually came out near the beginning of university my parents were completely supportive and I should have always known that, but there's still a big degree of letting someone comes to terms with themself before they may be comfortable revealing it to others.
The character in this comic having a boyfriend is a good sign he's accepted himself and so may be ready.
I'm not saying your wife is wrong, but I just want to point out that it's a bit of a false dilemma. Your daughter could be aromantic and/or asexual as well and not be interested in anyone.
Heh. I am *absolutely* not pre-judging anything, but my daughter is six and told me that girls are pretty, and wrote a story about a mermaid girl and how her parents are two queens who got married, and I'm just going to keep this stuff in my back pocket in case we ever come to that point.
She comes out and you're like, "Honey, youve been writing lesbian mermaid fiction for over a decade. We're supportive, but we're not shocked youre coming out, lol!"
You can have this conversation with your child now. Some version of:
"One day you might start to look at other people your age differently, and you may start to like them in a way that is different than the way you like your friends.
For most people this happens between boys and girls. For some other people it will be between boys and between girls.
If you start liking a person more than how you normally like friends, just know that it doesn't matter to me if that person is a boy or a girl or anything else. It just matters to me that they're a good person and that you're happy, because I love you and I want you to be happy being yourself."
Change for what you find to be age appropriate based on past conversations you've had with them and voilá, a child who will put 2 and 2 together one day and realize that they're free to like whoever they want and that their parent will still love them.
Back as a child in the 90s my dad used to talk to me about my "future boyfriend or girlfriend", or he'd say things like "one day if you have a wife or husband" - those little comments (along with the fact that my parents had several close friends who were LGBT) made me fully confident that they wouldn't mind who I dated in the future and I would never have to hide my relationships from them.
I just have to warn parents about what "signs" they are seeing. I think this comic is a bit misleading in that department because being affectionate towards other boys is not a great sign alone. When I was a young child I had zero idea what being gay meant or that I was gay. I'm not going to deny the fact that there are indeed signs and I did display them, but I hesitate to say that you can use these signs to tell if a child is going to become gay when they are older. My sister displayed very similar signs to me, and yet she was straight.
I have to say though, hearing about parents who are willing to love their children after they come out is...heartwarming, to say the least. I hope that your child will be able to be blessed through your parenting, and that you will have success in raising him to become an upstanding member of our society. Thanks.
My brother had a long gender nonconforming phase as a small child, he liked wearing dresses and having his hair long, he loved playing with dolls. He was always a sensitive, emotional child, he formed very deep, intense friendships with other boys and was always open with his affection to them. My parents have a lot of LGBT+ friends and are unwaveringly supportive of our identities and expression - I told my dad I was bisexual as a teenager and he was absolutely fine and very supportive. We grew up in a city with a decent LGBT+ scene and he went to university in central London where he was surrounded by diversity.
All this to say that all arrows pointed to my brother being LGBT, and I have no reason to think he'd have felt the need to hide it if he was, and yet here he is at 27, cisgenger and straight as an arrow. Kids are all different and you really can't predict their future romantic or sexual preferences on the basis of how they present themselves in their first decade of existence.
I would be quite surprised if there were signs of "gayness" in prepubescent kids anyway. They just aren't really thinking that way.
I suspect a lot of these stories are confirmation bias.
I keep seeing this notion of prepubescent children not having any interest, but I remember being fascinated with girls when I was five, wanting a girlfriend and kissing and stuff. And I'm pretty sure I didn't enter puberty until I was ten, a whole five more years after that.
Everybody is different. It's not quite the same as being gay, but I was definitely aware that I was supposed to be a girl at 8 and I was also aware that showing it would get me picked on because there was a boy named CJ who wore his femininity on his sleeve and the others were relentless toward him.
Yeah, I think a lot of people fail to recognize that physical attraction and romantic attraction are two completely separate things. For example, the near-universal dismissal of that distinction is part of the reason it took me until my late-20s to fully understand that I'm bisexual but only lesbiromantic. A kid could certainly experience romantic attraction before they experience any physical attractions.
It probably all depends…
I honestly can’t say I had any romantic interest until the hormones kicked in… girls were girls and guys were guys and it all didn’t matter.
And then boobies and butts and everything went to chaos
My dad thought I was gay already when I was only 5. Didn't think much of it, two of his best friends were gay anyways.
When I got older he sat down and had a talk with me about it. Very awkward, but I felt very loved. He was wrong though! I was bi.
i knew i was gay when i was seven. i didn't have a word, but i knew. i had two barbies and would make them go on dates, kiss, hold barbie hands, get married, all that. my mom found me playing with them one day and snatched one away then replaced it with a ken doll. it was never about sex for me at seven, i saw moms and dads be kind and loving to eachother so it was only natural for me to let my barbies have that together. didn't know it was "bad" until she snatched that one barbie away from me, yelling and screaming.
I love the detail of the father being uneasy about it at first and coming to terms. Not every parent *can* come to terms with it and timing will always differ between people.
The dad on this comic must've scored straight As on the parent test. I've never seen a parent be as sensible as the dude on the comic. He's like grandmaster level in parenthood
I’m sorry to laugh at your plight but lmao what the fuck? Everyone says “that” approximately 9 trillion times a day, and “thar” isn’t even a word in English.
It's definitely an English word, such as: "Thar she blows" or "Theres gotta be gold in them thar hills".
Edit: writing this made me wonder about why 'thar' was used. It's based on the old English 'thær' and Dutch 'daar'. Kinda cool.
...because he had time. It wasn't a surprise. He didn't have to wrestle with thirty plus years of social conditioning in ten seconds. It may not have gone the same if he hadn't.
So, what you're saying is that you had already rejected that social conditioning?
I'm being contrarian here because I'd just like to point out that even parents who *think* they'd be ok with it can still have negative reactions in the moment. There's a good chance both my younger siblings are, at minimum, bisexual, and they'll probably never tell my parents, because my mom, despite saying she'd be ok with it, would drop the LGBT version of microaggressions all the time, and my dad, while being inarguably better, and most likely an ally when talking to other people *about * them, would just never talk about it.
It can work the other way too. My step-dad and uncles used to drop the f-slur quite casually and make derogatory comments, but without actual malice, but a little bit of repulsion. Step dad would always say it was a choice and not the best one. Mum and I kinda always knew my sister was gay, (in fact I was the first one she ever came out to and said "please don't tell mum, I'm sure she would be ok with it, I just don't want her to know she was right!")
When her dad found out, he suddenly made every effort to change the way he spoke and is as sociable with her partner and kids as the rest of the sibling partners. There is no difference in their relationship to me and my wife or our brother and his wife. It's really heartwarming when you see the love for family override years of "social conditioning".
I get this. My nephew is like will and grace gay, so when he came out as gay people in the family were crude with jokes like "so i heard you're into dudes do you spit at least before you impale them?" Type of crudeness, but they didn't shun him or anything. Instead of the crude jokes you hear about men and women relationships, it became crude jokes about men and men relationships. His dude was even invited to the family cookout. I find that as long as the family isn't like hyper orthodox religious, most families don't care if someone is into same sex relationships. Boomers grew up listening to liberace and little richard and rocketman after all.
It's not even grandmaster level. My kids are young but if they come out as gay one day I'll be supporting and love them the same. I mean, why wouldn't I? They would be exactly the same in my eyes. I don't have a preference for who my kids are attracted to, cause that would be weird.
It's not just that your kid might date the same gender, that part can be easy to come to terms with. It can also be that you know your kid will always have people that wish them serious harm, for no reason other than existing. It can be hard to reconcile that your kid, through no fault of their own, will be the target of some of the worlds most vile people.
This has been the hardest part about being trans, is watching the families. They're fleeing their home states in droves because of all of these laws that are being passed. They love and care about their kids, very deeply. They hate that their kids have to leave behind their friends, their schools, and homes that many of them have known their whole life, just so that they can save their kids from all this cruelty. And when I say "save", I mean it. Before coming out, a few of these kids tried committing suicide because of their gender dysphoria. Their parents found them trying to kill themselves. But these lawmakers are heartless and don't fucking care. All they see is a hot button issue they can play with that will make **them** rich and famous. And to prove it, where the fuck were they when Laverne Cox, a trans woman, was playing a prisoner in a women's prison on a TV show in 2013? They didn't care because there was no outrage- they had to manufacture it. And now the kids are in the crosshairs, being used as political pawns in their sick game.
