Shobna Gulati comes out as non-binary
Former 'Coronation Street' star Shobna Gulati now identifies as non-binary.
Shobna Gulati now identifies as non-binary.
The 58-year-old TV star - who played Sunita Alahan on 'Coronation Street' between 2001 and 2013 - has revealed that they identify as non-binary, having previously struggled to define themselves.
Shobna said on the 'How to be 60' podcast: "I've become more happy describing myself as a person. What do people call it now? Non binary. So, I suppose that's who I am."
The former soap star has only recently found the correct term to define their identity.
Shobna - who has also previously appeared as a panellist on 'Loose Women' - explained: "I've never had a word for it, but I've learnt from our younger generation what that might look like in terms of a word, because I know what it feels like in terms of being me.
"All the way through my life I've never had the words for that and I've never managed to explain that and I suppose my immediate family have not really thought about it.
"They've just thought: 'Shobna is either extremely feminine or extremely masculine.' Because I was just accepted as a person who fell out of the tree and equally the person who put on all this make-up and did a dance."
Shobna actually came to the realisation about their identity while chatting to a non-binary sound engineer.
The TV star shared: "The sound person said to me that they were non-binary and I said: 'What is that?' So, then they explained and I thought, 'Well, I feel like that, but I didn't ever have that vocabulary.'
"They said that they saw themselves as a person and that the gender - the he or the she - wasn't important to who they are. And I thought: 'That's all I've ever thought.'
"And I think now I'm free to say it out loud. I think people around me have accepted who I am for a long time without any explanation, but I suppose when I'm asked now, I'll say it."
