A Filipino artist created a short comic strip about inclusive love in a family ahead of the celebration of Valentine’s Day.
The artist called Sskait, whose real name is AJ Bacar, shared this on February 2. It had since circulated on social media and touched the hearts of many online users.
The artist made the comic strip in partnership with a popular chocolate brand.
It showed a heartwarming exchange where an individual named “Prince,” a member of the LGBT community, comes out to his parents as “Princess.”
The parents accepted and welcomed him. They even suggested other names for their son to use and hugged him.
“Acceptance is the greatest gift of all. This February, celebrate love by starting from our roots: accepting who you are and loving the family who taught us to love,” the artist wrote on the post.
As of writing, it garnered more than 49,000 reactions, 17,000 shares and 900 comments on Facebook.
Most of the reactions were also positive with 39,000 heart emojis, 6,100 care emojis and 2,800 likes.
Several online users in the comments section thanked the artist for using his platform to send a progressive, wholesome message to others.
“Thanks for making your art a vehicle for awareness, inclusion acceptance. Kudos!” a Facebook user said with heart emojis.
“Thanks for being a way to for people to understand how difficult it is to come out. Thanks for being such a progressive tito,” another Facebook user commented.
Others shared how their “coming out” moment went.
“I remember coming out to my dad last year August and what he told me will always be a reminder of our parents’ unconditional love for us,” a Facebook user said.
Some online users, on the other hand, hoped that other parents would have the same reaction to their children “coming out” to them in the future.
“I just wish every parent is like this not treating their kids as a retirement plan or keeping the blood,” a Reddit user said.
According to Dictionary.com, the term “coming out” refers to the acceptance or acknowledgement of one’s ” sexual orientation or gender identity that does not conform to socially defined norms.”
