Brave 10-year-old girl confronts homophobic grandparents after gay uncle banned from Christmas
A 28-year-old man has received waves of support on Reddit after he shared that he outed his homophobic parents to his niece. (Unsplash)
A gay man has opened up to the internet for support after he outed his homophobic parents to his niece at Christmas.
The anonymous man shared his story on the subreddit “Upsetting Family Drama” and asked other Redditors if “am I the a**hole” because of the ensuing family drama.
The 28-year-old man wrote that he had been “disowned” by his parents because he is gay and hasn’t “spoken to them in eight years”. But he said he maintained a close relationship with his sister and her 10-year-old daughter.
He explained his parents host a “big Christmas gathering” every year, which his sister and niece attend. The man said he has never been invited to this big gathering since he was disowned by his parents.
However, he said he hasn’t been fully left out of the family’s holiday celebrations as he attends a “smaller Christmas with just me, my sister and my niece”. He explained this more intimate family gathering usually takes place just a couple of days after his parents’ party.
“At our smaller Christmas gathering, while my sister was in the other room, my niece asked why I never go to my parents’ Christmas,” the man wrote. “I replied with the excuse I’ve used for years: I had to work.”
But his niece was too clever to fall for the man’s excuse and argued it didn’t make sense because the gathering sometimes happened on Christmas “when I definitely have the day off”.
Shortly after, his niece became upset and asked her uncle if he didn’t “like to be with us”. That’s when the man opened up about his parents disowning him because of his identity.
“If she hadn’t said that, I probably wouldn’t have told her,” he said. “But I can’t stand the idea that she would think I chose not to go to the Christmas.”
He continued: “So, in a calm voice, I said, ‘Well, you know how I date boys instead of girls? Grandma and grandpa don’t like that, so they ask me not to go to Christmas.'”
The man said his niece was “obviously upset” by the news and actually confronted her anti-gay grandparents the next day.
“Apparently she was really harsh with them,” he wrote. “Then, my parents called my sister and yelled at her for letting my niece around me.”
The man said his sister confronted him and told him he “was an a**hole for causing the family fight” and “for involving my niece in it”. He said he felt “really bad” after the fight because he didn’t expect his niece to confront his homophobic parents.
Despite his doubts, several commenters believed the poster was not the ‘a**hole’ in the situation.
One person said they were proud of the man’s niece as she is the “one bringing the consequence and attention” to the parents’ homophobia.
“She truly loves her uncle,” they wrote. “The sister could learn a thing or two from her.”
One Redditor hoped the sister would eventually realise that “enabling your parents makes her an accomplice” in their hatred.
They argued if the sister truly supported and loved her brother then she would “have the guts to call their parents on their wrong doings and speak the truth to her daughter”.
“If one does not stand for homophobia, one fights homophobia, period,” they explained. “Otherwise one becomes an accomplice.”
Another person on Reddit declared the original poster wasn’t in the wrong because he was honest with his niece in an “age appropriate and reasonable” way.
“The a**holes are the homophobes and your sister for not being angry at them for losing their s**t over being called out by a 10-year-old,” they added.