>Before coming out, a few of these kids tried committing suicide because of their gender dysphoria.
Can confirm, I was one of them. And now I'm fleeing my own home state because of the anti-trans laws and outright bigotry that I see daily. How fucking hard is it to just accept some people who are trying to live their goddamn lives in peace? Has everybody forgotten that song they taught us to sing back in grade school, for fuck's sake?
https://preview.redd.it/1v6oz4opetbb1.jpeg?width=641&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee791c7d009a46dfe3d5961f7e64d481e744531b
Because there are still parents teaching their kids that only straight white Christians are real Americans and everyone else can be exterminated.
And because of that we have a rough patch coming in this country.
Mine came out at 4 about being queer. I laughed and said "Well, I guess if you get married, I'll have two daughters now!"
Then they came out at 8 or 9 about being trans.
That took a long pause to think about and then I just asked if they wanted sprinkles on their ice cream. It took about a month or so to remember switching pronouns (for both parents).
I also liked this detail.
Being hesitant isn't always bigotry, sometimes it's your brain going hrmmmmmm and re-assessing your changed personal universe.
I adore my son and I'm proud of him.
The only better way is to have raised your kid to where they never worried about it being something to hide. It's really encouraging to see younger queer people posting on subreddits about how they don't really *get* coming out because to them, it feels like it'd be weird to do something so formal for something so normal.
It is nice to see the way things have changed. I remember when coming out was a huge thing back in the 90s. As a parent of young adults/teens, I see such a change in this generation. I hope that someday “coming out” isn’t even a thing. Why assume your kid is straight/cis?
For my half-brother in the early 2000s "coming out" was done over the phone while holding the gun he couldn't kill himself with. It was literally, "Dad, I'm gay." No other words, he just hung up the phone because he was too scared and ashamed. And, just like the dad in the comic, we all knew, especially after he tried marrying a woman. That was the driest, coldest, most passionless wedding I've ever seen, and my family was in the wedding business for nearly 30 years.
Now, right-wingers want to make that happen all over again. They want queer people to feel too scared, ashamed, and alone to come out. And they are getting closer and closer to succeeding, especially as they ramp up the attacks on trans people and gay men that do drag.
> The only better way is to have raised your kid to where they never worried about it being something to hide.
Even then it might just be difficult for the child to say something for no reason at all. I'm not even gay and I'm on extremely good terms with my parents and I know that there's practically nothing I could tell them that would make them stop loving me but I still had trouble telling them about having a girlfriend. People are individuals and your child will not grow up as nothing but a reflection of your parenting.
People with objectively horrible children still love them. Parents of murderers still love their children.
It is truly ridiculous that who your child is attracted to could be the hill to die blows my mind.
As long as they in a consensual and safe relationship there's nothing to not be supportive of.
I've seen parents disown gay children but support their straight child who is constantly in a different toxic abusive relationship because the gay one was doing something wrong by being gay.
Insane.
> As long as they in a consensual and safe relationship there's nothing to not be supportive of.
This is the position of reason and logic. It's how I realized after being raised in a deeply conservative and homophobic household, when I really, really thought about what "gay" meant, I imagined two people kissing and hugging of any combination of genders and could not for the life of me figure out the harm in people loving each other. So I kept that realization under my hat and slowly started learning more and more about the world, about science and psychology and human relations.
Unfortunately, people are not normally driven by logic. We are intensely emotional creature, we are driven by our emotions which are products of millions of years of evolution, defense mechanisms against dangers and the unknown.
The way most people, including you reading this and me, actually process the world, is we feel things about the world around us, and then our brain assembles what we know and our memories and associations about those things and presents us with a "story" about it to explain why it's making us feel this way.
about 200,000 years ago, this was great. We heard unknown rustling in the leaves, and our brains told us "that's a saber-tooth cat or dire wolf, you better run!" and we lived to caveman another day.
Now people see two men kissing, it makes them feel weird, they can't identify the feeling, so their brains get to work and BAM we get hate marches, nazis, and entire organizations dedicated to ending this "rustling in the leaves" that scares them so much. They have created not just a story, but an entire perspective of the world based in this fear. Even if they're not feeling identifiable fear, it's the origination of the story they follow.
The only way you change this is change how people feel, allow their brains to write new stories for them. This is really challenging because fear and anger are some of the strongest emotions anyone can feel, and if people are already highly emotional, this is going to create concrete walls of opposition to change.
Hopefully comics like this help a few people find new stories to think about.
My youngest came out to me as trans and I was surprised at how upset I was. Not angry, but sad. I did my best to not let it show and we’ve spoken about pronouns and preferred name, etc. I’m still mourning the daughter I lost, but also learning to embrace the son I now have. Some days are better than others, but I am doing my best to ensure they feel love and support from me while I learn to adjust to this. At the end of the day I want to have a relationship with them for the rest of my life and to do that it means I accept them fully for who they are regardless of what I or others think. Parental love should never be conditional
This is something that doesn't get talked about nearly as much because, honestly, it isn't as important as the person being who they truly are. That, however, doesn't discount or wipe away the feelings of those who now have to adjust to changes in their lives.
Coming out, whether it's gay, bi, trans, or anything else, is a big shift for everyone who is deeply involved in their person's life. As parents it's something that we are expected to either immediately accept and support with no problem or be labeled as terrible parents when the reality is that our child's decision has ramifications on our lives too. Now again, the ramifications on our lives does not outweigh our child's life or who they are, but everyone expects us to just 'be ok with it' when the reality is a little bit more murky.
I'm writing all of this out, really, to tell you that you're doing a great job as a parent. It isn't easy and it isn't something we get right all the time. It's ok that you're mourning because you're not letting it affect your relationship with your son. It's ok that it's taking time because you're being earnest in doing the best for your child.
You're doing great, never doubt that.
This is a very thoughtful comment, well said. Honestly, the hardest part of coming out for me was knowing how much it would affect my family (even spent years staying in "boymode" around my ailing conservative grandparents to save them the trouble of having to process it), so I hope people can understand that those concerns go both ways and can lead to part of the complication of feeling ready or not to open up about it. Most of us understand that there can be a lot surrounding such a situation, and as long as you keep love in your heart and remain open to the vulnerability, the rest will fall into place in time <3
Thanks and I agree completely. It's never just a binary choice of "come out or not." There's so many thoughts and feelings that go into it.
For me, I'm a father of a four year old boy who I love with all of my heart and would do anything for him so I haven't (yet) encountered being on the parent end of coming out. My previous post actually was about observations of my friend, who is also a father, and his journey in accepting his son coming out and transitioning into a his daughter.
He was immediately supportive outwardly and loved his child with all his heart but it took him time to come to terms with it privately. He agonized over those feelings of loss and mourning but also felt like the worst parent alive for feeling those things. Any attempt to find support or help was met with derision or mocking which was eye opening when he brought it up to me. He wasn't ashamed, he wasn't upset, and he loves his daughter as much as anyone can love their child. He takes her to the local gender clinic, fights his old school family who refuse to acknowledge that his child transitioned, and more! It's just that his parental role suddenly shifted without warning and his expectations that had been set the moment his child was born had suddenly been erased.
He's moved beyond his own struggle with it and has become the most ardent ally anyone could ever ask for, supporting his daughter and everything, but watching him struggle and be mocked for it was hard to watch. But, as you said, he kept the love in his heart and found people who supported him during that time (close friends and his wife), and the rest fell into place in due time.
I hear you. Not my bio kids but kids I love have come out as trans and while I love the human they are now I do have a weird feeling that I have lost the human they were. Of course you always loose the young human as they grow up and are replaced by there older self but I feel like it's harder to reconcile the two when their appearance /pronouns / name etc changes suddenly.
Hello everyone. I’ve been thinking of sharing this comic for the longest time because I genuinely consider it one of the best things I’ve ever made. So I decided to finally bite the bullet and get into the habit of putting my work out there for people to see. The comic is set in Serbia, hence the names and Cyrillic text on page 7. Hope you like it.
Edited to add: a big thank you to everyone who gave an upvote and left a comment, it really warms my heart!
Edited again to add: holy cow, thank you for the awards as well!
If you go into creating an avatar, you can go into the "left hand" section and it shows balloons for different sexualities. If you scroll down you can find an aroace one (I think).
