Reality television thrives on personal revelations but sometimes those revelations touch upon identities that have long been misunderstood and stigmatised. That is exactly what has happened after actor Akanksha Chamola’s recent comments on reality TV show Lock Upp. During a conversation with influencer Varun Yadav, popularly known as Laila, Chamola spoke about her sexuality, saying she identified as bisexual before meeting actor Gaurav Khanna, after which she no longer felt attracted to women. Following the announcement of her divorce, she said she now considers herself asexual, explaining it as not wanting to have sex with anyone. She referred to these as different ‘phases’ of her life.
While many believe every individual has the right to describe their own experiences in the way they choose, members of the LGBTQIA+ community argue that presenting sexual orientations as interchangeable phases lead to misconceptions that queer people have spent decades trying to dismantle… it makes people think our identity is temporary.
Raza (name changed), who requested anonymity, said that he found the comments deeply unsettling. “This is such a misrepresentation of things. It makes people think that what we have been fighting for is a phase, when that is our identity. She cannot represent our community and talk about such things. I took 15 years to come out to my parents and they were the toughest years of my life, but never during those years did I feel anything else.”
Many LGBTQIA+ people describe years of hiding their identities due to fear of rejection, discrimination or violence. For them, the notion that sexuality is simply a passing phase reminds him of arguments often used by families and society to dismiss or invalidate their identities.
Another community member, Chintan (name changed), worries about the impact such statements will have on adolescents who are still trying to understand themselves. “It is also so confusing for children who are confused about their sexuality. They will feel that it’s just a phase and so it’s okay to hide it because eventually they will feel what’s normal for society. It does not work like that.”
Mental health professionals have long pointed out that many queer adolescents struggle with self-acceptance because they are repeatedly told that their feelings are temporary and something they will grow out of.
But not everyone believes Chamola should be criticised for describing her own journey. The concern, community members say, lies in the way it was framed. One person explains, “The problem is she is educating someone on this and generalising it while it cannot be generalised. She is entitled to feel bisexual one day and asexual another, but it’s wrong to generalise it and pretend like you are an authority to represent the community. Wish it was this simple.”
The distinction, they argue, is between sharing a personal experience and presenting it as evidence that sexuality is fluid in the same way for everyone.
For many queer Indians, visibility in mainstream media has been hard won. That is precisely why they believe public conversations around sexuality require nuance. To most people, a casual remark on a reality show may seem insignificant, but when it reaches millions of viewers, it can influence how families, teachers and young people understand LGBTQIA+ identities.
The criticism directed at Chamola is less about policing her personal story and more about a broader concern of reducing sexual orientations to ‘phases’ risks reviving stereotypes that have historically been used to invalidate queer lives.