For my part, I came out as trans – as in transsexual - to my family many years ago. Despite all the caution I see in this thread, while I certainly understand it, it seems a bit unwarranted to me.
I wouldn’t put my experience of “coming out” as a proof for others, but I am a big believer in the value of honesty. If there is anything I learned in the process of coming out – in a much more public way than any discussions of peak oil, it is that I had to be true to myself. If others are unwilling or unable to accept the reality of who I am and what I know to be true, then that is unfortunate, but it can hardly be used as a justification for doing nothing simply in order to please others.
The one thing that definitely surprised me was the unpredictability of those who would be accepting and who wouldn’t. I had expected that younger, more aware relatives would be ok, and that older relatives would be a problem. Not true. In fact, one of my biggest supporters was my elderly grandmother, bless her heart, who set the tone for the rest of the family. Because of this, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, and am surprised more often than not regarding how receptive folks are to out-of-the-mainstream discussions like PO. I discuss it frequently at work, and have made some converts. Folks in my group have been buying PMs, so I think the message is sinking in.
I agree that telling the truth can strain relationships. That it can get you written off as coo coo – particularly for someone like me. That it can cause others to worry about things they can do nothing about.
But I can speak firsthand to the psychic cost of spending a lifetime trying to be someone you’re not, of trying to live life according to someone else’s rules, of just trying to pretend everything is ok. For me, the “talk” was worth it. YMMV.
Maybe I got lucky. My folks and most of my family is very accepting, and I have been making some progress on educating them on environmental and PO issues.
Anyway, maybe I shouldn’t have said any of this, and I apologize if I made anyone uncomfortable or if I spoke off topic. I was just struck by the use of the “coming out” metaphor. I’ve never seen any GLBT issue discussed on PO.com, which statistically, is virtually impossible given the numbers I’ve seen reported in the general population. I don’t believe for a second that all of you folks are straight, and in fact, I’d venture a guess that there is a more than proportional representation among GLBT folks here. It seems to me that those who are bucking society’s rules are already open to examining other “necessarily illusions” as Chomsky would put it.
And mos6507, relax. Your sister sounds fairly supportive, and there seems little risk of her disowning you! As for your planned braindump, just remember that sometimes little doses of the truth go down easier than big doses.