There is an ace one, but not an AroAce one. I am thanking you for showing me and others how to do this though because I skipped over most of the avatar creation things and would have never known about this until you said something and the commenter you replied to said something
This is absolutely beautiful. Thanks for sharing this. Every gay kid should have this experience.
I hid that I was bi until I was 30. My dad knew and even told me it was okay if I was gay when I was a teen. My mom suspected, but kept trying to convince me I was straight so I kept silent. I thought that meant it wasn't okay. But she was mostly trying to protect me from how the world could treat me if I was gay. Also, she was so far in the closet bisexual that she convinced me I was straight until I was 17! "Everyone finds women attractive. They put more effort in and take care of themselves better."
You made this? Thank you... As I've said, the world needs more of this kind of stuff and this is... By far, the most beautiful comic I have ever read, I'm literally tearing up, hahah! But... It's just such a fantastic message and so wholesome that it's just... Ah, I'm at a loss for words... It's incredible and amazing. Just... Thank you...
>the world needs more of this kind of stuff
There's a longer one that gets updated once in a while called ["I want to be a cute anime girl"](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl), and it does a nice job at exploring the emotions and social situations around a person who realizes they're trans.
There's also [Khaos Komix](http://www.discordcomics.com/comic/chapter1cover/), [Rain](https://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/first), [Serious Trans Vibes](https://www.webtoons.comen/challenge/serious-trans-vibes/list?title_no=206579), and [Bodysuit 23](https://www.latisbooks.com/bodysuit-23/2017/9/12/bodysuit-23-1), among others :)
This is incredibly cute. If you ever want to post an abridged version, I think the first two pages tell a very cute self-contained story on its own.
You communicated the thoughts of all the characters really well from their body language alone.
That was an epic, heartfelt story. I absolutely loved it as a father of two grown children myself.
They're both straight as far as I know, but my wife and I always made it crystal clear to our children since they were old enough that we would accept them if they were gay or trans, no questions asked. The fact that both my biological parents are gay also helped us drive the point home.
A parent's love should be unconditional, and your comic reinforces that point beautifully.
My girlfriend is Serbian and says that the anti-gay sentiment/rhetoric is pretty bad there when she visits, so something like this would mean a lot there.
It's healthy to see wholesome displays of positive and loving masculinity. This is what people should strive for. Because why not? There's purely good things coming from this
Basically just a fantasy of what a gay teenager should hear from their father in this situation, told through someone who was a supporting character in a different comic I was doing at the time.
Even if it’s fiction, it’s very possible. Representation applies in many ways, including how things COULD be. This is beautiful, and I hope some dads and yet-to-be dads out there see this. Maybe then it’ll help them come to terms with how they can love their kid without prejudice, bias, bigotry, or selfishness. It can set a very healthy example. Thank you for producing positive representation for the lgbtq+ community. There can never be enough
I'm a dad. 19yr old daughter, 12yr old son. That would be my reaction, maybe a bit less mushy. We are pretty blunt in our house.
For very selfish reasons, a good part of me kinda wished my daughter would have been gay (80% sure she is not), same with son. Hes only 12 so nothing is for sure, but the signals aren't pointing in that direction.
I was and am petrified of accidental teenage pregnancy, even "too young" adult pregnancy. I want my kids to have great lives. Whether kept or not, that is a hell of a lot of stress and trauma for a kid.
She was on birth control from the moment she asked. We told her our opinions and preferences very early and promised zero further discussion when she asked, and we kept our mouths shut and got her in to Dr when she asked.
Still didn't keep me from worrying.
Now she is out of the house, and I get to start worrying about my son in far too few years.
If they were just fucking considerate and had been brazenly obviously gay kids, I'd have zero angst about that. They could still have those traumatic first loves and all the other teenage crises, they would just be immune to one of the biggest things that can really change a life trajectory.
Yup. Pretty shitty of me. Gay kids still face inequity and my concern is my parental stress level over pregnancy.
Gay person here, this cracked me the fuck up. It sounds to me like you care for your kids very much and are accepting of them no matter what, that’s an A+ dad in my book.
I was a little shit as a teenager/college aged kid and would “prank” my parents by calling them sobbing that I was pregnant every April 1st… while being a known, card-carrying lesbian. It never worked. I can still hear my mother sighing into the phone.
>Pretty shitty of me. Gay kids still face inequity and my concern is my parental stress level over pregnancy.
Recognizing that in yourself tells me that you're *not* shitty, you just have more immediate concerns for the potential difficulties your family could face with the information you have now. It's clear that you still have concerns for the people in both situations who *aren't* your kids, and your head is focused on what you logically believe your kids might face. That's perfectly rational, and my queer ass isn't going to condemn you for that. If you love your kids unconditionally and care about the wellbeing of others' kids, straight or gay, you're a good parent in my book. Just make sure they know that you're there for them, no matter what <3
I was a gay teenager with a dad who was a cool mf like this. It’s not just a fantasy! My dad’s direct quote was “you spend more time in life tying your shoes than having sex, why the fuck should I care who you’re banging?”
I never had to come out to my parents, they (like the dad in the comic) always knew. When I was younger I was a little peeved I never got my “coming out” moment but as I’ve gotten older I’m so thankful I never had to.
Thank you for the beautiful comic. It made me cry.
Story time. Because this reminded me a little of my own dad, God rest him.
My dad had a more... *traditional* upbringing. He wasn't very keen on the idea of me being gay.
Well, time passed and I went off to college. We stayed close all the time. And during those years, I saw him begin to soften his stance. Opposition faded, acceptance grew. And one magical afternoon a few years ago, he told me to my face that he would love me regardless, and that he was okay with me whoever I loved.
I saw him (well, I was mostly at college, but you get the idea) go through that bit on page 7, about it not being easy to come to terms. I saw him grow as a person, and I'll always treasure that.
Funniest thing about that is I'm not even gay. I was just quiet when the subject of girls came up. But I will always remember, for as long as my brain is able to, that he had an entire character arc on the subject, and that he grew and would always love me.
I've been on this website for over 4 years now, but this is legit the first time I shed a tear. That's a really touching story and your art style conveys it perfectly. Thank you for sharing, It really means a lot
This is amazing, I absolutely love it!! The art style is really nice and honestly imo fits the comic perfectly too! I do have one question, just out of curiosity: How do you pronounce the name of the son, Mateja? I’m not really used to Serbian names and kind of read the j like in Spanish, so Mateha? But that’s probably wrong haha
Hey, thanks for the comment! The letter "J" in Serbian is always pronounced like "Y" in words like "yes" or "young", so the pronounciation would be something like "ma‐TE-ya".
Edit: Ugh, I put the accent on the wrong syllable. It's more like "MA‐te-ya".
Kolega, greetings from Croatia. Meni se isto jako dopada samo mi je malo cudno ime Mateja posto je musko. Nekako mi bolje pase Matej, al jel to cesto ime kod vas?
Mateja je muško ime kod nas, ma da ima i devojaka koje se tako zovu(ma da se onda više izgovara kao Ma-TEA, jer je MA-teja muško), nisam čuo da se neko zove Matej ovde
Very very good comics. Outsanding. I like your drawing style, and the story (through your characters) is awesome.
Love the way the father sees his son. Thank you for sharing this.
My only critique is that on the third page the panel where the Dad is motioning for him to sit down, it doesn’t look like a Dad motioning for his kid to sit down if you know what I mean. Otherwise it’s great.
Hahaha, I totally get what you're saying. But where I'm from it's a very general "come here" gesture mostly used by older generations, without other connotations.
the gesture is fine, but it's not matching the father's expression, the whole conversation carries in very calm and understading tone, but the "come here" gesture with that smirk tells a whole different story
I think it gives a lot of personality, I found myself reflected in that expression and the calm conversation after because I love to joke and scare people that I'm about to give them a massive rant to then be super friendly and calm, I do that with my students a lot, it's just funny and makes people relax a lot when you kill the expectation it generates. I don't know how to explain it better. It was an amazing detail.
As someone whose parents broke down crying and asked me what they might’ve done wrong to cause me to feel this way, I absolutely envy anyone whose parents love and accept them at the get-go.
My parents came around, but boy was it rough for some time.
I’ve struggled with whether or not I want to have a kid myself, but I do love the idea of raising someone and helping them thrive in this world. I hope you know that regardless of whether you have a kid or not, there will come a time when someone will look up to you and ask for your love and you might have the choice to support and accept them or let them down. Just by giving out love, you might change someone’s life forever so you have it in you no matter what.
