LGBT teen support group Minus 18 has launched a campaign aimed at heterosexual teens in which young adults speak of what they wish they had known about LGBT people when they began high school.

The ‘Letter to My Year 7 Self’ campaign features seven young adults speaking about failing a LGBT friend or relative in their teens because of being homophobic or ignorant about sexuality and how they now regret that because of how important that person is in their lives.

Chris, one of the young adults in the campaign, talks about how he regrets using homophobic slurs and picking on people in high school as now one of his closest friends is gay.

‘Good news Chris, you’re going to get your first kiss coming up pretty soon. So don’t be stressed if some of the girls aren’t showing too much interest in you, you’re going to be alright man,’ Chris says to his Year 7 self, ‘So here’s the thing, mate.

‘You’re going to give in to peer pressure a lot. I look at it now and it sucks because you’re going to end up calling people “gay”, “fag”, “homo”, that sort of stuff … When you call other people “fag”, or you make other people feel like crap, you’re enabling other people to do it too. You don’t realize it, but you’re probably cutting them really deep.

‘A few years down the track, you’re going to keep rowing. You’re going to come up to Melbourne, and make a whole bunch of new friends. Life’s pretty sweet. On the rowing team there’s this one guy, Chris, who you’ve gone through the youth program with. One day he’s just going to come out and tell you he’s gay.

‘You realize it doesn’t mean anything man; if anything it brings you closer to him. When you see that he’s happier it’s awesome. It’s like he has a big monkey off his back, and all you gotta do is let him know that you’re there for him when he needs it. You’re the guy he can go to for support. It’s pretty awesome.

‘So it’s 2013, and Chris is one of your closest mates who you can go out with, call up, go to the gym together, and just hang out and have a good time. He helps you out so much. You should really value his friendship from the get go.’

Zac, another of the young adults talks about regretting bullying a boy at boarding school.

‘In a couple of years, you’re going to go to boarding school and there’s going to be a whole lot of different people there. This one guy in particular, Nick, is going to stand out a bit. He’s a bit arty, and very – uh, how do you say? – eloquent. Like you, he’s from a country town, but unlike you he’s into drama, theater, and he’s actually pretty flamboyant. …Just because someone’s a bit flamboyant, doesn’t mean they’re not a good guy.

‘ You’re going to use words like “fag” and call people “gay” and you’re not even going to really know what they mean, or the impact they can have. Yeah, there’s a fair bit of stigma around being gay (you’re from a country town after all) but that doesn’t mean you have the right to join in making other people feel like shit.

‘There are guys that are going to enter your life over the next few years, and now days you have a ton of friends; some of them even gay. For a lot of them, it’ll come as a bit of a surprise to you, and won’t be something that you’re exactly expecting.

‘The thing is, Zac, you’re actually going to be pretty accepting of them. When it’s a good friend, it opens your mind up to new ideas that you never really considered before.’

Another of the young adults, Elyza talks about her struggle to accept a transgender friend.

‘Next year you’re going to put some tips in your hair, and it’s going to be really bad,’ Elyza says.

‘In a couple of years you’re going to meet someone and they’re going to tell you they’re transgender. It’s something you’ve never heard of before, and the whole time they’re telling you, you’re going to think “oh my goodness, what is that?” In fact, you’re going to be pretty careless, and actually really offend them.

‘So you’re in this meeting, sitting there, and you go to speak, and you’re talking to this person, and you use the wrong pronoun – and by that I mean you use ‘she’ to refer to them, when you should be using ‘he’.

‘When you get it wrong, you actually come across as ignorant and offensive, even though you’re not meaning it. It just makes you feel incredibly bad. You get it wrong so many times, and it really means you have more to learn, and that’s kind of your responsibility, mate.’

A video accompanying the campaign has been watched by nearly 60,000 since the campaign was launched last month.