A nine year-old girl has unwittingly become a gay advocate after giving her teacher a supportive letter for revealing his sexuality.

During a discussion on homophobia, the teacher, Mr. R, discussed his homosexuality with his class, after prompting from his colleagues and headmaster.

Mr R told PinkNews:

“As a primary school teacher I’d always worried about mentioning my sexuality, despite the fact that my colleagues talked about their husbands, wives and significant others all the time. Then, as part of anti-bullying week, I’d asked who’d heard ‘gay’ being used as an insult. Almost every one of my class put their hands up. I was stunned. Then I asked who thought that people who were gay or lesbian were bad or wrong in some way, again almost every hand went up.”

This prompted Mr R to discuss his own sexuality with his students – he hoped that if they knew someone who is gay, it would help change their perspectives on being gay.

“After speaking to my Head, who was very supportive, we agreed I could tell the class that I’m gay so they at least knew one gay person and hopefully explain that when people use that word they’re talking about me. The reaction was fantastic – there were a lot of gasps and shocked looks and some basic questions – do you have a boyfriend, etc – but after a couple of minutes they were over it and we moved on to the rest of the lesson.”

It was a few days later when he received the letter from his student, A.

“The letter came a couple of days later. The little girl who wrote it gave it to me at the start of the day with all the other slips about dinner money, school trips and doctors appointments. Reading it brought tears to my eyes and it took me a little while to compose myself. When I thanked her she just shrugged and repeated something one of the boys in the class had said during the lesson, ‘It’s just your life’. Then she went back to her maths.”

The letter reads:

“Dear Mr R

“Even though you’re gay, I will always treat you the same way as I do now. I still think about you the same way as I used to. You’re a great teacher and these are just some of the word’s (sic) that I would describe you as: great, amazing, fantastic, brilliant, awesome and brave.

“The reason why I say brave is because you shared a personal secret which was very brave.

“You don’t have to feel scared because I know that everone in the class feels the same way as I do.

“From A x x

PS. We are all proud of you”

Mr R was delighted with the response, and how understanding children are.

“For my class it was a surprise sure but, to them, it was just something simple and easy to file away as another piece of information. There was no judgement, no follow-up, just acceptance. Now, I can mention my fiance as easily as any other teacher and my class know me a little better. I’ve had a lot of letters and cards over the years, but this one I know I’ll keep forever.”

Online, users lauded the letter with one user writing: “Wouldn’t it be lovely if everyone saw things as innocently as this little girl”. Users have also praised the teacher and head teacher’s open-mindedness.

There is hope for the next generation after all!