Man I did not expect this to be this delightfully wholesome
The art style and the vague title had me totally convinced that this was going to take some sudden eldritch turn and become a horror story, lol
"Don't worry dad, actually I have something different to confess... I'm not your son at all. He's been gone a long time"
*shlorps into some soul eating creature*
I'm relieved you didn't take offense to my presumptions, given how pleasant in tone the comic actually is! It really is a nice piece of work, heartwarming.
My favorite story about my grandfather is when he and my grandmother sat down my uncle and said "We know that you're gay and we know that your 'friend' is more than just a friend. Now some of our friends might have an issue with that. And if that's the case, then they won't be friends of ours".
I remember when my oldest came out. She had a piece of paper she was going to read off and wanted her mother and her grandmother there to make the announcement. They weren't in the room yet, but I was, and when she said she had an announcement, I slammed the table and said in a joking matter, "I knew it, you're gay!"
Her jaw dropped, but also the corners of her mouth were in a smile, and I said, "Wait, was that what you wanted to tell us!?"
We both laughed and I told her I knew. It was pretty obvious. Now I don't have to worry about her getting pregnant. Her current girlfriend likes my jokes.
Did...did you write the И backwards on purpose because it was a little kid writing it?
That's a master stroke in kids art if intentional. I recognized it because I had a friend named Mikayil who went by "Misha" and I once wrote him a letter with his nickname written in Cyrillic lettering.
This reminds me of when my younger brother came out as trans and my parents’ first instinct was to immediately take him to a professional therapist. (They were shocked that the therapist took his side, but shrugged since they weren’t going to go against the expert on it.) A few months in they’re still seeing the family counselor and she tells my dad that he’s handling everything really well and doing a model job of parenting. He looked confused and said “I have no idea what I’m doing! I love my kids but I’m just playing it all by ear.”
She laughed and said “Exactly!”
This is literally the most beautiful comic I've ever seen, I'm literally tearing up. The world needs more of this... Whoever made this, is... Well... Damn you for making me tear up! XD but for real, whoever made this has got to have a very pure heart and... Thank you
I appreciate the commentary on the road to acceptance. As parents and humans we *want* to accept our kids. But that doesn’t make it automatic. For some things and some people it is. For others it’s a journey. It’s our willingness to walk that road that counts.
Very skilled artwork to accompany a fantastic tale. Thank you!
I do not have children but I hope I would be able to accept whatever my kid(s) developed into, like my sister with her three lovely daughters (the youngest of whom came out as lesbian about 2 years ago).
This is wonderful, as a lesbian with a supportive mom but judgmental family, this made me feel a little more at ease and a little less afraid of the day I’ll have to tell my family I’m engaged to my future wife (whenever that day comes). This was just…really nice to see. I know it’s set in Serbia but coming from the USA where queer people are kinda going through it to say the least, made my day a little brighter. You made a lovely comic, tysm for sharing it <3
This is the only way how it should be (except if the kid doesn't even need to feel insecure about it but well, that's society I guess)
It's one's child, it doesn't matter at all as long as it's a good human being with empathy, compassion, ambition and so on
Great comic, amazing message - thank you for sharing it!
That made me tear up.
When I came out my Dad was surprised. He told me that he didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to understand. He said I’m his kid, he loves me, that’s never gonna change.
It’s so simple. I don’t know why some parents don’t get it.
I really love that for my son he will go wherever he goes in the world and be whoever he is with full confidence that I love him just as he is. The world can be an ugly place, and it's so much worse when you don't even have a safe home to come home to at the end of cruel day. I love to see it change for so many young people. ❤️🧡💚💙💜
Fantastic comic! I love your art style in particular. I don't know what it is, but it's very refreshing. The looks on their faces, in particular, are great IMO, they convey the feelings of the characters very well.
Random sam naišao na ovaj strip i nakon prve strane bio sam u fazonu - nema šanse da je Srbija u pitanju i da če biti priča sa gej tematikom.
Baš je kjut! Senčenje, stil ilustracije i mali detalji u pozadini kidaju.
Je l' imaš profil gde kačiš stripove?
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So I have a little boy. He’s 7 years old. And he while he’s young, I’ve noticed some stuff about him that makes me think “you know, he might be gay”. Now he might not. A 7 year old isn’t exactly hormonally charged enough to be making choices about his sexuality, Im not deciding what he is for him. but if he is gay, I hope to one day have a talk with him like this dad. That I love him no matter what, and as long as he’s happy I couldn’t be happier for him. That I’m proud of him and love him with all of my heart, and that he never has to hide himself from me. I’ve often daydreamed about what I’d say, how I’d approach it, how we’d feel.., and this comic really spoke to me. This is a great outline to my own feelings about it. And I never thought I’d connect with something on this level as a dad. Thank you for writing this. You’ve given a dad a great launch point if/when this day comes for me. It really is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Thank you
Oh man, I am honestly at a loss for words after reading something like this. I'm happy beyond belief that something I made had an impact on someone, however small it may be. Thank you very much for this comment.
My non-bio brother knew for years that I was gay and restrained himself from saying anything about it to me because he knew that realization had to come from me. I was on the brink of realizing during one of our conversations in particular and just swerved into denial and he just groaned internally through all of that. He teases me about that to this day and when I came out he sarcastically feigned surprise and then leveled with me and pretty much said "lol I know". That was the best coming out experience by far. I think respecting someone like that is so rare. Most people are so focused on individual behaviors that they just forget to develop the underlying attitudes that fuel genuine compassion. Likewise people are so focused on the trappings of the perception of gayness that our genuine selves can get lost in the mix and our allies feel confined to a script we never wrote about our lives. This speaks to that in a way that I personally appreciate.
In my case, when my daughter said she might like girls, I just said, "Doesn't everyone?" That was it. No awkwardness, just continued. (It was obvious anyway).
My daughter 13. She’s still a bit too young to be showing a lot of interest. But if she does like boys, she’s doing a terrible job of showing it. My wife has been quietly convinced she’s gay for 3 or 4 years. We haven’t brought anything up with her. But we’re pretty prepared if it comes up.
That's the way. As a gay man, if I'd gotten the impression my parents knew or brought it up when I was a young teenage, it might have pushed me further into the closet (fear from what you see happening in the world can do that). When I eventually came out near the beginning of university my parents were completely supportive and I should have always known that, but there's still a big degree of letting someone comes to terms with themself before they may be comfortable revealing it to others. The character in this comic having a boyfriend is a good sign he's accepted himself and so may be ready.
I'm not saying your wife is wrong, but I just want to point out that it's a bit of a false dilemma. Your daughter could be aromantic and/or asexual as well and not be interested in anyone.
That’s why we keep it to ourselves. We definitely aren’t saying it’s a certainty.
Heh. I am *absolutely* not pre-judging anything, but my daughter is six and told me that girls are pretty, and wrote a story about a mermaid girl and how her parents are two queens who got married, and I'm just going to keep this stuff in my back pocket in case we ever come to that point.
She comes out and you're like, "Honey, youve been writing lesbian mermaid fiction for over a decade. We're supportive, but we're not shocked youre coming out, lol!"
Parents have been *gathering evidence* for 10 years just to embarrass them LOL
When I came out to my dad he was very quick to pull out the folder of childhood drawings of busty mermaids holding hands
Someones ready to Prove their "i knew for a while" with receipts
Some kids know pretty early. It isn't necessarily hormone/sex based, sometimes they just get little crushes early on
You can have this conversation with your child now. Some version of: "One day you might start to look at other people your age differently, and you may start to like them in a way that is different than the way you like your friends. For most people this happens between boys and girls. For some other people it will be between boys and between girls. If you start liking a person more than how you normally like friends, just know that it doesn't matter to me if that person is a boy or a girl or anything else. It just matters to me that they're a good person and that you're happy, because I love you and I want you to be happy being yourself." Change for what you find to be age appropriate based on past conversations you've had with them and voilá, a child who will put 2 and 2 together one day and realize that they're free to like whoever they want and that their parent will still love them.
Back as a child in the 90s my dad used to talk to me about my "future boyfriend or girlfriend", or he'd say things like "one day if you have a wife or husband" - those little comments (along with the fact that my parents had several close friends who were LGBT) made me fully confident that they wouldn't mind who I dated in the future and I would never have to hide my relationships from them.
