Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati announces they’re non-binary
Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati has announced they’re non-binary and now lists their preferred pronouns as she/they online.
The actor, 58, who played Sunita Alahan in the much-loved ITV soap between 2001 and 2006, before returning to the role in 2009 until 2013, said they’re happier keeping their gender fluid.
Non-binary is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn’t sit comfortably with “man” or “woman”. The definition is kept purposefully broad to allow for multiple meanings.
Speaking to Kaye Adams on the How to be 60 podcast, Gulati said they only recently discovered there’s a term to describe the feelings they’ve experienced for decades.
“I’ve become more happy describing myself as a person,” they said. “What do people call it now? Non binary. So, I suppose that’s who I am.
“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,” Gulati continued.
“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 said.
“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,” Gulati reflected.
The soap star explained that they realised how they identified during a conversation with a non-binary sound engineer on a set they were working on.
“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 continued: “’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,” the actor said.
Elsewhere in the chat, Gulati revealed they are also pansexual, meaning they’re attracted to people of all genders, beyond male-female parameters, including those who are non-binary, intersex, and more.“
My sexuality and my gender are too different things that is also something I am looking at and what they means to me so yeah I would go for a person absolutely, regardless of their gender,” the soap star said.
Gulati was married to architect Anshu Srivastava from 1990 until 1994. They later dated Emmerdale actor Gary Turner for four years until 2003, before dating a man 17 years their junior until 2013.
“I did have relationships, but then they were very public,” Gulati said on the podcast.
“It was sad for me, because I didn’t feel that I got enough time to have a relationship and to have more children and have a private life, because it was so un-private and so exposed.”
The soap star, who is now in a new relationship said of their current partner: “I think I’ve loved this person all my life,” without revealing their identity.
When asked if they’d date a person of any gender, Gulati added: “That is also something I’m looking at – what that means to me. So yes, I would go for a person absolutely, regardless of their gender.”
The soap star left Coronation Street in 2013 when her character was murdered by her former lover, Karl Munro (John Michie).
They said at the time: “I have loved playing Sunita but I really feel the time has come for me to focus on other aspects of my career…I’d love to be able to combine my writing and acting career in the future.”
