Kathmandu (Pahichan) January 25 – A session LGBTI issues was conducted on Training for Trainers (ToT) on Comprehensive Sexuality Education by Women LEAD. Women LEAD has been providing capacity development and leadership training to women. This program was about producing trainers on Comprehensive Sexuality Education who will train school and college students on CSE.

Rukshana Kapali and Anuj Peter Rai were in the panel, where both of them shared about the personal experiences like as a young teenager growing up in a hetero normative society. They talked about their sexual identity first and how they reacted.

“For me, my school life was like living in a jail”, said Kapali affiliated with Blue Diamond Society, “When I remember my school life, all I remember is isolation, discrimination, stigmatization and frustration.”

She shared stories of school days, gradual coming out process and how she has been accepted today in her family. She said how her initial days of coming out was miserable and she struggled to convince people around her, and today she lives happily accepted by people.

“I think I am lucky gay in this whole country”, said Anuj Peter Rai, who works with Blue Diamond Society. He shared his story of self-realization of being gay and then coming out to people. “I knew I liked boys. But I hadn’t got chance to explore my sexuality”, he added.

He said that he was forced to marry a girl, than on a date, he could not even tolerate her for an hour, and pretended to be drunk and slept whole night in a resort. That was the time it got strongly clicked that he cannot have relation with woman. Than he got connected to BDS. Today he works as a hotline operator and breaks stigma regarding gay people. He is a gay activist. He came out to family through a TV show.

Sushil Sunar and Aditya spoke about themselves and the work they are doing in LGBTI movement. The trainees got a lot of questions on LGBTI from marriage equality to personal lives. They were suggested to invite LGBTI people in each training they do and teaching children about LGBTI from childhood makes it easier to realise LGBTI people about themselves and heterosexual people would not discriminate them.