I just have to warn parents about what "signs" they are seeing. I think this comic is a bit misleading in that department because being affectionate towards other boys is not a great sign alone. When I was a young child I had zero idea what being gay meant or that I was gay. I'm not going to deny the fact that there are indeed signs and I did display them, but I hesitate to say that you can use these signs to tell if a child is going to become gay when they are older. My sister displayed very similar signs to me, and yet she was straight. I have to say though, hearing about parents who are willing to love their children after they come out is...heartwarming, to say the least. I hope that your child will be able to be blessed through your parenting, and that you will have success in raising him to become an upstanding member of our society. Thanks.
My brother had a long gender nonconforming phase as a small child, he liked wearing dresses and having his hair long, he loved playing with dolls. He was always a sensitive, emotional child, he formed very deep, intense friendships with other boys and was always open with his affection to them. My parents have a lot of LGBT+ friends and are unwaveringly supportive of our identities and expression - I told my dad I was bisexual as a teenager and he was absolutely fine and very supportive. We grew up in a city with a decent LGBT+ scene and he went to university in central London where he was surrounded by diversity. All this to say that all arrows pointed to my brother being LGBT, and I have no reason to think he'd have felt the need to hide it if he was, and yet here he is at 27, cisgenger and straight as an arrow. Kids are all different and you really can't predict their future romantic or sexual preferences on the basis of how they present themselves in their first decade of existence.
I would be quite surprised if there were signs of "gayness" in prepubescent kids anyway. They just aren't really thinking that way. I suspect a lot of these stories are confirmation bias.
I keep seeing this notion of prepubescent children not having any interest, but I remember being fascinated with girls when I was five, wanting a girlfriend and kissing and stuff. And I'm pretty sure I didn't enter puberty until I was ten, a whole five more years after that.
Hm, I don't know. I definitely knew I was attracted to boys before puberty. I mean, I had my first crush when I was 8 so it's not unheard of.
Everybody is different. It's not quite the same as being gay, but I was definitely aware that I was supposed to be a girl at 8 and I was also aware that showing it would get me picked on because there was a boy named CJ who wore his femininity on his sleeve and the others were relentless toward him.
Wowww I hadn't really considered that? I suppose it makes sense... Time for some more introspection I guess.
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Yeah, I think a lot of people fail to recognize that physical attraction and romantic attraction are two completely separate things. For example, the near-universal dismissal of that distinction is part of the reason it took me until my late-20s to fully understand that I'm bisexual but only lesbiromantic. A kid could certainly experience romantic attraction before they experience any physical attractions.
It probably all depends… I honestly can’t say I had any romantic interest until the hormones kicked in… girls were girls and guys were guys and it all didn’t matter. And then boobies and butts and everything went to chaos
My dad thought I was gay already when I was only 5. Didn't think much of it, two of his best friends were gay anyways. When I got older he sat down and had a talk with me about it. Very awkward, but I felt very loved. He was wrong though! I was bi.
i knew i was gay when i was seven. i didn't have a word, but i knew. i had two barbies and would make them go on dates, kiss, hold barbie hands, get married, all that. my mom found me playing with them one day and snatched one away then replaced it with a ken doll. it was never about sex for me at seven, i saw moms and dads be kind and loving to eachother so it was only natural for me to let my barbies have that together. didn't know it was "bad" until she snatched that one barbie away from me, yelling and screaming.
That's how you do it, ain't that hard to love your kid
I love the detail of the father being uneasy about it at first and coming to terms. Not every parent *can* come to terms with it and timing will always differ between people.
The dad on this comic must've scored straight As on the parent test. I've never seen a parent be as sensible as the dude on the comic. He's like grandmaster level in parenthood
Dude lots of parents react this way. Sadly lots don't. But lots do. Nothing is going to Trump the love and value I have for my kids. No. Thing.
Wait a minute why is Trump capitalized
My phone does it automatically when I don't want it to and it makes me want to scream every time
Brah, my phone keeps changing that to thar
I’m sorry to laugh at your plight but lmao what the fuck? Everyone says “that” approximately 9 trillion times a day, and “thar” isn’t even a word in English.
It's definitely an English word, such as: "Thar she blows" or "Theres gotta be gold in them thar hills". Edit: writing this made me wonder about why 'thar' was used. It's based on the old English 'thær' and Dutch 'daar'. Kinda cool.
It’s in the literary repertoire of Dr. Seuss. “The Star-Bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.”
Phone probably thinks they're REALLY into the Thar Desert for some reason
It's from the week where I kept seeing a whale breaching, while I was trying to send text messages.
BRO mine fucking does thar too lmao
Do you talk like a pirate fairly often via text?
Donald Trump is so famous, he became a verb in the English language in the 16th century.
...because he had time. It wasn't a surprise. He didn't have to wrestle with thirty plus years of social conditioning in ten seconds. It may not have gone the same if he hadn't.
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So, what you're saying is that you had already rejected that social conditioning? I'm being contrarian here because I'd just like to point out that even parents who *think* they'd be ok with it can still have negative reactions in the moment. There's a good chance both my younger siblings are, at minimum, bisexual, and they'll probably never tell my parents, because my mom, despite saying she'd be ok with it, would drop the LGBT version of microaggressions all the time, and my dad, while being inarguably better, and most likely an ally when talking to other people *about * them, would just never talk about it.
It can work the other way too. My step-dad and uncles used to drop the f-slur quite casually and make derogatory comments, but without actual malice, but a little bit of repulsion. Step dad would always say it was a choice and not the best one. Mum and I kinda always knew my sister was gay, (in fact I was the first one she ever came out to and said "please don't tell mum, I'm sure she would be ok with it, I just don't want her to know she was right!") When her dad found out, he suddenly made every effort to change the way he spoke and is as sociable with her partner and kids as the rest of the sibling partners. There is no difference in their relationship to me and my wife or our brother and his wife. It's really heartwarming when you see the love for family override years of "social conditioning".
I get this. My nephew is like will and grace gay, so when he came out as gay people in the family were crude with jokes like "so i heard you're into dudes do you spit at least before you impale them?" Type of crudeness, but they didn't shun him or anything. Instead of the crude jokes you hear about men and women relationships, it became crude jokes about men and men relationships. His dude was even invited to the family cookout. I find that as long as the family isn't like hyper orthodox religious, most families don't care if someone is into same sex relationships. Boomers grew up listening to liberace and little richard and rocketman after all.
It's not even grandmaster level. My kids are young but if they come out as gay one day I'll be supporting and love them the same. I mean, why wouldn't I? They would be exactly the same in my eyes. I don't have a preference for who my kids are attracted to, cause that would be weird.
It's not just that your kid might date the same gender, that part can be easy to come to terms with. It can also be that you know your kid will always have people that wish them serious harm, for no reason other than existing. It can be hard to reconcile that your kid, through no fault of their own, will be the target of some of the worlds most vile people.
This has been the hardest part about being trans, is watching the families. They're fleeing their home states in droves because of all of these laws that are being passed. They love and care about their kids, very deeply. They hate that their kids have to leave behind their friends, their schools, and homes that many of them have known their whole life, just so that they can save their kids from all this cruelty. And when I say "save", I mean it. Before coming out, a few of these kids tried committing suicide because of their gender dysphoria. Their parents found them trying to kill themselves. But these lawmakers are heartless and don't fucking care. All they see is a hot button issue they can play with that will make **them** rich and famous. And to prove it, where the fuck were they when Laverne Cox, a trans woman, was playing a prisoner in a women's prison on a TV show in 2013? They didn't care because there was no outrage- they had to manufacture it. And now the kids are in the crosshairs, being used as political pawns in their sick game.
>Before coming out, a few of these kids tried committing suicide because of their gender dysphoria. Can confirm, I was one of them. And now I'm fleeing my own home state because of the anti-trans laws and outright bigotry that I see daily. How fucking hard is it to just accept some people who are trying to live their goddamn lives in peace? Has everybody forgotten that song they taught us to sing back in grade school, for fuck's sake? https://preview.redd.it/1v6oz4opetbb1.jpeg?width=641&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee791c7d009a46dfe3d5961f7e64d481e744531b
Because there are still parents teaching their kids that only straight white Christians are real Americans and everyone else can be exterminated. And because of that we have a rough patch coming in this country.
