Meet the Queer Champion Ankita Mehra Who’s Behind India’s First LGBTQIA+ Career Fair
As we progress into an inclusive and diverse corporate culture in India, LGBTQ individuals still struggle to fit into an organization because of social stereotypes. However, individuals like Ankita, an inspiring queer and LGBTQ advocate break, these norms, rise above with their power of advocacy and creativity.
Ankita Mehra is a 27-year-old woman, who identifies as a lesbian from Bangalore, India. She is a two times TEDx speaker who had done over 300 LBTQ+ awareness talks. Being a vocal influencer, former Roadie, and inspiration to pride community, she organized North India’s first career fair for 1000 LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disability, and women. Ankita is currently working as a Program Manager for Employer Branding, Diversity, and Inclusion for Xperi Corporation.
At 50 Shades of Gay, our founder Shubham Mehrotra had a candid conversation with Ankita Mehra as she opens about her inclusion in teenage and adult life, how she was perceived in society based on her sexuality and her appearance. She also presents the idea of equity over equality in corporate companies for LGBTQIA+ individuals to promote freedom and better opportunities.
Read her story to learn more about her struggles and the tireless efforts she made that motivated individuals from the pride community to create an inclusive workplace.
Shubham: When did you start? When did you know that you want to do what you’re doing?
Ankita: A few years ago, when I started seeing a lot of biases towards me in the corporate world because of my clothes, because of the haircut that I had and the way I talk, the way I walk, everyone was not happy about it. So, I realized there was a need for me to defend my sexuality.
Shubham: When did you come out?
Ankita: I came out before section 377 in 2017 on MTV Roadies.
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Shubham: Congratulations on coming out on MTV Roadies! Can you tell us about how did that happened?
Ankita: Yes, I went to the show because when I was in college, I got hateful comments from the youth. Even when I tried to tell my childhood friends, they were quite uncomfortable with me and told me to keep their distance. They used to think just because I am a lesbian, I will be interested in them which got me back into closet. When I went to college and shared my identity with college friends, they outed me without my consent, especially when I was closeted during that period. The third incident was when I got bullied in college by a bunch of boys who passed comments and insulted me such as ‘Chakka’ and ‘Hijra’ because of my short hair. Although these terms are used as insults, sadly this happens to be the reality of the community. People from the community go through prolonged bullying, exclusion and are still finding it very difficult to be accepted by the society. All these major incidents made me go to Roadies to express my story.
Shubham: How did your family respond to your identity? How did they accept you?
Ankita: I am a very privileged person who got accepted by my family, especially my sister. She is my biggest ally, she understood me very well when I was hurt, she was hurt. As an ally, she has always been there for me. Talking about my father, I wrote a 16-page letter to him letting him know what I was feeling, and the struggle I was going through which took him thirty minutes to read, and when he looked at me, he cried and hugged me, told me that he’ll be there for me. My mom took 4 years to accept me, and it was my dad who desensitized her. He didn’t know anything about the community, but he read and understood how it’s not a disease. Today, he has become the biggest ally for me and the community, he posts my interviews, sessions, news articles on pride community.
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Shubham: Tell us what happened after your run at Roadies?
Ankita: After the Roadies episode release, people were still looking at me the same way, and were uncomfortable around me. I was ok with it, I knew If I have declared my sexuality to the world, I will encounter hate from them.
Shubham: How did you get into this whole corporate world? What was your first job experience like?
Ankita: My first job was at a call center as I was from a tier 2 college, I didn’t get a better opportunity. At the start, I struggled quite a bit because of judgments towards me. People at work had an unconscious bias towards the community and me, I got asked random questions, “How do you perform sex? How do you feel about someone? Do you want to be men?”, I tried to answer these questions because I thought it’s my responsibility to provide an explanation but it’s not my responsibility. If they are curious about it, they can just search for it onthe internet.
