{"id":3598,"date":"2015-05-23T07:44:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T01:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=3598"},"modified":"2015-05-26T14:17:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T08:32:13","slug":"the-challenges-faced-by-lgbti-maaembers-following-the-earthquake-in-nepal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/the-challenges-faced-by-lgbti-maaembers-following-the-earthquake-in-nepal\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u00a0challenges faced by LGBTI members following the earthquake in Nepal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (pahichan) May 23 –\u00a0Seven years ago, Reshma Tamang left his home in Gorkha district as a young man, to come to the capital Kathmandu.\"Resma\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now with his home crushed by the quake, he yearns to return but cannot because he is a transgender woman.\u00a0Tamang\u2019s parents are unaware of their only son\u2019s transformation, and want Tamang (name changed) to return. Nepali cultural norms call for family members to be home during times of emergency.<\/p>\n

The Gorkha district, at the epicenter of the quake, was one of the hardest hit. Tamang\u2019s family escaped death but still live in fear as tremors keep rumbling across the district. If death should come to pass, Tamang \u2013 the only male heir of the house \u2013 would need to be home to partake in rituals and pay respects to the dead.<\/p>\n

But returning home now would require transforming back into a man, Tamang says. It would mean lopping off her copper brown hair that falls well below her shoulders, losing the gold nose ring, red lipstick, and changing the way she has carried herself for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I would go back to my village now I would face physical and verbal abuse, because of my altered gender identity,\u201d says Tamang, who is wearing a navy-blue dress that clings to her body. \u201cEven if my family accepts me they will be ashamed to face relatives and other townspeople,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

While the quake devastated communities across the country it has had an especially profound impact on marginalized communities such as the LGBTI.\u00a0 The UN Development Programme and partners have been working to ensure equal rights for LGBTI. Those programs have had some impact, but finding acceptance in Nepal\u2019s relatively conservative society is still a challenge, and in the aftermath of the quake those challenges have been accentuated.<\/p>\n

While the family back in Gorkha have each other for support, Tamang lives alone. For the past two years, she has taken to the streets as a sex-worker, struggling to make a living and to send money home. In the days since the quake there has been little action on the streets, she says, so she has made no money. Her partner too has been absent, dealing with family issues of his own.\"Manisha\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The isolation faced by members of the LGBTI community makes it harder to track the injured and the dead, says Manisha Dhakal, a transgender woman and executive director of the Blue Diamond Society, an organization that works with LGBTI.<\/p>\n

At the hospital morgue, where bodies lie black and bloated from decay it is hard to identify friends, she says. Sometimes the only way to identify a transgender person is to ask to examine the genital area, an embarrassing proposition, she adds.<\/p>\n

As people fled their homes to seek shelter in open spaces, it was harder for some members of the LGBTI community to fit in, says Dhakal.<\/p>\n

Gauri a lesbian \u2013 who does not want to reveal her last name \u2013 says the quake forced her to leave her partner for a couple of days. She was living in her partner\u2019s house but fearing it would collapse from the tremors, they camped in the garden with neighbors.<\/p>\n

When her partner\u2019s parents \u2013 who live in Canada \u2013 found out that the two of them were sharing a tent, they were upset that people would notice and cause them shame.<\/p>\n

Compounding the lesbian issue, was the fact that Gauri is of a lower caste and her partner is a Brahmin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer parents were adamant that we not live together in the open,\u201d says Gauri. So she moved back to her village for a couple of days, returning only when her partner moved back into the house. Her partner\u2019s parents, who had earlier accepted the relationship and would talk to her before the quake, now no longer speak with her.<\/p>\n

Dhakal says the disaster has at times left members of the community open to discrimination. Openly gay and transgender individuals have had a hard time finding space in communal tents.<\/p>\n

For transgender individuals, answering the call of nature in the open was a problem, says Dhakal. With genitalia that do not conform to gender expectations, the quake inconvenienced many of them, in many ways.<\/p>\n

However, she adds:\u00a0 \u201cWorking with UNDP\u2019s HIV and Human Rights programme has helped us develop a relationship with the Ministry of Health, which has been beneficial during this tough time.\u201d The programme is supported by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.<\/p>\n

The partnership developed with the government came in handy when access to tents became a problem. Dhakal says she wrote to the Ministry of Health asking for support. The ministry in turn asked Save the Children to provide the tents, which were quickly delivered, along with medicines and water purifiers.<\/p>\n

Now, Dhakal says, she wants UNDP\u2019s programme to expand to help train LGBTI to be prepared for disasters.<\/p>\n

Nearly two weeks after the quake, Tamang still feels the draw of home. But for now she believes she can\u2019t go back.<\/p>\n

She has yet to summon the courage to tell her family, even so, she aches for their acceptance. She wants to have the body of a female, and she wants a committed partner and a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dream of having a family,\u201d she says. \u201cSomeday, I want to be someone\u2019s daughter-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0http:\/\/www.np.undp.org\/content\/nepal\/en\/home\/presscenter\/articles\/2015\/05\/07\/the-challenges-faced-by-lgbti-members-following-the-earthquake-in-nepal-\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (pahichan) May 23 –\u00a0Seven years ago, Reshma Tamang left his home in Gorkha district as a young man, to come to the capital Kathmandu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":3601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,490,3],"tags":[203,631,445,502,458,525],"class_list":["post-3598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-slider","category-society","tag-blue-diamond-society","tag-earthquake-in-nepal","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbti","tag-transgender","tag-undp"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3598"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3605,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions\/3605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}