Barack Obama has credited his daughters and gay friends with helping him evolve on the subject of gay marriage.

“I have to confess my children generally had an impact on me,” he said during a town hall in London at the weekend.

The US president went on to explain how he intially supported civil partnerships for gays and lesbians instead of full marriage, as he believed it was best to disentangle the civil rights issues at stake from the broader religious debate, reports The Washington Post. He credited his daughter and gay friends with helping him understand the issue better.

“People I loved who were in monogamous same-sex relationships explained to me what I should have understood earlier, which is it was not simply about legal rights but about a sense of stigma, that if you’re calling it something different it means that somehow it means less in the eyes of society.”

At the town hall-style meeting which took place at Lindley Hall in central London on Saturday, Obama fielded questions from a number of audience members, including a non-binary person, Maria Munir.

Munir “outed” herself as non-binary person before imploring leaders like Obama and David Cameron to “take us seriously as transgender people.”

“I’m incredibly proud of the steps it sounds like you have already taken to speak out about your own experience and to start a social movement to change laws,” Obama told Munir. “Social attitudes on this issue have changed faster than I’ve seen on any other issues.”

“It doesn’t feel fast enough for you or for those who are impacted,” said Obama. “You shouldn’t feel satisfied. You should keep pushing.”

On Friday , he said that he belives North Carolina’s controversial bathroom law (HB2) should be overturned, though cautioned that Congress would need to support the move, which he said was unlikely to happen.

You can watch Obama’s full speech below.