Opening up to family or friends is difficult enough for many gay or lesbians but for some, it affects their life, family and social interactions.

Coming out is never easy, but students find opening up about their experiences helps.

“When I came out seven years ago to my ex-girlfriend, I started feeling the intimacy was disappearing and actually was getting attached to her best friend who was gay and just came out,” Andy Lineras, 21, photography major, said.

Lineras’ biggest problem was coming out to his parents as he had originally planned on moving out of his house so he wouldn’t have to deal with the range of emotions his parents would feel about him.

Instead, his mother found out in 2005 after finding a picture of him kissing another man at a club. After that, his relationship with his parents didn’t go well.

“My mother considered me a prostitute and my father disowned me,” Lineras said. “My brother and sister were too into Christianity to accept it.”

After his parents found out and subsequently revealed the news to his entire family, Lineras said it was hard to be around them and that he would try to find ways to avoid them by going out all night and coming home when he knew they would be asleep.

“I would try to avoid them by being at work all day or hanging out with friends or going to a club,” Lineras said.

Lineras added that his relationship with his parents is getting better, but that his mother still is in denial of his sexual orientation.

Some other students found it a bit harder to come out about their sexuality, but students like Lineras have turned their own experience coming out to help other young people reveal their sexuality easier. Lineras recently advised a High school GSA about coming out to their family and friends by telling them to only do it if they feel like they are comfortable enough to open up.

“Students if happy (with their sexuality) should just be straight out or just wait until they feel ready,” Lineras said.

“When I first came out, it was an accident, I didn’t mean to say it. I was struggling with who I was and, I was getting depressed,” Mervin Olaes, 19, biology major, said.

Olaes family would tease him about being depressed, even as far as his cousin telling the family that Olaes “likes boys” so Olaes finally responded “so what if I do?” and decided to run away out of fear, but came back in a day.

Olaes said that his family and friends, however, were very supportive.

“I lost a lot of friends but I found out who my true friends were and they get over the fact that I am gay,” Olaes said.

Tamara Gonzales, 23, anthropology major, said that her mother knew she was a lesbian because her cousin told her.

“My mother had a tendency to bash gays and I guess she was just trying to make me come out,” Gonzalez said.

In Gonzalez’s case, her coming out had to deal with the fact that her mother was bashing gay marriages at her sister’s baby shower and it hurt Gonzales to hear that, so she told her mother that she was a lesbian.

“I don’t like that I was pushed into coming out. I wish it would have been private, but about five people heard,” Gonzales said.

The relationship between Gonzales and her mother soured for a time, but it is on good terms now.

While it was hard for people like Gonzales and Olaes to come out, some have had easier experiences.

Studio art major, Miles Cox, said that she came out to being a lesbian to her mother after her mother refused to let her sleep over at her friend’s house, who was gay, because he was a man.

“As she was driving me home way late that night, I said to my mother nothing would have happened because I am a lesbian,” Cox said.

Even though coming out about their sexual orientation was hard, the real troubles will be upon the gay and lesbian community in November with the voting for propositions.

One of those propositions, Proposition 8, threaten to define marriage to be between a man and woman and would potentially end whatever progress has been made for gay and lesbian awareness.

As National Coming Out month draws to an end and the vote on Proposition 8 looms closer, the gay and lesbian community prepares to face their biggest battle.

“It will be the fight of the decade,” Joe Holiday, GSA club adviser, said.