9-year-old asks Buttigieg how to be strong and tell people he is gay too

A 9-year-old boy at a rally for Pete Buttigieg in Denver asked the Democratic presidential candidate for advice on how to be brave and tell the world he is gay. 

“I don’t think you need a lot of advice from me on bravery, you seem pretty strong,” Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., responded. “It took me a long time to figure out how to tell even my best friend that I was gay, let alone go out there and tell the world. And to see you willing to come to terms with you who you are in a room full of thousands of people you never met, that’s really something.” 

The question was from Zachary Ro, who told the Colorado Sun it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to write down his question as he entered the rally Saturday night. 

“Let me tell you a couple things that might be useful. The first thing is that it won’t always be easy, but that’s okay because you know who you are and that’s really important because when you know who you are you have a center of gravity that can hold you together when all kinds of chaos is happening around you,” Buttigieg told Zachary. 

“It won’t always be easy, but that’s ok because you know who you are.”

WATCH: Pete Buttigieg gives advice to a 9-year-old boy who asks for help coming out as gay. pic.twitter.com/U0xY97c04n

— The Hill (@thehill) February 23, 2020

“The second thing I want you to know is that you will never know who’s taking their lead from you, who’s watching you and deciding that they can be a little braver because you have been brave.” 

Buttigieg has made history as the first openly gay major Democratic presidential candidate. 

The rally audience chanted “love means love” as Zachary was called onto and left the stage, according to the Colorado Sun. 

“It was exciting, and I felt really happy,” Zachary told the newspaper in an interview after the rally. “I was glad I was able to tell everyone in the audience that I’m gay.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who was reading the questions, reportedly said the question came up randomly as she was pulling the questions from a bowl.