Kathmandu: Sunil Babu Pant, a pioneer for the sexual and gender minorities (SGM) in Nepal, has been tirelessly fighting for SGM rights.

He founded Blue Diamond Society, an organisation advocating for SGM rights, in 2001, and as a result of his continuous advocacy, the government recognised SGMs, issuing them citizenship under “other” category following the verdict of the Supreme Court on December 21, 2007. The court ruled responding to a writ petition filed by Pant himself.

According to the court order, on December 31, 2012, a circular was issued to grant citizenship to SGMs under “other” category.

The same-sex marriage study committee, formed according to the court order, submitted its report to the government in 2071 BS, calling for the government to address SGM demands. However, the government is not responding to their demands. A petition filed in the apex court, demanding the formation of a law to register marriages involving SGMs, is sub-judice in the court, creating various difficulties faced by the community.

Only 16 years later, the Government of Nepal recognised same-sex marriage on November 29, 2023, making Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey the first couple in South Asia to legally register same-sex marriage.

Maya is a third gender woman while Surendra is a gay man. Both were masculine at birth.

Following this, Anju Devi Shrestha (Dipti) and Suprita Gurung registered same-sex marriage legally, becoming the first lesbian couple in South Asia. Both of them were born female and have identified as women.

Recently, the Department of National ID and Civil Registration under the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a circular to all 753 local levels to register marriages involving same-sex, thirdgender and intersex couples.

Although rainbow marriage is legal in Nepal, they are only in temporary record due to lack of related laws.

It has been four years since a law draft on marriage equality, prepared by the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens spending nearly a decade, landed in the Ministry of Law. But, the ministry has not yet received a response on the issues it wants to clarify before passing the draft into a bill.

It has been four years since Bharat Sharma, Undersecretary of the Ministry, was transferred to the National Statistics Office. It is in the draft prepared under his leadership that the Ministry of Law wants to be clear on five issues.

He had yet to send a reply until he had been transferred.

Asia’s first openly gay former parliamentarian of Nepal and the Mayako Pahichan Nepal Executive Director Pant requested authorities from the outgoing minister Surendra Raj Acharya to the current minister Bhagwati Chaudhary to help push the matter ahead, but to no avail so far.

Now, Ramhari Gaire, Undersecretary of the Office, has been assigned to look after the issues of the communities.

It has been more than a year since Gaihre said that the reply has come and will be sent to the Ministry of Law.

Controversy over gender identity?

One person from SGMs has represented in the expert group formed by the Ministry. But, the person did not attend the meeting of the expert group some days ago. Government agencies have blamed the reluctance of those who claim to lead the community for not reaching a conclusion.

Recognising the identity of the community, the Government of Nepal has granted citizenship to SGMs under ‘other’ category.

However, some people from the community have opted to take citizenship under either ‘male’ or ‘female’, but not ‘other’ category, making it difficult to figure out the exact data of the community.

As per the decision of the Council of Ministers, 15 people from the community got citizenship certificates after changing their gender to female. Two years ago, around 1,300 people from the community received citizenship under ‘other’ category. According to the 2078 census, the number of people from other genders was 2,928.

Advocate Sujan Pant highlighted the challenges of obtaining the exact data due to the tendency of not identifying sexual and gender minorities as ‘other’ gender category.