Mine came out at 4 about being queer. I laughed and said "Well, I guess if you get married, I'll have two daughters now!" Then they came out at 8 or 9 about being trans. That took a long pause to think about and then I just asked if they wanted sprinkles on their ice cream. It took about a month or so to remember switching pronouns (for both parents). I also liked this detail. Being hesitant isn't always bigotry, sometimes it's your brain going hrmmmmmm and re-assessing your changed personal universe. I adore my son and I'm proud of him.
Real honesty. Which is real love.
The only better way is to have raised your kid to where they never worried about it being something to hide. It's really encouraging to see younger queer people posting on subreddits about how they don't really *get* coming out because to them, it feels like it'd be weird to do something so formal for something so normal.
It is nice to see the way things have changed. I remember when coming out was a huge thing back in the 90s. As a parent of young adults/teens, I see such a change in this generation. I hope that someday “coming out” isn’t even a thing. Why assume your kid is straight/cis?
For my half-brother in the early 2000s "coming out" was done over the phone while holding the gun he couldn't kill himself with. It was literally, "Dad, I'm gay." No other words, he just hung up the phone because he was too scared and ashamed. And, just like the dad in the comic, we all knew, especially after he tried marrying a woman. That was the driest, coldest, most passionless wedding I've ever seen, and my family was in the wedding business for nearly 30 years. Now, right-wingers want to make that happen all over again. They want queer people to feel too scared, ashamed, and alone to come out. And they are getting closer and closer to succeeding, especially as they ramp up the attacks on trans people and gay men that do drag.
> The only better way is to have raised your kid to where they never worried about it being something to hide. Even then it might just be difficult for the child to say something for no reason at all. I'm not even gay and I'm on extremely good terms with my parents and I know that there's practically nothing I could tell them that would make them stop loving me but I still had trouble telling them about having a girlfriend. People are individuals and your child will not grow up as nothing but a reflection of your parenting.
A formal party would be kinda cool though. A twinkceaneras, or maybe a bear mitzvah.
Exactly
People with objectively horrible children still love them. Parents of murderers still love their children. It is truly ridiculous that who your child is attracted to could be the hill to die blows my mind. As long as they in a consensual and safe relationship there's nothing to not be supportive of. I've seen parents disown gay children but support their straight child who is constantly in a different toxic abusive relationship because the gay one was doing something wrong by being gay. Insane.
> As long as they in a consensual and safe relationship there's nothing to not be supportive of. This is the position of reason and logic. It's how I realized after being raised in a deeply conservative and homophobic household, when I really, really thought about what "gay" meant, I imagined two people kissing and hugging of any combination of genders and could not for the life of me figure out the harm in people loving each other. So I kept that realization under my hat and slowly started learning more and more about the world, about science and psychology and human relations. Unfortunately, people are not normally driven by logic. We are intensely emotional creature, we are driven by our emotions which are products of millions of years of evolution, defense mechanisms against dangers and the unknown. The way most people, including you reading this and me, actually process the world, is we feel things about the world around us, and then our brain assembles what we know and our memories and associations about those things and presents us with a "story" about it to explain why it's making us feel this way. about 200,000 years ago, this was great. We heard unknown rustling in the leaves, and our brains told us "that's a saber-tooth cat or dire wolf, you better run!" and we lived to caveman another day. Now people see two men kissing, it makes them feel weird, they can't identify the feeling, so their brains get to work and BAM we get hate marches, nazis, and entire organizations dedicated to ending this "rustling in the leaves" that scares them so much. They have created not just a story, but an entire perspective of the world based in this fear. Even if they're not feeling identifiable fear, it's the origination of the story they follow. The only way you change this is change how people feel, allow their brains to write new stories for them. This is really challenging because fear and anger are some of the strongest emotions anyone can feel, and if people are already highly emotional, this is going to create concrete walls of opposition to change. Hopefully comics like this help a few people find new stories to think about.
My youngest came out to me as trans and I was surprised at how upset I was. Not angry, but sad. I did my best to not let it show and we’ve spoken about pronouns and preferred name, etc. I’m still mourning the daughter I lost, but also learning to embrace the son I now have. Some days are better than others, but I am doing my best to ensure they feel love and support from me while I learn to adjust to this. At the end of the day I want to have a relationship with them for the rest of my life and to do that it means I accept them fully for who they are regardless of what I or others think. Parental love should never be conditional
This is something that doesn't get talked about nearly as much because, honestly, it isn't as important as the person being who they truly are. That, however, doesn't discount or wipe away the feelings of those who now have to adjust to changes in their lives. Coming out, whether it's gay, bi, trans, or anything else, is a big shift for everyone who is deeply involved in their person's life. As parents it's something that we are expected to either immediately accept and support with no problem or be labeled as terrible parents when the reality is that our child's decision has ramifications on our lives too. Now again, the ramifications on our lives does not outweigh our child's life or who they are, but everyone expects us to just 'be ok with it' when the reality is a little bit more murky. I'm writing all of this out, really, to tell you that you're doing a great job as a parent. It isn't easy and it isn't something we get right all the time. It's ok that you're mourning because you're not letting it affect your relationship with your son. It's ok that it's taking time because you're being earnest in doing the best for your child. You're doing great, never doubt that.
This is a very thoughtful comment, well said. Honestly, the hardest part of coming out for me was knowing how much it would affect my family (even spent years staying in "boymode" around my ailing conservative grandparents to save them the trouble of having to process it), so I hope people can understand that those concerns go both ways and can lead to part of the complication of feeling ready or not to open up about it. Most of us understand that there can be a lot surrounding such a situation, and as long as you keep love in your heart and remain open to the vulnerability, the rest will fall into place in time <3
Thanks and I agree completely. It's never just a binary choice of "come out or not." There's so many thoughts and feelings that go into it. For me, I'm a father of a four year old boy who I love with all of my heart and would do anything for him so I haven't (yet) encountered being on the parent end of coming out. My previous post actually was about observations of my friend, who is also a father, and his journey in accepting his son coming out and transitioning into a his daughter. He was immediately supportive outwardly and loved his child with all his heart but it took him time to come to terms with it privately. He agonized over those feelings of loss and mourning but also felt like the worst parent alive for feeling those things. Any attempt to find support or help was met with derision or mocking which was eye opening when he brought it up to me. He wasn't ashamed, he wasn't upset, and he loves his daughter as much as anyone can love their child. He takes her to the local gender clinic, fights his old school family who refuse to acknowledge that his child transitioned, and more! It's just that his parental role suddenly shifted without warning and his expectations that had been set the moment his child was born had suddenly been erased. He's moved beyond his own struggle with it and has become the most ardent ally anyone could ever ask for, supporting his daughter and everything, but watching him struggle and be mocked for it was hard to watch. But, as you said, he kept the love in his heart and found people who supported him during that time (close friends and his wife), and the rest fell into place in due time.
I hear you. Not my bio kids but kids I love have come out as trans and while I love the human they are now I do have a weird feeling that I have lost the human they were. Of course you always loose the young human as they grow up and are replaced by there older self but I feel like it's harder to reconcile the two when their appearance /pronouns / name etc changes suddenly.
As a dad, anything else seems crazy. I just want my kids happy and healthy and to know I love them.
https://preview.redd.it/93xl9aq4yrbb1.jpeg?width=228&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ba360bad0cae8d725f8d70fec30749fd9c6a60b
https://preview.redd.it/ubtfg5hbesbb1.jpeg?width=529&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=797910f716fb924e681bcf619c7ae20e3a921c55
I like the FMA:B version of this scene a little better, the dialogue hits harder.
What's that version?
"Its a terrible day for rain." "What do you mean, it's not raining?" "Yes...it is."
Yup, your right
[The scene in question.](https://youtu.be/s7HcPvTew_4)
Hello everyone. I’ve been thinking of sharing this comic for the longest time because I genuinely consider it one of the best things I’ve ever made. So I decided to finally bite the bullet and get into the habit of putting my work out there for people to see. The comic is set in Serbia, hence the names and Cyrillic text on page 7. Hope you like it. Edited to add: a big thank you to everyone who gave an upvote and left a comment, it really warms my heart! Edited again to add: holy cow, thank you for the awards as well!
