Man kicks out girlfriend for outing his teen son, her family claims he's 'overreacting.'

Coming out of the closet is a deeply personal experience that should only happen when someone feels comfortable. Regardless of how many people 'know' already, it's completely inappropriate to out someone when they haven't spoken about their sexuality themselves. This applies even moreso for young and vulnerable people.

In a best case scenario, outing someone makes them uncomfortable and pushes them too soon (so not a good scenario at all). In a worst case scenario, outing someone can put them in serious physical and existential danger.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a dad asked if he was wrong for yelling at his girlfriend and kicking her out after she outed his teen son.

He wrote:

AITA for yelling at my girlfriend after she outed my son?

My (M31) girlfriend (M29) of a year met my son (M13) a month ago. He warmed up to her pretty quickly and she started frequently spending the night. My son’s best friend (M14) stayed the night Thursday night since they didn’t have school, and my girlfriend didn’t have work so she was home with them. Since then, I noticed he’d been quiet, but he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.

Tonight at dinner, she asked my son if there’s anything he wanted to tell me. He didn’t reply, so she literally says “Do you think your dad would like to know you’re gay?” He immediately burst into tears and left the table. I told her to get the f**k out of my house and never talk or go near my son again.

As she was walking out trying to apologize, I told her she had no right to do that to him at all, before slamming the door on her. I found my son in his room sobbing, it took a bit of coaxing for him to open his door, and when he did, he apologized. HE apologized for being gay and begged me not to hate him. I reassured him I’ll always love him and got him to calm down.

It turns out, she caught my son kissing his friend goodbye on Friday afternoon and they’ve been a couple for about 5 months now. Two hours ago, I’ve gotten Facebook messages from both her dad and brother calling me a terrible person and over reacting. They told me I had no right to treat her like that or break up with her over something so minor.

I decided not to argue and just blocked all three of them. As I’ve calmed down, I’ve started to feel bad. She was crying pretty hard as I yelled, but I didn’t care at the time. I was just so mad she revealed something so personal that he wasn’t ready to share. AITA?

The internet fully had his back on this.

dawng87 wrote:

NTA. Good job and you're a great dad. The way he was sobbing it sounds like she made him believe he was wrong for being gay. You did the right thing by protecting your child from that.

No-Pie379 wrote:

NTA. It was very callous of her to do that to your son. Opening up about sexuality is a very personal thing which should be done at the discretion of the person. Not only did she rob him of that discretion, she put him on blast-- and at a delicate age, might I add.

TheEuphoricTribble wrote:

I'm just so in shock that your ex and her family thought this would be okay. I am firmly in the 'love is love' camp, and highly support your decision to stand by your son here. F**k her feelings. SHE had no right to out your son like that. I'm extremely happy he has a grizzly bear of a dad willing to go on the attack for him!

It's not even a contest here, OP, you are by FAR NTA. And I will say it again, louder for the people in the back: F*CK. HER. FEELINGS.

kokonikoreteureshii wrote:

NTA. She could have pulled you aside and mentioned what he was upset about so you could have approached him in a way that was less distressing and scary for him. That poor sweet boy. That's such a cruel way to drop something like that when it's very obvious he was worried and scared already.

But props to you Dad! Good on you for supporting him so well and making him feel loved when he was feeling so vulnerable. EDIT TO ADD: I don't think gf was right to out him. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

OP is far from TA, and he did the right thing by kicking his girlfriend to the curb after this behavior.