“I am the mother of a gay son”: a woman’s story moves and goes viral on the internet

This week, a proud mother from João Pessoa (Paraíba) went viral on TikTok when she shared a video about her son’s trajectory. With 970.1 thousand likes and 32.4 thousand comments, the content went viral on the network.

“I am the mother of a gay son”, begins narrating Iara. “At a young age, I noticed a sweetness and sensitivity in Gabilo that I didn’t see in my male nephews and I wondered: Is Gabilo gay?”.

With photos from childhood and adolescence, the platform user tells about the process of discovering both of them and how she prepared her son to face a world full of prejudices. “When I got to adolescence I had more friendships with girls and I loved pop divas. I thought: he really is gay!”.

Iara also says that he preferred that things follow the natural path and that he told when his son felt comfortable. It was in the New Year of 2016 that Gabilo revealed to his mother what she already imagined.

When he told her that he was in love with a boy, she hugged him and shared her happiness. She soon told the whole family with the warning: “From today, where my son doesn’t fit, I don’t fit”.

In the comments, one of the users revealed that he wanted to be “lucky” with such a mother, while other mothers also shared when their sons and daughters assumed sexuality.

@iarasannyy I am the mother of a gay son and I am very proud to have him as my life partner. #filholgbt #familygbt #proudholgbtqia🏳️‍🌈 ♬ Interstellar (Main Theme) – Random Piano

Is the expression “coming out of the closet” problematic?

From the American expression “come out of the closet”, the term to refer to a person who “comes out” as gay came with a negative connotation, as someone who was hiding something shameful.

To CNN No Plural, the executive secretary of the Forum of Companies and LGBT+ Rights, Reinaldo Bugarelli, revealed that “The first coming out of the closet is for yourself, the second coming out is for those people you think are important and the third coming out of the closet is when you make it public and with social networks it becomes more evident”.

Gabilo “came out of the closet” when he felt safe, even though his mother had been suspicious since childhood. Soon after, the rest of the family found out and welcomed him too.

Rafael Câmara, journalist of the CNN No Plural , writes that this “coming out of the closet” is not always something definitive. “There will always be someone wanting to pull that door over again. Whether at home, in a circle of friends and especially at work”.

However, Câmara defends that this process is particular to each one. Like Gabilo, you have to feel safe “because only those inside him can know the exact moment to leave him. What I can say from experience is that life out here is much clearer”, he concludes.