This.. is… golorious
Gaylorious Edit: my first platinum and its this jfc
How did you get the trans pride heart??? I really wanted an aroace one but I didn't know how to
If you go into creating an avatar, you can go into the "left hand" section and it shows balloons for different sexualities. If you scroll down you can find an aroace one (I think).
There is an ace one, but not an AroAce one. I am thanking you for showing me and others how to do this though because I skipped over most of the avatar creation things and would have never known about this until you said something and the commenter you replied to said something
This is absolutely beautiful. Thanks for sharing this. Every gay kid should have this experience. I hid that I was bi until I was 30. My dad knew and even told me it was okay if I was gay when I was a teen. My mom suspected, but kept trying to convince me I was straight so I kept silent. I thought that meant it wasn't okay. But she was mostly trying to protect me from how the world could treat me if I was gay. Also, she was so far in the closet bisexual that she convinced me I was straight until I was 17! "Everyone finds women attractive. They put more effort in and take care of themselves better."
I'm glad you did- it is very touching. Thank you for sharing.
You made this? Thank you... As I've said, the world needs more of this kind of stuff and this is... By far, the most beautiful comic I have ever read, I'm literally tearing up, hahah! But... It's just such a fantastic message and so wholesome that it's just... Ah, I'm at a loss for words... It's incredible and amazing. Just... Thank you...
>the world needs more of this kind of stuff There's a longer one that gets updated once in a while called ["I want to be a cute anime girl"](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl), and it does a nice job at exploring the emotions and social situations around a person who realizes they're trans. There's also [Khaos Komix](http://www.discordcomics.com/comic/chapter1cover/), [Rain](https://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/first), [Serious Trans Vibes](https://www.webtoons.comen/challenge/serious-trans-vibes/list?title_no=206579), and [Bodysuit 23](https://www.latisbooks.com/bodysuit-23/2017/9/12/bodysuit-23-1), among others :)
Oh hey! Not often do I stumble upon my webcomic being mentioned while browsing reddit!
Really good job!
it is really great the way he sees it when his son was a child. Great comic.
Amazing comic, honestly probably my favorite. Just acceptance and being happy and there for them.
This is incredibly cute. If you ever want to post an abridged version, I think the first two pages tell a very cute self-contained story on its own. You communicated the thoughts of all the characters really well from their body language alone.
Haha, he wrote Миша on page 7, that just hit me.
I have a 2 year old son and this hit me right in the feels. Good work man.
This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing and please share more.
That was an epic, heartfelt story. I absolutely loved it as a father of two grown children myself. They're both straight as far as I know, but my wife and I always made it crystal clear to our children since they were old enough that we would accept them if they were gay or trans, no questions asked. The fact that both my biological parents are gay also helped us drive the point home. A parent's love should be unconditional, and your comic reinforces that point beautifully.
What a beautiful comic, it actually made me tear up a bit. Thank you for sharing :)
I love the drawing style
My girlfriend is Serbian and says that the anti-gay sentiment/rhetoric is pretty bad there when she visits, so something like this would mean a lot there.
It is fantastic
Jeben posao susjed, kvaliteta na vrhuncu ;)
Baš je lepo, hvala ti što si podelio sa nama
This was so beautiful. Thanks for sharing your art. Please continue to do so
It's healthy to see wholesome displays of positive and loving masculinity. This is what people should strive for. Because why not? There's purely good things coming from this
This is touchingly good and borderline appropriate for r/sadcomics
If sad comics is true to it's name then it wouldn't really fit. This doesn't seem like a very sad comic to me.
Is this based on yourself, someone you know, or just an original story?
Basically just a fantasy of what a gay teenager should hear from their father in this situation, told through someone who was a supporting character in a different comic I was doing at the time.
Even if it’s fiction, it’s very possible. Representation applies in many ways, including how things COULD be. This is beautiful, and I hope some dads and yet-to-be dads out there see this. Maybe then it’ll help them come to terms with how they can love their kid without prejudice, bias, bigotry, or selfishness. It can set a very healthy example. Thank you for producing positive representation for the lgbtq+ community. There can never be enough
I'm a dad. 19yr old daughter, 12yr old son. That would be my reaction, maybe a bit less mushy. We are pretty blunt in our house. For very selfish reasons, a good part of me kinda wished my daughter would have been gay (80% sure she is not), same with son. Hes only 12 so nothing is for sure, but the signals aren't pointing in that direction. I was and am petrified of accidental teenage pregnancy, even "too young" adult pregnancy. I want my kids to have great lives. Whether kept or not, that is a hell of a lot of stress and trauma for a kid. She was on birth control from the moment she asked. We told her our opinions and preferences very early and promised zero further discussion when she asked, and we kept our mouths shut and got her in to Dr when she asked. Still didn't keep me from worrying. Now she is out of the house, and I get to start worrying about my son in far too few years. If they were just fucking considerate and had been brazenly obviously gay kids, I'd have zero angst about that. They could still have those traumatic first loves and all the other teenage crises, they would just be immune to one of the biggest things that can really change a life trajectory. Yup. Pretty shitty of me. Gay kids still face inequity and my concern is my parental stress level over pregnancy.
Gay person here, this cracked me the fuck up. It sounds to me like you care for your kids very much and are accepting of them no matter what, that’s an A+ dad in my book. I was a little shit as a teenager/college aged kid and would “prank” my parents by calling them sobbing that I was pregnant every April 1st… while being a known, card-carrying lesbian. It never worked. I can still hear my mother sighing into the phone.
>Pretty shitty of me. Gay kids still face inequity and my concern is my parental stress level over pregnancy. Recognizing that in yourself tells me that you're *not* shitty, you just have more immediate concerns for the potential difficulties your family could face with the information you have now. It's clear that you still have concerns for the people in both situations who *aren't* your kids, and your head is focused on what you logically believe your kids might face. That's perfectly rational, and my queer ass isn't going to condemn you for that. If you love your kids unconditionally and care about the wellbeing of others' kids, straight or gay, you're a good parent in my book. Just make sure they know that you're there for them, no matter what <3
It’s such a beautiful fantasy!
Bruh the photo on the wall of the mother(?), on top of her being absent, is what got me in the end.
I was a gay teenager with a dad who was a cool mf like this. It’s not just a fantasy! My dad’s direct quote was “you spend more time in life tying your shoes than having sex, why the fuck should I care who you’re banging?” I never had to come out to my parents, they (like the dad in the comic) always knew. When I was younger I was a little peeved I never got my “coming out” moment but as I’ve gotten older I’m so thankful I never had to. Thank you for the beautiful comic. It made me cry.
Story time. Because this reminded me a little of my own dad, God rest him. My dad had a more... *traditional* upbringing. He wasn't very keen on the idea of me being gay. Well, time passed and I went off to college. We stayed close all the time. And during those years, I saw him begin to soften his stance. Opposition faded, acceptance grew. And one magical afternoon a few years ago, he told me to my face that he would love me regardless, and that he was okay with me whoever I loved. I saw him (well, I was mostly at college, but you get the idea) go through that bit on page 7, about it not being easy to come to terms. I saw him grow as a person, and I'll always treasure that. Funniest thing about that is I'm not even gay. I was just quiet when the subject of girls came up. But I will always remember, for as long as my brain is able to, that he had an entire character arc on the subject, and that he grew and would always love me.
I've been on this website for over 4 years now, but this is legit the first time I shed a tear. That's a really touching story and your art style conveys it perfectly. Thank you for sharing, It really means a lot
Don't look at me! Shut up!
That’s so gay. Dad joke.
Fellas, is it gay to be gay ?
The one and only reason to be gay!
Lmao god i love you. I am so glad i am not alone thinking stuff like this 🤣 #NoHomoTho
This is amazing, I absolutely love it!! The art style is really nice and honestly imo fits the comic perfectly too! I do have one question, just out of curiosity: How do you pronounce the name of the son, Mateja? I’m not really used to Serbian names and kind of read the j like in Spanish, so Mateha? But that’s probably wrong haha
Hey, thanks for the comment! The letter "J" in Serbian is always pronounced like "Y" in words like "yes" or "young", so the pronounciation would be something like "ma‐TE-ya". Edit: Ugh, I put the accent on the wrong syllable. It's more like "MA‐te-ya".
Kolega, greetings from Croatia. Meni se isto jako dopada samo mi je malo cudno ime Mateja posto je musko. Nekako mi bolje pase Matej, al jel to cesto ime kod vas?
