Gays and Lesbian were always frowned upon in the conservative Nepalese society. Gay men and women and members of other sexual minorities have long complained of discrimination in Nepal. some time back Nepal's supreme Court has ordered government to scrap laws that discriminate against homosexual. Now Nepal government has formally accepted third gender.
The term “third gender” is used in Nepal to refer to those who are neither heterosexual nor transgendered, and while one could argue that this all-encompassing term is problematic insofar as it blurs the distinction between sexuality and gender, Adhikari’s success in being officially recognised as third gender is a sign of positive change in a country where traditional conservatism is being shaken up by political developments including the abolition of the monarchy and the increased dominance of the Maoist party, who claim to represent poor and minority groups.
The term “third gender” has been used in the country to refer to gay men, lesbians, and bisexual and transgender people.
On Wednesday, Bishnu Adhikari, 21, became the first person to receive such recognition in Nepal, where homosexuality and premarital sex are strongly taboo.
Krishna Adhikari, regional coordinator of gay rights organisation Naulo Bihani, said that Bishnu Adhikari’s request to be classified as “third gender” was rejected by officials.
The officials said that, as Miss Adhikari appeared male, she would be classified as male on her ID card. After Miss Adhikari refused to accept this, they eventually agreed to her request.
Miss Adhikari is a human rights officer at the Blue Diamond Society, a gay rights organisation.
She was inspired to apply for the third gender classification after a visit from out gay lawmaker and founder of the Blue Diamond Society, Sunil Babu Pant in Pokhara.
Mr Pant, 35, is a member of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly. He has used this position to campaign for gay equality, by giving presentations to other assembly members on homosexuality.
The LGBT community in Nepal, called “sexual minorities” by the Nepalese government, were granted equality to heterosexual citizens in some areas of legislation in December 2007.
In what has been called a landmark piece of legislation, the Supreme Court passed a judgement that said that gays and lesbians were “natural” people, and placed the responsibility for removing homophobic discrimination with the government.
although there is no law in Nepal that recognises the couple’s marriage yet, there have been some policy changes in Nepal, which have been in favour of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. On Dec. 21, 2007 Nepal’s Supreme Court (SC) declared that all discriminatory laws against LGBTI people must be repealed by the government, and provision must be made for recognition of the 'third gender' on government documents. Nepal is the only country in South Asia to provide such rights.
"It took a lot of lobbying, discussions, organising, talking, pressuring" says Sunil Babu Pant, founder of Blue Diamond Society (BDS) an NGO that reaches out to the LGBTI community through education, healthcare and advocacy. "Not only are the third gender now recognised, but political parties Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Communist Party of Nepal (United) have clauses recognising sexual minorities in their party manifestos," adds Pant, who recently made headlines for being the first person from the LGBTI community to represent CPN (U) in Nepal’s constituent assembly.
Nepal has been slowly making progress in terms of LGBTI rights. In February this year a local bank produced application forms that included the third option of "others" under the gender category. Similarly, BDS and the Supreme Court are looking into forming a seven-member committee to explore the legalisation of same-sex marriages.
Most LGBTI come from remote parts of Nepal. Throughout Nepal over 120,000 people from the LGBTI community are in touch with the BDS through its offices in 25 districts. The community predicts that there may be around 900,000 LGBTI in the country.
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