Gay Aussie describes coming out to his nan in touching video

ADVOCACY group just.equal has launched a new series of videos of LGBTI people telling their stories.

The series, #IfTheyOnlyKnew, aims to inspire change towards equality in Australia.

The first video features just.equal’s Ivan Hinton-Teoh telling the story of coming out to his family aged 29, and the fear of coming out to his conservative grandmother.

“For a long time, for several years, I was out to everybody… except Nan,” Hinton-Teoh says in the video.

“It was because I was told that there was this distinct likelihood that the news could be so horrific that she would die.”

He tells the story of taking his grandmother on a trip to Europe, along with his partner, while maintaining a façade of being in a flatmate relationship.

“I said to [my mother], ‘For as long as we don’t tell Nan, I can’t be all of me with my Nan. I can’t have a complete relationship with her’,” he says.

“The first thing that came out of my Nan’s mouth after I told her I was gay… she said, ‘When we were travelling through Europe, I thought I sensed the love.’

“And as soon as she realised that one of her grandsons was gay, all of that just washed away.”