Shaneel Lal

Shaneel Shavneel Lal (born 22 January 2000) is a Fijian-New Zealand LGBT rights activist, columnist and political commentator.

Lal is best known for advocating for the ban of conversion therapy in New Zealand.

Lal was born in Nausori, Fiji to a mixed iTaukei and Girmitiya family on 22 January 2000.

Lal comes from a Hindu family and was raised in a Hindu and Muslim community.

After attending a Christian primary and high school in Fiji, Lal states that they "grew out of" religion and subscribes to indigenous spirituality.

In Fiji, Lal was put into conversion therapy in an attempt to change their sexuality and gender identity.

The elders of the village prayed over Lal to free them of spirits that supposedly made Lal queer.

Lal experienced conversion therapy as a challenge to their indigeneity and relationships with their ancestors.

Lal claims that precolonial indigenous queerness is distinct from colonial attitudes to and terms for queerness.

Lal argues that prior to colonisation, vakasalewalewa were integral to native Fijian society, and that colonisation and Christianity stripped Fijians of their rich queer identities and conditioned them with homophobia and transphobia.

In 2014, Lal moved to New Zealand with their family.

In the summer of 2017, Lal was volunteering at Middlemore Hospital when a church leader walked up to them and offered to pray their gay away.

When Lal refused, the church leader wished hell upon them.

Lal joined Otahuhu College and was named dux in 2018.

Lal uses they/them pronouns and has described themself as trans, non-binary, vakasalewalewa and hijra.

Lal's speech at the 2019 Youth Parliament to ban conversion therapy received a standing ovation.

Following this, Lal was targeted online with homophobic abuse.

Lal founded the Conversion Therapy Action Group in 2019 to work towards ending conversion therapy in New Zealand.

In an interview with Breakfast in 2020, Lal labelled conversion therapy "state sanctioned torture".

Lal told interviewer Jenny-May Clarkson that numerous queer people pray to God to "heal them, or kill them".

Following this interview, Massey University lecturer Steve Elers wrote an opinion piece for the Manawatu Guardian, republished by The New Zealand Herald, dismissing the issue of conversion therapy.

David Farrier defended Lal in his blog Webworm, and the subsequent media attention led to Elers's opinion column being cancelled.

During the 2020 New Zealand general election, Lal and CTAG pressured the New Zealand Labour Party to commit to banning conversion therapy in New Zealand.

Lal worked with the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to deliver a petition of over more than 150,000 signatures to ban conversion therapy.

In July, the Minister of Justice, Kris Faafoi, introduced the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

Lal criticised the Bill, calling it an "inadequate bill that fails to ban the practice or compensate the victims".

Lal argued that the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill would not allow the police to prosecute offenders and would allow conversion therapy to continue.

The Justice Select Committee hearing submissions on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill received over 100,000 submissions following Lal's online campaign, breaking the record for the number of submissions.

In February 2021, the Minister of Justice announced that a ban on conversion therapy would be enacted at the end of 2021 or in February 2022, at the latest.

Lal claimed that this was "an astounding commitment" because at that point, Labour hadn't done foundational work towards their goal.

Leading up to the second reading of the Bill, Lal launched a petition asking the Labour Party to amend the Bill through Supplementary Order Papers at the Committee of the whole House.

Lal argued that the Labour Party ignored the voices of queer people and put forward an inadequate and ineffective Bill after the select committee process.

The petition asked the Government to remove the 18-year age limit to include all ages, to remove the provision that the Attorney-General needed to give consent for prosecutions and to provide ACC coverage for the harm caused by conversion therapy.

The Labour Party did not accept any recommendations.

The Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill passed at third reading on 15 February 2022.

Lal stated that it was "disheartening" that the bill only protected children (because people over 18 would have to prove they suffered "serious harm" under a strict legal definition) and did not include Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) coverage for mental harm.

Nonetheless, Lal said that New Zealand's ban on conversion therapy is a win for humanity, not just the queer community, and asserted that queer rights are human rights.

Lal stated that they received a death threat after the passing of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

Lal dismissed the threats and instead called for celebration.

Lal told VICE World News that the ban on conversion therapy is a gift to future generations of queer people.