The Mixtape: Shaneel Lal

Music 101's guest on the Mixtape this week picking their favourite songs and talking about life is activist Shaneel Lal.

The 23-year-old was named Young New Zealander of the Year in 2022 for their work in the rainbow community. 

They were instrumental in the fight to ban conversion therapy in NZ after experiencing it for themselves while growing up in Fiji.

Lal (who uses the pronouns they/them) has released their first book, an incredibly heartbreaking yet defiant memoir called One Of Them. It is a very personal account that changed as Shaneel worked on it.

"I initially thought that I would be writing a manifesto, a book about ideas and where I imagined the country would go."

But the book's publishers told them that they had a story of their own to tell. The book shares Lal's harrowing account of growing up in Fiji and being treated differently as they discovered their identity.

"I had a fantastic childhood until the point where I decided to put nail polish on my toenails at school and the teacher had a ghastly reaction to it, and she beat us with a metre ruler."

Their parents and religious elders then became involved, coercing them into conversion therapy.

"They told me that if you do not change who you are, my queerness, your family will disown you and your community will banish you and you will burn in hell for the rest of eternity.

"For a kid, that was a terrifying idea. I would do anything to stay a part of my family and my community, so I said, you know what, I'll accept everything."

The conversion therapies started with prayers and "enchanted bracelets" aimed to expel the "evil spirits".

When that did not work, the elders pushed ideas such as making Shaneel inflict pain on themself every time they had a "queer thought". Later, Lal was beaten with a Bible and had crosses pressed against them.

"Finally it escalated to whippings.

"When I escaped conversion therapy, I told myself I would never, ever look back."

Revisiting it in their memoir was hard, but also helped them process it all, Lal said.

Lal's family later moved to New Zealand and they hoped it would mean a more progressive country. That was not always the case. Lal has faced death threats over their activism.

"I still get threats every single day, it's just that I refuse to hide."

After it was announced Lal won the Young New Zealander of the Year earlier in 2023, the awards office received so many threats they had to get extra security for the ceremony.

"I do have to worry about my safety while I'm out and about, but I also feel that a lot of these people do not exist outside Twitter.

"They're not fake profiles, they have a real person sitting behind those accounts and writing those comments ... it's just that they are too afraid, a bit of a coward, too afraid to put their face and their name to their profiles."

Asked why they drew so much hatred from some circles, Lal said much of it was based on misinformation.

"I think there's this underlying belief that if you're queer then you're inherently looking to make other people queer.

"A lot of times queer adults get told that we are looking to groom children so that we can convince them that they are queer.

"And I often respond to that by saying that I do not want your child to be gay or trans. I do not hope that your child is gay or trans.

"What I do hope is that queer children get a chance to become queer adults, and I'm afraid that too many queer children do not get to grow up at all."

In New Zealand, young queer people are five times more likely to attempt suicide, they said.

"I guess the reason that people don't like me is that I give queer people hope."

Lal's book - One Of Them - has faced attacks from certain circles, including a campaign to hide or vandalise copies of the book in shops.

"They called it 'conceal Shaneel,' which was a play on 'Turn Ardern,' which included people going into bookstores and hiding a book about Dame Jacinda Ardern.

"Then the next day 'conceal Shaneel' escalated to 'rip Shaneel,' which is people going into bookstores and ripping pages out of my book ... just to destroy it.

"You know, I wrote my book. I poured my entire life and my entire heart into my book hoping that it would save a queer child.

"And the fact that adults who hate queer people and trans people were going out of their way to erase my book made me sick."

Lal said they felt the anti-trans movement showed its true colours with such actions.

"They're not seeking to have debate, they're seeking to erase trans people and that's demonstrated clearly when they're trying to erase my book, and erase my story."

Lal said they believed the vast majority of New Zealanders supported trans rights and LGBTQ rights, but "we are painfully quiet".

"But that small minority, they are organising every day. They are loud. 

"Unfortunately, the majority, we're not organising every day. ... And so the discourse tends to be dominated by a small minority."

For the Mixtape, Lal shared some of their favourite music.

One of those was Lady Gaga, whom Lal was first introduced to about nine or 10 years old, and found a huge inspiration.

"She was a bit of a freak, and people described her as a freak, but the difference here is that instead of being punished for being a freak, she was being celebrated.

"And that was a fundamental shift in my thinking where I thought, actually, maybe there is a world out there where I could be different, where I could be a little bit of a freak, and I wouldn't be punished for it, instead I'd be loved for it.

"And I guess that's why that music became so important to me."

You can see Shaneel speak at the upcoming  WORD Christchurch Festival at the end of August 2023.

Shaneel Lal's picks are: 

Telephone - Lady Gaga

When I Grow Up - The Pussycat Dolls

It's Raining Men - The Weather Girls

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - Sylvester

Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler

Mystery of Love - Sufjan Stevens