We have real people facing real discrimination. Why are international organisations so determined to keep giving us new labels before we have solved the old problems?

Recently, during a “political inclusion of gender and sexual minority: challenges and opportunities” discussion session in Myagdi district, we had local political representatives, local govt representatives, teachers, journalists and members of civil society participating in the discussion.

After the session, a schoolteacher pulled me aside and asked me a very simple question:

“What is the full form of LGBTIQA++? And how many more identities are included in that ‘++’?”

He was not mocking anyone. He was genuinely trying to understand.

He told me that he had already tried searching Google and even asking ChatGPT to understand the terminology, but he was still struggling to make sense of the constantly expanding list of acronyms and identities.

Then he explained another problem that concerned him even more.

He teaches Class 7 students.

“How am I supposed to teach these subjects to 12- or 13-year-old students when I don’t understand all the terminology myself?” he asked.

He said some of the terms were extremely confusing, while others did not seem relevant to children at that age. He wanted to know whether all these 20-plus identities actually represented distinct groups of people, whether there are people living with all these different identities, what a teacher is supposed to teach, and—most importantly—how can teachers teach something clearly when they themselves have not been given a clear explanation?

That is not an unreasonable question.

In fact, it is precisely the kind of question that international organisations should be willing to hear.

The teacher was not saying that children should be taught to discriminate against anyone. He was asking for clarity, age-appropriate education and practical guidance.

And his question made me ask a much larger question:

Are we making our societies more inclusive—or are we sometimes making the conversation so complicated that ordinary people, teachers and policymakers can no longer understand what we are trying to explain?

Every year—and sometimes it feels like every few months—we are presented with another identity: pansexual, agender, asexual, abrosexual, questioning, queer and many others.

Some people genuinely use these words to describe their experiences. Their dignity should not depend on whether everyone else understands every term.

But that does not mean every term must automatically become a separate public-policy category, an educational topic for every age group, or a development priority.

A. Children need clear education, not an encyclopaedia of acronyms

There is a fundamental difference between respecting human diversity and expecting a 12-year-old to memorise an ever-expanding vocabulary of adult identity terminology.

A Class 7 teacher should be able to explain, in language appropriate to the students’ age, that people can have different sex characteristics, gender expressions, gender identities and sexual orientations—and that nobody should be bullied or discriminated against because of these differences.

That does not require turning a classroom into an international LGBTQI+ terminology seminar.

Before adding more and more terminology to school curricula, we should ask:

What does the child actually need to know at this age?

What will help them stop bullying a classmate?

What will help them understand bodily differences?

What will help them respect someone who behaves differently from gender stereotypes?

What will help an adolescent understand that nobody should be forced into a relationship or marriage?

What information is appropriate to their developmental stage?

These are legitimate educational questions.

And teachers deserve clear answers.

But are all these identities “real”?

The teacher also asked a question that many people are afraid to ask publicly:

“Are these 20-plus identities actually real? Are there really different people living with all these different identities?”

A vocabulary can expand much faster than the underlying social realities it is trying to describe.

That is precisely why policymakers and teachers need clarity rather than simply longer acronyms.

B. We are still trying to explain the people facing the most obvious discrimination

In Nepal, we are still trying to explain to families, teachers, politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and policymakers what an intersex person is.

We are still trying to explain the reality of third-gender people—people born male who develop or live with feminine gender characteristics, and people born female who develop or live with masculine gender characteristics—who can face bullying at school, family rejection, social exclusion, violence and economic marginalisation.

We are still trying to explain that male and female homosexuals are human beings whose relationships can be genuine and meaningful, yet many continue to face social hostility, discrimination and pressure to enter heterosexual marriages against their wishes.

These are not theoretical debates.

These are people’s lives.

An intersex child may face decisions about their body before they can even speak for themselves.

A third-gender child may be bullied at school because their appearance or behaviour does not conform to expectations.

A homosexual son or daughter may be told by their family that they must marry someone of the opposite sex regardless of their wishes.

These are concrete social and legal problems.

So why are we constantly being told that our communities need to catch up with another expanding list of identities?

C. Not every identity needs to become a policy category

Take asexuality.

An asexual person deserves the same dignity as everyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong, pathological or shameful about being asexual.

But cultural context matters.

In parts of South Asia and in several religious and philosophical traditions, people who voluntarily renounce sexual relationships—celibates, ascetics, monks, nuns and others—have historically been highly respected, sometimes revered. In some traditions, people who naturally live without sexual relationships may also be viewed without the same stigma that some contemporary Western frameworks assume.

