Nepal was hailed a leader in LGBT rights when it became the first country in South Asia to recognize a third gender and assure equality for its sexual minorities.
However, more than a decade later, that trailblazing reputation has lost its luster, with LGBT Nepalese still confronting obstacles to jobs and schools, and marriage equality a distant prospect.
More than 900,000 of Nepal’s about 26 million population identify as a sexual minority, according to LGBT rights group Blue Diamond Society.
On paper, they enjoy some of the most progressive protections and rights guaranteed by law in the immediate region.
Landmark reforms in 2007 prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and recognized gay Nepalese at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in neighboring India.
Transgender Nepalese identifying as neither male nor female were also granted the right to tick “other” when voting or applying for a passport or other official documents.
However, LGBT Nepalese and rights activists say that action has not matched rhetoric and more than a decade later, the community still faces discrimination.
“The government recognized our identity, but has not been able to put forward a concrete policy or plan to give us rights that all citizens enjoy,” Blue Diamond Society president Pinky Gurung said. “It is heartbreaking that to enjoy one right [citizenship], we have to be deprived of other opportunities.”
Rukshana Kapali, a transgender woman, has been allowed to study at university, but not formally register as a student because her high-school transcript identifies her as male under a former name.
The bureaucratic glitch means she might not be able to graduate.
“I feel like I am in limbo,” the 19-year-old said. “I want to be a linguist, but right now I am worried I won’t be able to study here at all.”
Tribhuvan University said it hopes to find a solution, but until then, Kapali is off the books.
“We are optimistic, but it is not possible to register her under the current regulations,” university exam controller Pushpa Raj Joshi said.
Every year, Nepal’s LGBT community takes to the dusty streets of Kathmandu for a vibrant gay pride parade to demand an end to all forms of discrimination.
Despite much-celebrated gains, there is still plenty to shout about.
Nepal in August adopted a new civil code defining marriage as between a man and a woman, dashing hopes for same-sex unions to be legally recognized any time soon.
Other laws in the statute have also been criticized for narrowly defining core rights in terms of male and female — leaving no room for people of the “other” gender.
“We were hoping for change so we could marry and maybe even start a family, but we’ve been disappointed so far,” said Armand Rana, 23, a gay man who lives with his partner of six years.
Rana’s family has accepted his partner, but many in Nepal still hide their sexuality and gender.
“The amount of progress Nepal has experienced ... is enormous, and yet implementation of the various pledges from government entities over the years continues to lag,” Human Rights Watch LGBT program researcher Kyle Knight said.
The government said it is working to make laws more inclusive.
“If any law discriminates, people can point it out so we can seek ways to improve,” said Bharat Raj Sharma, who oversees LGBT issues at the Nepalese Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens.
However, for transgender citizens such as Kapali, the wheels of bureaucracy are too slow.
“Being recognized as a third gender is important and I am proud of my identity,” she said. “But I don’t want it to limit what I can do in my life.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
RSS