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Photography (teal background) | Chris WR Cox Photography, (bottom right) | Sue Lacey Photography<br />
He takes a moment before<br />
responding. “It’s a really difficult<br />
question to answer, because I<br />
am nowhere near 100% happy<br />
with my body – no way – but I<br />
have other things in my life that<br />
I feel so grateful for, and that I<br />
feel so proud of. My work, my<br />
relationships, and all of that gives<br />
me confidence, and actually has<br />
taken over how I felt about my<br />
body all those years ago.”<br />
This autumn, he’ll be taking<br />
these skills on the road with<br />
his One Size Fits All Tour (after<br />
I think that we<br />
need to fight<br />
for our brothers<br />
and sisters, so<br />
all voices can<br />
be heard<br />
filming the hotly-anticipated<br />
returning series of How to Look<br />
Good Naked), and Gok is keen to<br />
point out that he is rewarded by<br />
continuing to spread the body<br />
confidence message up close and<br />
in person: “It’s not a selfless act<br />
doing One Size Fits All, I get a<br />
huge amount out of it.<br />
“Even just talking about how I felt<br />
in the past about my body, how I<br />
feel about it now, the dangers of<br />
negative body image, and what<br />
that can do to you – I get a huge<br />
amount of confidence from that<br />
because I get to help people, to<br />
share their stories, and it confirms<br />
my beliefs and politics when it<br />
comes to the body confidence<br />
movement.”<br />
Gok is driven to work on<br />
projects where he can make a<br />
difference. I’m reminded of the<br />
Gay Times Global Pride campaign<br />
he supported last year, helping<br />
to shed light on the appalling<br />
mistreatment of the LGBT+<br />
community in countries across the<br />
world. Gok tells me sadly, this isn’t<br />
an issue that is going away.<br />
He’s just returned from a press<br />
trip in Warsaw, Poland, where<br />
civil rights activist Elzbieta<br />
Podleśna, was arrested, and<br />
her laptop, phone, and private<br />
communications were seized. Her<br />
‘crime’ was sharing an image of<br />
the Virgin Mary with a rainbow<br />
halo, to protest against the<br />
Church’s exclusion of the LGBT+<br />
community from religion. “She’s<br />
now had her entire work and<br />
her entire life, personally and<br />
professionally, investigated over<br />
this one image,” Gok says, with<br />
deep frustration in his voice.<br />
And this isn’t an isolated<br />
incident. “We’re in such terrible<br />
shape at the moment. Look at the<br />
Sultan of Brunei and the death<br />
penalty for LGBT+ people,” he<br />
continues. “Now, they’re not going<br />
to enforce that as a law, but we<br />
kind of forget that actually you can<br />
still be arrested or beaten in that<br />
country for your sexuality.<br />
“Just the fact that people are not<br />
being killed, it makes it kind of<br />
a positive, or a step in the right<br />
direction. Tha’s a problem that<br />
we’ve got with LGBT+ treatment<br />
– almost a reverse of the body<br />
confidence issue. We can’t just<br />
focus on the stuff that’s ‘kind of<br />
alright’, like the fact that it’s OK to<br />
get married in this country.<br />
“We’ve got to focus on the fact<br />
that our brothers and our sisters<br />
in the community, some of them<br />
are dying, some of them are being<br />
beaten or living in persecution<br />
in their own homes – unless<br />
they decide that they want to<br />
take asylum in a country where<br />
they can live freely as an LGBT+<br />
person,” Gok says emphatically.<br />
“But then, not everybody wants to<br />
leave their country, their friends<br />
and their families.<br />
“For those of us who are slightly<br />
more privileged, I think that we<br />
need to fight for our brothers and<br />
sisters, so that all voices can be<br />
heard.”<br />
We’re with you all the way, Gok.<br />
<strong>September</strong> <strong>2019</strong> • happiful.com • 61