Rukshana Kapali

Various national and international media outlets boast that Nepal is an LGBTQIA+ friendly country. Many people believe that queer people in the country have been given all possible legal rights.

It is common to hear Nepal referred to as “a beacon for LGBT rights” or “Nepal has some of the most progressive laws on LGBT rights”. It is also believed that Nepal is especially progressive when it comes to addressing the rights of transgender persons. All these recognitions about Nepal fail to look into the grassroots and the real issues faced by this minority population.

Transgender people cannot easily access education as their cisgender peers. I myself have been fighting for a registration number at the Tribhuvan University, which has denied me enrolment because my educational certificates from school are not congruent with my lived gender. On the other hand, the institution that issued those certificates has refused to amend them for me.

One of the biggest problems in Nepal is that the state thinks the five fixed categories of LGBTI are a subset of ‘third gender’, thus completely quashing the understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. Forcing transgender men and women as being the ‘third gender’ is not the establishment of our rights, but a sheer violation. What we call as a ‘tritiyabaadi’ stance, has prompted, encouraged, and propagated rampant fear and transphobia within and beyond the third gender community in Nepal by prescribing that anything beyond a Hindu-centered third gender identity is a threat to the community.

I, on behalf of the Queer Youth Group and all the queer advocates, urge government, international organizations, UN agencies, regional networks, development partners, funding agencies, and others to address the issue of gender recognition in Nepal. The stakeholders must help enable transgender, intersex and non-binary individuals legally amend their citizenship and certificates to their self-perceived gender identity and preferred name, without being subjected to a forced third gender labelling. Together, we must bring an end to this misconception that LGBTI is a third gender. The time to act is now.

(Rukshana is a rights activist of Nepal and the first trans woman in Nepal to apply for legal documentation as ‘female’.) This article is based on her Sharing at the 14^th session of  the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive, Sexual Health & Rights, (APCRSHR10.)