Queer Asian Identity and Family Acceptance: What I’ve Learned After a Decade as a Therapist

Over the past 10 years of my mental health career, I have worked primarily with queer Asian individuals and couples. The majority of my clients have experienced coming out to and introducing their queer partner(s) to their families while working with me. I would not have been able to do this work had I not gone through coming out myself, figuring out my identity, and integrating my queer self into other parts of my identity: a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a therapist.

Many clients have shared their experiences of, or fear of, rejection from their families. Of course, it is not an easy quest to figure out ways to come out to your heteronormative, at times, homophobic families. Many have also shared that they would never come out to their families unless they were in a queer relationship. “I understand how that feels” would be an understatement. I have experienced their fear of rejection and have overcome many relational challenges that have resulted from coming out.

When I first came out to my mother, she was angry and would say, “How could you do this to me? I should have never sent you to America.” Little did she know that I had hidden this part of myself from my whole family since I was 5, long before I even set foot in this country. I’m still not sure if she felt betrayed by my coming out or felt saddened by the loss of her version of my future. I gave her time to grieve, and she came back 3 days later to tell me, “I learned about queer identities on YouTube. I do believe people should not be discriminated against because they are a sexual minority.”

Now, I am not saying that all Korean mothers are as quick to learn as my mother is. However, what was important was that I gave her time and space to figure out what my queer identity meant for her and how she wanted to be a part of my life. I did not try to fight her anger or sadness, nor did I try to speak to her during this time. I set firm boundaries, letting her know that she gets to choose to be in my life or not. In the end, she chose a relationship with me, not a version of my life that the Korean society led her to believe I should have.

What my clients often discover—and what I had to learn the hard way—is that coming out is never a single moment. It’s a series of negotiations between who you’ve always known yourself to be and who your family believed you were. It’s not about winning them over. It’s about refusing to abandon yourself while allowing them the dignity of their own process.

Many queer Asians grow up believing that our parents’ approval is one of the only bridges to belonging. But approval isn’t the same as relationship, and silence isn’t the same as safety. Some families choose connection after an initial rupture. Some don’t. And some stay stuck in a limbo where they accept your partner privately but refuse to acknowledge the relationship publicly. All of these outcomes are real, and pretending otherwise only creates more shame.

The truth is, coming out in Asian families often forces everyone to confront the internalized rules they never questioned: who gets to love whom, who owes what to whom, whose happiness matters, and what “family” is supposed to look like. Parents who grew up in environments where deviation meant danger aren’t suddenly going to celebrate queerness because you give a perfect speech. Their fear isn’t about you—it’s about losing the dominant narrative they were taught throughout their lives.

But here’s what I’ve consistently seen over the last decade: families can learn. Not because you convinced them, but because they watched you live honestly. Shame loses its grip when you stop playing along with it. When you stop hiding, your parents are forced to confront their own discomfort instead of outsourcing it to you.

My mother didn’t change because I begged her to understand. She changed because I stopped performing the daughter she imagined and started being the person I actually am. She had to decide whether she valued proximity to me more than proximity to the beliefs she inherited. That choice took time. It was her work, not mine.

And this is what I tell my queer Asian clients now:

You are not responsible for teaching your family how to love you. You’re responsible for loving yourself clearly enough that they can tell where the door is. Some will walk through it. Some will stand outside. Some will keep circling back, unsure. Coming out isn’t a betrayal of your family. It’s the first honest attempt at building a real one.

If your parents choose you, it will be because they are choosing you, not the version of you they curated to survive in their world. And if they don’t, you still get to live without swallowing pieces of yourself to make other people more comfortable.

The hardest part isn’t coming out.

It’s realizing you never needed permission in the first place.

Warmly,

Dr. Wonbin