Kathmandu/Pahichan – 35 years ago, a child was born in Sipadol, Bhaktapur District.  Parents named him as Krishna Thapa. Born as the youngest child in the family, Krishna received lots of love and care from the family. Everyone pampered him as the youngest son and brought up with love and care.

Krishna’s education started from village’s Shanti Niketan. Everything was on track, when Krishna reached Grade 7, when Krishna’s gender identity was under question. “Krishna is not like a boy, he is like a girl. Krishna has no sign of being boy; his behavior and mannerism are totally like that of girls.”

These phrases started to come out from those people who were around Krishna. This started to give Krishna sorrow. Boys of Krishna’s class went to play football, while Krishna wanted to play with girls of the class. Krishna was mostly with girls during the school time. Then even teachers started to say, “Is Krishna a boy or a girl. Let’s open his pants and check.” This terrorized Krishna. Krishna even started to maintain distance from the teachers.

For family and the society, Krishna was a son. But Krishna never felt as a boy. Krishna wanted to what the girls did. The way teachers and friends in school treated Krishna were destroying Krishna emotionally and mentally. Krishna’s family was shocked and astonished by girly behavior of their son. They believed that Krishna is a child and everything would be “normal” when Krishna will grow up.

As she grew up, harassment and teasing also grew along it. After grade 7 I left the school of village and joined another school.  By reaching till grade 9, the discrimination crossed its limits, so did the mental pressure on Krishna. Due to this Krishna went in depression and Krishna had no choice expert to tolerate.

“Why was I like this?” the question not only arose in Krishna’s mind but also remained caged inside it.  Krishna passed SLC. Krishna started studying +2 in Bhaktapur Bahumukhi Campus. Even there Krishna was discriminated and had to face a lot of discriminations and prejudice. Krishna could not even speak a word, because everyone would notice Krishna’s feminine behavior start making fun of it. When Krishna spoke, everyone would just keep on staring. This continued

One day, Krishna got a chance to read about LGBTI in magazine, Krishna knew about being transgender. While Krishna came to know about Blue Diamond Society, Krishna identified himself as transgender woman and changed name as Jyoti. We address with “she” pronouns now. After coming in contact with Blue Diamond Society, Jyoti felt a lot of relief. She was happy to see a lot of people like her.

After working in Blue Diamond Society, her family started to pressurize for marriage, then she cried and revealed about herself.  Then it was when Blue Diamond Society also organized Miss Pink and she wanted to participate in it very eagerly. Then she revealed her identity. Then she thought of being exposed in her university as well and put on ladies dress and went to the university, where her teachers and mates asked about herself and she explained on LGBTI. Everyone praised Krishna for daring to do this and therefore her university gave her an identity card with a title name Jyoti.

Then she participated in Miss Pink pageant where she became HIV AIDS Ambassador of Central development region  and “beauty with brain”. Then she got exposed in society through media. People in her village started to talk about her.  She worked as a part timer in Blue Diamond Society then became a full timer. Now she is into modeling and has a dream of success.