So when an international expert arrives and tells us that asexuality must necessarily be understood through exactly the same policy framework as every other sexual-minority category, we have every right to ask:

Where is the evidence in our society? What problem are we actually trying to solve?

This does not mean an asexual person can never experience discrimination. They may experience family pressure, misunderstanding or unwanted expectations about marriage and sex.

But the social experience of an asexual person in one culture cannot simply be assumed from a framework developed in another.

Context matters.

The same principle applies to other emerging labels.

A person may find the term pansexual meaningful. Another may identify as agender. Someone else may describe their sexuality as abrosexual. That is their personal choice.

But when a policymaker, teacher or civil servant in Nepal is still struggling to understand intersex people, third-gender people and homosexuality, adding another twenty English identity categories does not necessarily make public policy more progressive.

Sometimes it simply makes the conversation more confusing.

D. Stop treating English vocabulary as evidence of superior knowledge

This is where I have a serious concern about the international LGBTQI+ development industry.

Western organisations and experts sometimes arrive in the Global South with a constantly expanding English vocabulary and implicitly present it as evidence that they understand human diversity better than indigenous or Eastern societies.

That attitude needs to stop.

Nepal did not discover gender diversity because Western organisations arrived with an acronym.

Nepal has its own histories, communities, social categories and cultural understandings of gender and sexuality.

Our recognition of third-gender people did not originate from a Western conference.

Our communities existed before international NGOs began documenting them.

Our understanding of human nature may not always fit neatly into contemporary Western identity frameworks—and that does not automatically make our understanding backward.

The Global South should not be treated as an empty classroom waiting for the West to teach us how to understand our own people.

International expertise can be useful. International solidarity can be valuable. Research from other societies can certainly help us.

But expertise should be based on listening and evidence, not on assuming that the newest terminology is automatically the most advanced understanding of humanity.

E. Policy must follow real discrimination

Public policy has to answer practical questions.

Who is being denied citizenship?

Who is being bullied at school?

Who is being expelled from their family?

Who is being forced into marriage?

Who is facing violence?

Who is being denied employment?

Who cannot access healthcare?

Who is being humiliated by government officials?

Who is excluded from political participation?

And which legal protection would actually make that person’s life safer?

Those questions should determine our priorities.

Not the number of new acronyms appearing at international conferences.

Personal identity and public-policy classification are not necessarily the same thing.

A person can use whatever word best describes their personal experience. But governments cannot—and should not—create an unlimited number of administrative categories simply because new terminology emerges.

Nepal has already taken an important step by recognising a third-gender/“Other” category in its legal framework. That experience demonstrates that societies can develop categories based on their own history and social realities.

We should continue that conversation ourselves.

F. To international organisations: listen before you label

My message to Western LGBTQIA++ organisations, consultants, donors and experts is therefore straightforward:

Stop bombarding the Global South with fashionable identities and presenting them as a universal hierarchy of progress.

Come and listen before you teach.

Understand our communities before redesigning our vocabulary.

Study our histories before telling us that your terminology is more sophisticated than our traditions.

And please do not allow an ever-expanding list of identities to overshadow people who are already facing serious and measurable discrimination.

We have intersex children who need protection.

We have third-gender people facing bullying, exclusion and violence.

We have homosexual men and women being pressured into heterosexual marriages.

We have families that still do not understand why their children cannot simply be forced to conform.

We have teachers asking basic questions because they genuinely want to understand.

And we have teachers who are asking a very reasonable question:

“If I don’t understand all these terms, how am I supposed to explain them responsibly to my students?”

We should take that question seriously.

The answer cannot simply be: “Learn another 20 acronyms.”

The answer should be: give teachers clear, evidence-based, culturally appropriate and age-appropriate guidance.

G. Let people be people before making them categories

This is not an argument against human diversity.

It is an argument for context, evidence, clarity and priorities.

Let people describe themselves however they wish.

But let public policy respond to actual discrimination and actual social conditions.

Let schools teach children what they need to understand at an appropriate age.

Let teachers teach respect before terminology.

Let policymakers understand the communities that already face documented discrimination before asking them to adopt another expanding vocabulary.

And let the Global South participate in defining these conversations rather than simply importing terminology developed elsewhere.

The purpose of the movement should not be to create the longest possible list of identities.

The purpose should be to make sure that no human being is discriminated against because of their sex, gender characteristics, gender identity or sexual orientation.

We have enough real problems to solve.

Let’s solve those first.