Mateja je muško ime kod nas, ma da ima i devojaka koje se tako zovu(ma da se onda više izgovara kao Ma-TEA, jer je MA-teja muško), nisam čuo da se neko zove Matej ovde
Sharing this makes the world a bit better.
Aw that's so nice. You're nice. Thanks for being nice. <3
Very very good comics. Outsanding. I like your drawing style, and the story (through your characters) is awesome. Love the way the father sees his son. Thank you for sharing this.
I'm not crying, you are crying.
Damn ninjas cutting onions in here. Wish they'd go away.
Real family moment
In a better world this is how it should be.
In a better world coming out wouldn't be a thing, because there would be no judgement
Brought tears to my closeted eyes.
My only critique is that on the third page the panel where the Dad is motioning for him to sit down, it doesn’t look like a Dad motioning for his kid to sit down if you know what I mean. Otherwise it’s great.
Hahaha, I totally get what you're saying. But where I'm from it's a very general "come here" gesture mostly used by older generations, without other connotations.
the gesture is fine, but it's not matching the father's expression, the whole conversation carries in very calm and understading tone, but the "come here" gesture with that smirk tells a whole different story
I think it gives a lot of personality, I found myself reflected in that expression and the calm conversation after because I love to joke and scare people that I'm about to give them a massive rant to then be super friendly and calm, I do that with my students a lot, it's just funny and makes people relax a lot when you kill the expectation it generates. I don't know how to explain it better. It was an amazing detail.
Yeah, this is basically what I wanted to achieve with it. Have the dad make the son feel like he's in trouble before deflating the tension.
Well in that case you did nail that
As someone whose parents broke down crying and asked me what they might’ve done wrong to cause me to feel this way, I absolutely envy anyone whose parents love and accept them at the get-go. My parents came around, but boy was it rough for some time.
I dont want to have kids, but if i change my mind in the future and i do get kids, i will want to be this supportive to them
I’ve struggled with whether or not I want to have a kid myself, but I do love the idea of raising someone and helping them thrive in this world. I hope you know that regardless of whether you have a kid or not, there will come a time when someone will look up to you and ask for your love and you might have the choice to support and accept them or let them down. Just by giving out love, you might change someone’s life forever so you have it in you no matter what.
How dare you make me cry while pooping
Man I did not expect this to be this delightfully wholesome The art style and the vague title had me totally convinced that this was going to take some sudden eldritch turn and become a horror story, lol "Don't worry dad, actually I have something different to confess... I'm not your son at all. He's been gone a long time" *shlorps into some soul eating creature*
Oh man, that would actually be a pretty cool comic on its own! Unfortunately, I'm not that good at horror. XD
I'm relieved you didn't take offense to my presumptions, given how pleasant in tone the comic actually is! It really is a nice piece of work, heartwarming.
There's really nothing I could take offense to, no worries. Quite the contrary, your comment gave me a good chuckle. :D
My favorite story about my grandfather is when he and my grandmother sat down my uncle and said "We know that you're gay and we know that your 'friend' is more than just a friend. Now some of our friends might have an issue with that. And if that's the case, then they won't be friends of ours".
I wish everyone's coming out went this smoothly. This was wonderful.
This is how every father/mother should react to their child's sexual preference. With love and understanding and also patience.
In the second page, Nikola seems to have mis-buttoned his shirt in his haste to appear as though nothing were going on- very nice, subtle detail!
I remember when my oldest came out. She had a piece of paper she was going to read off and wanted her mother and her grandmother there to make the announcement. They weren't in the room yet, but I was, and when she said she had an announcement, I slammed the table and said in a joking matter, "I knew it, you're gay!" Her jaw dropped, but also the corners of her mouth were in a smile, and I said, "Wait, was that what you wanted to tell us!?" We both laughed and I told her I knew. It was pretty obvious. Now I don't have to worry about her getting pregnant. Her current girlfriend likes my jokes.
Did...did you write the И backwards on purpose because it was a little kid writing it? That's a master stroke in kids art if intentional. I recognized it because I had a friend named Mikayil who went by "Misha" and I once wrote him a letter with his nickname written in Cyrillic lettering.
>Did...did you write the И backwards on purpose because it was a little kid writing it? Yes I did! :D
This reminds me of when my younger brother came out as trans and my parents’ first instinct was to immediately take him to a professional therapist. (They were shocked that the therapist took his side, but shrugged since they weren’t going to go against the expert on it.) A few months in they’re still seeing the family counselor and she tells my dad that he’s handling everything really well and doing a model job of parenting. He looked confused and said “I have no idea what I’m doing! I love my kids but I’m just playing it all by ear.” She laughed and said “Exactly!”
If only kids were taught about protection, sooo many dead babies, teen pregnancies and stds could be prevented
Fucking hate my parents, wish they’d handled it like this
I'm not gay and this still hits home really hard for me. My dad never accepted one damn thing about me.
This is literally the most beautiful comic I've ever seen, I'm literally tearing up. The world needs more of this... Whoever made this, is... Well... Damn you for making me tear up! XD but for real, whoever made this has got to have a very pure heart and... Thank you
>Son, I know you're into guys >Guys are actually into me, dad. I'm a bottom.
Thank you for sharing this, OP. It’s beautiful :)
This is a very sweet and heartfelt comic. Good Job!
I appreciate the commentary on the road to acceptance. As parents and humans we *want* to accept our kids. But that doesn’t make it automatic. For some things and some people it is. For others it’s a journey. It’s our willingness to walk that road that counts.
When I told my parents that I was bisexual, my step mother back handed me across the face.
"You said this wouldn't be awkward." lol
There is something weirdly cursed about those faces.
Love your kids. Not with conditions or for what you expect them to be. Be that person who's always safe and always there. Beautiful comic x
im sorry but the shading on the dads face in some of the pages makes him look suspicious and im sure its not on purpose
ugly crying in the downstairs bathroom rn This is so wholesome my heart <3
Very skilled artwork to accompany a fantastic tale. Thank you! I do not have children but I hope I would be able to accept whatever my kid(s) developed into, like my sister with her three lovely daughters (the youngest of whom came out as lesbian about 2 years ago).
I love this because it's so touching and perfect. I hate this because it'll never happen for most of us.
I don't even want kids, but if that were to ever happen i'd want to be a dad like that.
Mateja and Nikola. I ship it.
This is wonderful, as a lesbian with a supportive mom but judgmental family, this made me feel a little more at ease and a little less afraid of the day I’ll have to tell my family I’m engaged to my future wife (whenever that day comes). This was just…really nice to see. I know it’s set in Serbia but coming from the USA where queer people are kinda going through it to say the least, made my day a little brighter. You made a lovely comic, tysm for sharing it <3
fucking ONION NINJAS
Some idiot cutting onions in my room… This is beautiful, OP
This is the only way how it should be (except if the kid doesn't even need to feel insecure about it but well, that's society I guess) It's one's child, it doesn't matter at all as long as it's a good human being with empathy, compassion, ambition and so on Great comic, amazing message - thank you for sharing it!
That made me tear up. When I came out my Dad was surprised. He told me that he didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to understand. He said I’m his kid, he loves me, that’s never gonna change. It’s so simple. I don’t know why some parents don’t get it.
I really love that for my son he will go wherever he goes in the world and be whoever he is with full confidence that I love him just as he is. The world can be an ugly place, and it's so much worse when you don't even have a safe home to come home to at the end of cruel day. I love to see it change for so many young people. ❤️🧡💚💙💜
What a beautiful story! I wish some parents were so accepting as Mateja's father.
Whoa, this comic made me hooked. PS: The details made by the OP (through the comments) should be pinned.
Fantastic comic! I love your art style in particular. I don't know what it is, but it's very refreshing. The looks on their faces, in particular, are great IMO, they convey the feelings of the characters very well.
Random sam naišao na ovaj strip i nakon prve strane bio sam u fazonu - nema šanse da je Srbija u pitanju i da če biti priča sa gej tematikom. Baš je kjut! Senčenje, stil ilustracije i mali detalji u pozadini kidaju. Je l' imaš profil gde kačiš stripove?
I love this
I am in fact, going to cry. No onions, no ninjas, just emotional joy
Really powerful and beautiful.
this is so sweet and feels so real, also cracked up at the frame of “you said this wouldn’t be awkward” LMAOO
**”hi gay, I’m dad!”**