Death threats, sabotage, a home invasion and then a best seller – what happened when New Zealand queer activist Shaneel Lal released their new book
Shaneel Lal helped ban conversion therapy in New Zealand, protested against Posie Parker, and is the first transgender Young New Zealander of the Year - no wonder the terfs hate them.
In the early 2010s in Fiji, a young Shaneel Lal was placed in conversion therapy, a procedure of “curing” a person’s queerness through actions such as hypnosis, medical intervention, or forcing pain-based associations to queer-related thoughts.
What they went through “nearly destroyed them” and in the years since, they’ve dedicated themselves to end these torture practices against the LGBTIQA+ community for good. This was a fight that lasted for years and earned Shaneel the expected amount of transphobic hatred and beyond, but ultimately ended with victory in February 2022. Yay!
This provides the inspiration for their book, One of Them, which details Shaneel’s incredible story. From their childhood in Fiji, moving to New Zealand as a teenager, finding the courage to come out, and the founding of the Conversion Therapy Action Group in 2019 which led the movement to ban conversion therapy in New Zealand, Shaneel spoke to me about the challenges they faced in their fight against conversion therapy as well as the emotional weight of pouring their story into their new book.
“Writing my book required walking through my childhood and feeling all the emotions as though I was feeling it for the first time. It was traumatic. But I had to write the book to give young queer people evidence that there are realities in which you can be queer and happy.”
The public campaign against conversion therapy as well as their part in organising the protests against Posie Parker in Auckland earlier this year made Shaneel a celebrity in New Zealand, and they were the first transgender person to win Young New Zealander of the Year.
This fame was reflected in the sales of their new book, with One of Them topping bookseller lists in New Zealand, much to the ire of New Zealand’s conservatives. TERF attacks against the figurehead of the conversion therapy ban reached a fever pitch
Five hours after the book was announced, the hashtag #ConcealShaneel started trending in New Zealand and TERFs were going to bookshops to hide the book. The next day, #RipShaneel began which included ripping pages from the book, which turned into calls for Shaneel to be deported. You know, perfectly rational behaviour :)'
After this campaign failed and book sales skyrocketed, they begun hiding their business cards with links to transphobic websites inside the books. But perhaps the most sinister development occurred when Shaneel’s home was broken into by an anti-trans campaigner who later sent them further threats. With this story hitting the news, TERFs panicked and tried to start rumours that Shaneel staged the break-in and steal a thousand copies of the book to claim insurance. Conservative broadcaster Sean Plunket lied “as a wind up” that they bought a thousand copies of their own book to manipulate the best-seller lists.
But even with all the hate and aggression, Shaneel maintains inspiringly steadfast in their hope that the book will achieve its purpose:
“My book shows young people there is a reality in which they can be themselves and instead of being abused, they will be happy. It gives young queer people hope to keep going in a world that gives them no reason to.”
The campaign and its ultimate success is inspiring especially from the perspective of Australia. While there are state bans in Queensland and Victoria, conversion therapy is still widespread in Australia mainly due to the lack of a national ban. While a ban on conversion therapy is contained in Alex Greenwich’s new bill to NSW Parliament and discussions are being made on bans in South Australia and Tasmania, the campaign continues and Equality Australia is hosting a petition to call a comprehensive ban to happen.
While the process of recovering from trauma and the five-year campaign was exhausting, Shaneel also took the time to describe the happiest moments of their story, particularly breaking the negative associations of queerness that were forced on them with conversion therapy with positive ones.
“After multiple pairings of my queer thoughts and feelings with snapping myself with a rubber band, my queer thoughts and feelings started creating pain, so accepting I was queer was punishment in itself. Queerness became aversive to me.
I broke the association of pain and my queerness by having intimate queer moments and sex was one of them. Positive queer experiences replace that painful relationship with one of hope and love.”
When I asked Shaneel what they would like to do next with their life after the success of their campaign, they expressed a desire to create a new sense of purpose and identity, as well as a longing for a youth that was overtaken by the movement.
“I would like to be young for once. I would like to party without a video of me landing on a news website, or I would like to post nothing political on my social media for a week without people accusing me of not caring.
I need a 1000 mg of caffeine, 50 burgers, 20 hugs, 12 hours of sleep, 3 hours of workout, and a face mask per day every day of summer this year.
I have started discussion about my second book. I hope to make is gayer than One of Them.”
You know what? I’m here for it.
Thanks so much to Shaneel for talking with me and sharing their story. You can buy their book here, which is a great way to tell terfs and other conservatives to go fuck themselves. We’ve also included the full interview transcript below.
Full interview:
1. A large part of your story is your ultimately successful fight against conversion therapy, which is super inspiring from every queer person’s point of view, and particularly since the fight goes on in Australia. Pouring your heart out must be nothing new to you, but even so, was it difficult putting it into words in a memoir, sharing such an intimate and traumatic event of your life where your trauma was held up to so much scrutiny?
What I went through in conversion therapy nearly destroyed me. I told myself I would never look back. Writing my book required walking through my childhood and feeling all the emotions as though I was feeling it for the first time. It was traumatic. But I had to write the book to give young queer people evidence that there are realities in which you can be queer and happy. I hope my story of surviving conversion therapy and leading the movement to ban it shows young queer people they can change the pain into power and trauma into triumph.
2. Your house being broken into is such a horrific part of this story, and another step of being so horrendously vilified for just sharing a very real traumatic experience that you went through. We all encounter Terfism as public figures and we all have different ways of managing it, but this is pretty extreme and also alongside being lied about so often in the media. How has managing this been for you?
