Kathmandu (Pahichan) May 31 – THE fear of being banished by family and friends is forcing Nepal\u2019s growing LGBT community to seek solace in online communication, mainly through Facebook and dating apps using \u2018secret\u2019 names.<\/p>\n
Speaking from his office in Kathmandu, Parsu Ram Rai, deputy director of Nepal\u2019s largest LGBT organisation Blue Diamond Society, said coming out of the closet is a huge challenge in a country where being gay or lesbian is not widely accepted as \u201cnormal\u201d.<\/p>\n
And even though Nepal\u2019s LGBT community has constitutional rights, many are still hiding their sexuality and gender differences out of fear of being scolded by the general public.\u00a0\u201cSometimes they use abusive words, or derogatory words [towards LGBT people],\u201d Parsu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe constitution has issued a kind of wording [for the LGBT community], but it doesn\u2019t make a positive trend. It\u2019s only in the law and policies, and that hasn\u2019t been implemented at a [societal] level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parsu said in Nepal, family conflict towards LGBT family members is a common result from coming out to relatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s conflicts from the families, their properties are labelled as forbidden, they are asked to leave home, they are forced to clean the streets, and all this leads to internal conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven lesbians are forced to get married.\u201d\u00a0And for some LGBT youth, drastic measures are taken as an attempt to \u2018cure\u2019 them.<\/p>\n
Medications and counseling are used by parents in an attempt to rid their children of their sexual and gender differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the treatment they say you need to take this medicine and maybe you\u2019ll get cured, or they go for counseling,\u201d Parsu said.\u00a0\u201cOne transgender lady was kidnapped and was taken to a rehab centre for many days.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the LGBT community, while under the disguise of secret names, are starting to use social media to interact and meet within their fellow community.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people have started using Facebook under different names,\u201d Parsu said.\u00a0\u201cIf I know a guy on Facebook is gay, I will chat with that guy and then that\u2019s how we meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smartphone apps such as Grindr and Planet Romeo are also used as a way to interact within the LGBT community.<\/p>\n
Christopher Kelly is a Western Sydney University student studying journalism. Currently he is in Nepal as part of the government\u2019s Colombo Plan to gain experience in journalism.<\/em><\/p>\n Copy :\u00a0http:\/\/www.starobserver.com.au\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu (Pahichan) May 31 – THE fear of being banished by family and friends is forcing Nepal\u2019s growing LGBT community to seek solace in online communication, mainly through Facebook and dating apps using \u2018secret\u2019 names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":5147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,621,490],"tags":[203,524,458],"class_list":["post-5146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-news","category-slider","tag-blue-diamond-society","tag-lgbt","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146","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=5146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5148,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions\/5148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}