Reuben Williams

And...

I remember at the time she was like, oh, you know, you just don't see many like, you know, cool young guys go through with this.

I'm like, thanks.

Glad you think I'm cool.

But that's such an interesting point.

Absolutely no idea.

Yeah.

But then like the final piece of motivation, which is all I really needed in the end was how might I feel if I found out this guy had re-offended and I had the chance to do something about it?

Because he was about to go to Dubai where homosexuality is illegal.

And if he re-offended, it would take someone else to go down with him to report him.

And I thought if it gets back to me that he's done this to somebody else and traumatize them for the rest of their life and you Ruben could have stopped him in his tracks, you're probably going to feel 10 times worse than you do right now.

And so that's when I thought I'm going to make a statement.

100%.

And to be honest, I feel a bit embarrassed sometimes with, you know, some of the compliments get, get thrown my way because when, um, I, like, and when I think about like the, the real heroes out there and the people who are really doing it tough, you never hear from them.

Like they're the, the people who are stuck in their job because like their, their boss is holding this over them or they're in a domestic violent situation and they're stuck at home as well.

And you like, those are like the brave people in society that you never hear from.

And for a while, like I was quite embarrassed about, I guess, the privilege I had and how straightforward my process was and kind of shied away from leaning into it.

But then one day, our friend Rana Hussain says to me, Ruben, no one chooses the privilege that they're born into, but it's what you do with it that counts.

And it was like, from that moment, I felt like I had permission to use it.

Oh, geez, you couldn't stop after that.