I have learnt that TERFs are not interested in the truth. They are interested in erasing trans people and if that requires lying, they will lie until the cows come home.
I have witnessed TERFs lie throughout the years and it has illuminated to me that the only way they have been able to stick around is that they have simply do not engage with anyone who will demand evidence for their claims.
I block and move on with my life. You cannot reason with stupid. You cannot debate with people whose reality revolves creating lies. I will not frustrate myself by engaging with stupidity.
3. What was the biggest challenge in the fight against conversion therapy in New Zealand, from discovering it was still a widespread practice, to people fighting for its continuation? What was the lightbulb moment where you realised you had to fight until the end?
I was volunteering at Middlemore Hospital in the summer of 2017 when a church leader walked up to the reception and offered to pray my gay away. I refused so he looked at me and said, “it’s hot, but do you know what’s hotter? Hell!”
I thought I escaped conversion therapy when I moved from Fiji to New Zealand but here I was in New Zealand being offered it again. In that moment I told myself I must, I can and I will ban conversion therapy, and I did.
As a young immigrant, I did not know anyone in the media, politics and the queer community. It took a lot of googling and emailing to find the right connections. Once I had a community, we ran petitions, wrote to politicians, and raised awareness of social media. People refused to believe that conversion therapy was happening in New Zealand. We had to tell survivors’ stories to change that.
The churches were a real pain. They wanted exemptions for parents and churches to practise conversion therapy. We weren’t going to have a bar of it. There were over 100k written submissions to Parliament to ban conversion therapy with 80% in favour and a third petition with 150k+ signatures to support a ban.
4. What were the happiest moments, the things that inspired you to keep fighting, and you realised that this is something you wanted to dedicate your life to? What was the best moment you recalled whilst writing the book too, that you would love people to remember?
The best moment was writing about sex and losing my virginity, if that is a thing.
My conversion therapy included aversion therapy. I was required to snap myself with a rubber band every time I had queer thoughts or feelings. My queerness did not create pain. Snapping myself with a rubber band did.
After multiple pairings of my queer thoughts and feelings with snapping myself with a rubber band, my queer thoughts and feelings started creating pain so accepting I was queer was punishment in itself. Queerness became aversive to me.
I broke the association of pain and my queerness by having intimate queer moments and sex was one of them. Positive queer experiences replace that painful relationship with one of hope and love.
5. You received death threats after your win against conversion therapy and even throughout the publication of your book, which is such a strange reaction from people given what you did was clearly going to save countless children from torture.
What do you think needs to happen to get people to understand how torturous conversion therapy can be for the majority of people who maintain their right to take their children to it, the people who administer it, or even those people who just well-meaningfully want freedom of choice?
Why do you think it’s such a tenuous thing for people to understand the reality of what it is, especially with the increased spotlight on Terfism as an ideology?
Growing up in Fiji I had one queer person to look up to. Vicky was a transgender woman and I watched her life as mine would play out if I accepted I was queer. One day on the bus from school to home, I watched the students hurl slurs, throw rubbish and spit at her. In that moment, I realised that if I accept I am queer, this will be my reality. I went into hiding.
I fear queer children are growing up in a world watching queer people being hounded and abused and think that if they accept themselves, they will be abused. They are being forced into hiding.
My book shows young people there is a reality in which they can be themselves and instead of being abused, they will be happy. It gives young queer people hope to keep going in a world that gives them no reason to.
TERFs prefer queer children dead than queer. They will do anything to ensure queer children do not have hope. It is why they target my book and other queer authors.
6. After dealing with something so personal and traumatic and finally succeeding, it must be so empowering but also so exhausting. Have you thought about what’s next in the story, or what you would like your next book to be about? World gay domination? :3
I was forced to grow up very early. I went into conversion therapy as early as class 2 and it meant that I was not allowed to have an innocent and carefree childhood.
At 17, I was roped into the movement to ban conversion therapy. My identity revolved around the movement to ban conversion therapy. I would go as far as saying the movement was my identity. When the movement to ban conversion therapy came to an end so did my identity I had created around it. I need to find a sense of self and purpose beyond that.
I would like to be young for once. I would like to party without a video of me landing on a news website, or I would like to post nothing political on my social media for a week without people accusing me of not caring.
I need a 1000 mg of caffeine, 50 burgers, 20 hugs, 12 hours of sleep, 3 hours of workout, and a face mask per day every day of summer this year.
I have started discussion about my second book. I hope to make is gayer than One of Them.
Timeline of #ConcealShaneel
1. 5 hours after I announced my book, the hashtag Conceal Shaneel started trending in New Zealand. TERFs were going to bookshops and hiding my books.
2. The next day #RipShaneel began which included ripping pages from my books.
3. Then came conspiracies about how the TERFs could deport me. They were essentially making up fake evidence to support a criminal conviction for me.
4. TERFs realised their efforts failed and my book sales skyrocketed. They now started hiding their business cards with links with transphobic websites on them in my books.
5. A TERF broke into my home and sent me threats later.
6. TERFs started a rumour that I hired someone to break into my home and steal a thousand copies of my book so I could claim insurance.
7. Sean Plunket, a transphobic broadcaster, lied for “fun” that I bought a thousand copies of my book to become a best seller.
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Natalie Feliks is a writer and activist originally from Adelaide, now living in Melbourne. She's written for the likes of Junkee, Crikey, and Overland, and spends her time listening to pop music and eating chocolate.
Thank you for writing this Natalie. I was not aware of Shaneel before this, but I am definitely going to go and purchase their book.
Also, yes please to world gay domination.