Digital creator Maitrayanee Mahanta is one of the most prominent queer voices from northeast India. Her social media feed feels like a warm hug, simultaneously educating people about the LGBTQIA+ community, whilst sharing wholesome snippets from her relationship with fellow creator Avishruti Bora. My Kolkata caught up for a short chat with Mahanta about how queerhood is a spectrum, and the challenges of finding a footing in it.
The spectrum
From the start, Mahanta was perceived as ‘different’. However, she is quick to point out that it had little to do with who she was. “I saw people dressing up a certain way, styling their hair a certain way. I dressed a certain way and had short hair, and people would say that I looked like a boy, but I always felt like a woman. They thought I was different, but I didn’t feel different,” says the Guwahati resident. Her observations are reminiscent of how society often assumes or emphasises how queer people are supposed to feel, without creating a space for dialogue.
She also confesses how, due to her looks, people often assumed that she was lesbian. “It is not about how you look, but how you feel. Cis-het people are always bent on putting us on the gender spectrum.” Her words are evocative of how most people don’t realise the complexity of gender and sexuality, with both being independent of each other.
This percolates into how limited a perception people hold of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, Mahanta adds. “Most people only count L (lesbian), G (gay), B (bisexual), and T (trans) in the queer spectrum, but there is so much more. My pansexuality comes with context and layers. Society shouldn’t focus on just one thing and just let people be the way they are.”
The message that looks or gender don’t define sexuality, and that the gender and sexuality spectrum can have many layers is also one that Mahanta sends out as a part of the Absolut Ally campaign.
Love and the public gaze
The drive to be herself is what intersected Mahanta’s path with Bora’s. The two first met at a Pride March in 2021, and soon became best friends, before realising that they were in love. “Ever since, it has been a beautiful journey,” says Mahanta about her relationship.
However, being a queer couple in the public gaze comes with its challenges, including online trolling, and Mahanta confesses that the trolling would affect her mental wellbeing. “The constant gaze and comments would affect me a lot, and my mental health wasn’t great two years ago. I took a break and during that time, I realised that I should actually be focusing on myself. I began taking frequent breaks from social media.” These breaks have helped her overcome the negativity, and now she concurs that people say things and forget it equally soon, which is why she has “stopped dwelling on it.”
She has instead shifted her attention to finding joy in small things like keeping her phone away and watching movies with her partner, or going to a nice restaurant. “She also helps me with my content and shoots my reels. This can be a bit hard because I tend to become very fussy and want all my content to be perfect,” Mahanta chuckles. Creating content together has proved to be therapeutic for the couple however, with a lot of their reels centred around their relationship. Mahanta’s favourite genre however remains reels that spread awareness.
Allyship and the willingness to learn
These reels about making people aware also speak of Mahanta’s notions of allyship, which aim to fill the gap in understanding. Having worked on a campaign with Absolut to explain allyship, she speaks about her desire to enlighten people who are willing to learn. “Most people aren’t interested in learning, and feel entitled to what they already know. But acceptance cannot come unless they overcome this barrier and are willing to listen, without making assumptions.”
There is a sense of surety that drives Mahanta, as she urges people who are unsure about how to breach this topic to do some basic research before going up to the queer people in their lives. “Don’t be offensive, do your basic research. If you have a question, open up and ask us. We are here to answer your queries. Even doing something as simple as that is helpful.”
