Every society has beauty standards, social norms, and ideas about identity. The question is not whether standards exist. The question is: whose standards become global standards?<\/p>\n
Around the world, billions of people are influenced by ideas about what is beautiful, modern, professional, civilized, and even liberated. These ideas often appear universal, natural, and self-evident. Yet many of them originated in specific places, cultures, and historical contexts before being spread across the globe through colonialism, economic power, media influence, development aid, and cultural prestige.<\/p>\n
In parts of Asia, cosmetic surgery clinics advertise sharper and longer noses because many people have come to believe that a short or round nose is less attractive. In South Korea, procedures that create a more pronounced eyelid crease or make the eyes appear larger have become commonplace. In India, countless women and men spend significant portions of their income on skin-lightening products because they have been taught that lighter skin is more beautiful, more successful, and more desirable. Across Africa and among people of African descent worldwide, many spend considerable time and money straightening naturally curly hair because global beauty industries have long promoted straighter hair as the ideal.<\/p>\n
The pattern is striking. Entire industries profit from convincing people that features naturally common within their own communities are somehow inadequate. Over time, these standards become so normalized that they cease to be viewed as cultural preferences and instead become accepted as objective truths.<\/p>\n
The same phenomenon can be seen in clothing. The three-piece suit and tie, once the attire of European businessmen and politicians, has become the global uniform of professionalism. A person wearing a Western suit is often assumed to be educated, competent, and modern. Traditional clothing, regardless of its sophistication or cultural significance, is frequently treated as less professional or less serious.<\/p>\n
Who decided this?<\/p>\n
Who decided that a European style of dress should become the global symbol of intelligence and authority?<\/p>\n
Who decided that certain facial features should be considered more attractive than others?<\/p>\n
Who decided that lighter skin should be valued over darker skin?<\/p>\n
These standards did not emerge equally from all cultures. They spread because some societies acquired the power to define what the rest of the world should aspire to become.<\/p>\n
Today, a similar question must be asked within international LGBTQI+ politics.<\/p>\n
Every June, organizations across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific are encouraged\u2014and sometimes expected\u2014to celebrate “Global Pride Month.” June is widely recognized because it commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, a landmark event in the history of Gender and Sexual Minority (GSM\/LGBTQ) activism in the United States.<\/p>\n
Stonewall deserves recognition. It was an important moment of resistance and liberation.<\/p>\n
But was it the beginning of GSM\/LGBTQ history for the entire world?<\/p>\n
Certainly not.<\/p>\n
Nepal’s history did not begin at Stonewall. South Asia’s gender-diverse traditions did not emerge from New York. Indigenous cultures across Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas had their own understandings of gender, sexuality, kinship, and community long before the modern Western GSM\/LGBTQ movement was born.<\/p>\n
Many societies recognized identities beyond the male-female binary. Some had spiritual roles for gender-diverse people. Others had social categories that cannot be neatly translated into contemporary Western terminology. These traditions were often weakened not by indigenous cultures themselves but by colonial laws, Victorian morality, missionary activity, and imported social norms.<\/p>\n
Yet today, many international institutions operate as though a single historical narrative represents the universal story of GSM\/LGBTQ liberation.<\/p>\n
Consider a recent email sent by an international development organization to several partner NGOs in Nepal. (The US emvassy has stopped since Trumps reelection but many Western Embassy in Nepal still call for proposal to fund lgbtiq pride events in june). The message requested that organizations conduct activities during June because it is “globally recognized as Pride Month” and report on their participation. The intention was undoubtedly positive: to demonstrate solidarity, visibility, and support for GSM\/LGBTQ communities.<\/p>\n
But the request raises important questions.<\/p>\n
Who decided that June should be the month through which all cultures express sexual and gender diversity?<\/p>\n
Why is a historical event in New York treated as a universal reference point for communities whose histories, cultures, and struggles developed independently?<\/p>\n
Why do international donors frequently fund campaigns tied to globally recognized observances while paying far less attention to local histories, indigenous traditions, and culturally specific forms of expression?<\/p>\n
The issue is not Pride itself.<\/p>\n
People should be free to celebrate Pride Month if they wish.<\/p>\n
The issue is the assumption that one model of activism, one historical narrative, and one cultural framework should automatically become the global standard.<\/p>\n
The same question can be asked about contemporary discussions of gender.<\/p>\n
Many people around the world are increasingly encouraged to understand themselves through frameworks developed primarily in North America and Western Europe. These frameworks have helped many individuals find language, community, and recognition. They have also contributed significantly to advances in human rights.<\/p>\n
Yet they are not the only frameworks that exist.<\/p>\n
For centuries, many societies recognized forms of gender diversity that did not fit neatly into the categories of man or woman. Nepal’s recognition of a third gender is one example. Similar traditions exist across many cultures.<\/p>\n
Today, however, public discourse often gives greater visibility to narratives that move individuals from one side of a binary system to the other than to traditions that challenge the binary itself. Medical transition can be life-changing for many people, and every individual deserves the freedom to make decisions about their own body and identity. But societies should also preserve space for non-binary, third-gender, and culturally specific understandings of gender that do not fit neatly within imported frameworks.<\/p>\n
The broader issue is not about individual choices.<\/p>\n
People should be free to alter their appearance, choose their clothing, celebrate Pride Month, transition medically, identify as non-binary, or live according to their own values.<\/p>\n
The deeper question is about power.<\/p>\n
Why do some ideas travel globally while others remain marginalized?<\/p>\n
Why are certain histories taught internationally while others are forgotten?<\/p>\n
Why are some cultural frameworks presented as universal while others are treated as local curiosities?<\/p>\n
Who has the power to define what is modern?<\/p>\n
Who has the power to define what is beautiful?<\/p>\n
Who has the power to define what is professional?<\/p>\n
Who has the power to define what liberation looks like?<\/p>\n
The answers matter because standards shape aspirations. They influence how people see themselves, how governments make policy, how donors allocate resources, and how communities understand progress.<\/p>\n
A truly inclusive world should not seek to replace one form of exclusion with another. Nor should it assume that liberation has a single birthplace, a single language, or a single roadmap.<\/p>\n
Global solidarity is valuable. International cooperation is essential. Human rights are universal.<\/p>\n
But universality should not mean uniformity.<\/p>\n
The future should not belong to a world in which a handful of powerful societies define the standards that everyone else is expected to follow. It should belong to a world where cultures engage as equals, where local histories are valued alongside global movements, and where multiple pathways to dignity, freedom, and inclusion are respected.<\/p>\n
The question is not whether we should have global conversations.<\/p>\n
The question is whether those conversations will be genuinely global\u2014or whether they will continue to be shaped by standards set elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Before we accept any idea as a “world standard,” we should first ask a simple question:<\/p>\n
Whose world are we talking about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every society has beauty standards, social norms, and ideas about identity. The question is not whether standards exist. The question is: whose standards become global standards?
\nAround the world, billions of people are influenced by ideas about what is beautiful, modern, professional, civilized, and even liberated. These ideas often appear universal, natural, and self-evident. Yet many of them originated in specific places, cultures, and historical contexts before being spread across the globe through colonialism, economic power, media influence, development aid, and cultural prestige.
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