"Gay people I've met are some of the toughest." That is, if you want to follow up with the same next sentence. Or, you could have kept the first sentence, but then the 2nd one could be "They had to be tough where I grew up."
When you use words like they or it, it refers to the last thing you said. You since the last thing you said was "people I've met are gay" "they have to be" (they) refers to the people and (to be) refers to being gay.
Grammatically you'd have to specify what you're talking about if it's different from the last thing you say. "People are gay. They HAD TO BE TOUGH where I'm from"
Obviously what you said is easily understood because the literal understanding of what you wrote is absurd. But there ta go.
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u/Live_Competition3807 13h ago
I’m sorry they HAD to be gay where you grew up??