Coming out to kids in a non-gay friendly country

I wanted to post about this for a while, but I feel unsafe given the country we live in. We live in the Middle East.

So basically, my bf and I (been together for 4 years), have been quite close with his niece and nephew.
They are now 8 years old, ive known them since they were 4, and they even started calling me uncle too.

The problem is; we live in a country where being gay is considered a bad-term, something kids say to each other in the playground as an offense. So one day the kids came back from school and started calling each other “gay” we corrected them, and said that its not a bad word, which resulted in them telling us that “gay people are weird, they shouldn’t exist”. We kept at it, until we got them to understand that it’s not a bad thing, but their conclusion was still that being gay is a weird thing, regardless if it’s good or bad. We agreed to disagree, as we arent their parents.

For clarity, they dont know about anyone in the family, even though we are out to all the adults in my bf’s family. And to add to the complexity of the situation, most of their family is gay. My bf (their uncle), his brother (their 2nd uncle), his sister (their mother), and their dad (divorced the sister recently, they agreed to get married only to have the kids as a coverup for their parents before coming out). as well as their only aunt (father's side).

The thing is, ever since the divorce their father has wanted nothing to do with them. He only goes out with them for formalities on big occasions or when he’s on holiday or paid leave. They see him maybe once a month at most. So we have become the two daddy figures; we go hiking, camping, road trips, they come over spend the whole day with our dogs. we go to zoos, luna parks, waterparks, you name it, we do it. We are the fun squad.

What do we do? In such a complex situation, how do you tackle the introduction of “being gay”, to such important figures in their lives? Especially given the bad examples society here keeps throwing at them at how gay people should be treated.

you have to understand as well that, they can't go around at school outing anyone from the family. this can result in horrible outcomes, to us in society and to their mother. so somehow, we need to also introduce the secrecy of it all, which they cant keep a secret tbh.