Pride Climbing Higher

Transcription

Pride
Climbing
Higher
Stories by lgbt people from nepal
Pride Climbing Higher is an anthology by
Creative Nepal
Photo Project
Expressions
of Sexuality and Gender Story Project
www.creative-nepal.com
Writing Instructor / Editor
Chad Frisbie
Assistant Editors
Danny Coyle
Ola Perczynska
Danielle Preiss
Nepali Text Translator
Gita Manandhar
Writing Session Translators
Shiva Bhatta*
Sadhana K.C.*
Spring 2014
Cover Photo by Simran Sherchan
*Names altered to protect privacy
Creative NepalCreative Nepal
Expressions of SexualityPhoto
andProject
Gender Expressions
Story Projectof Sexuality and Gender
A renowned musician in Nepal who identifies as a transgender woman,
at Kathmandu’s Gai Jatra Pride Parade.
Photo by Ola Perczynska
Contents
9
Saurav Jung Thapa
Nepal Overview
15
Danny Coyle
introduction
21
Chad Frisbie
acknowledgments
31
Pressure from
Everywhere
37
Sita Phuyal
The Fortunate
Accident
45
Roshan Mahato
Power from the inside
53
Simran Sherchan
A Different Kind
of Battlefield
61
Bhakti Shah
How to Be Bold
69
Sadhana K.C.
An Identity
I Couldn’t Hide
77
Yubraj Chaudhary
Nepal’s First
Transgender Model
83
Anjali Lama
The One Single Thing
That Changed My Life
93
Ankit Sharma
A New Minority
107
Vishnu Adhikari
My Way Out
119
Bharat Shrestha
The light
of knowledge
131
Jyoti Thapa
Different Decisions
141
Shiva Bhatta
Postscript
151
Foreword
Pride
Climbing
Higher
The saying about Nepal goes that it is a ‘garden of four castes and thirty six
sub-castes.’ In the garden, there are so many different flowers, and we as third
genders1 are also one of those flowers…” - Simran Sherchan, Nepal Photo Project
1 Third Gender is a term used in Nepal that describes people who identify neither as men nor
women.
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Foreword
Saurav Jung Thapa
Officer for LGBT and Human Rights
United Nations Development Programme
Reading the twelve stories compiled in this book was an eye opener. I was touched, shocked, and inspired by the range of experiences presented. More than anything else, I was optimistic.
These stories cover the full gamut of the most visible sexual and
gender minority identities in Nepal—transgender women, lesbians, transgender men, and gay men. As a self-identified and
proud gay Nepali man who has worked on LGBT rights in Nepal, I was humbled and honored to learn that the paths of many
of my friends and former colleagues have been full of seemingly
insurmountable challenges which they managed to overcome with
incredible courage and perseverance. For this I salute them.
The lesbian teenager who attempted suicide when her family did
not let her be with her lover, the gay youth who were harassed
for not participating in group sports (an experience I personally
identify with!), the transgender man who was forced to leave his
home and family because he refused to adhere to gender norms,
and the transgender women who resorted to sex work to make
ends meet—these stories moved me deeply and brought me close
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to tears at times. Despite the suffering imposed by rigid social
norms, ingrained stereotypes, a deeply patriarchal society, and
ironclad expectations of marriage to someone of the opposite sex,
these narratives express a desire to make life better for others in
the same predicaments; these writers are exemplary and humbling.
The gay man who excelled at a school in a remote village then
went on to obtain a graduate degree with a full scholarship in
the UK and now works for the United Nations, the transgender
woman who is obtaining her graduate degree despite slurs and
abuse, the gay man who came to Kathmandu without shoes from a
village that did not have electricity and is now a prominent leader
of the LGBT movement, the lesbian who was expelled from the
army but went on to make a career as a well-known activist: these
are no ordinary stories of courage and heroism. They make me
proud to be a Nepali! I have no doubt that many others will feel
the same way.
The stories of my fellow Nepali compatriots make me inherently
optimistic about the direction that the lesbian, gay, and transgender movement is taking in my country. Compared those who
shared their stories here, I did not face the same degree of social, economic, and survival challenges. Having been born to a
privileged family in Kathmandu, I attended prestigious boarding
schools and was aware of my gay identity since the age of 11 because of my voracious reading in which I had come across plenty
of gay narratives. Nevertheless, given the fact that I was attending all boys’ schools where the focus was on high achievement in
academics, sports, and extracurricular activities, I had little time
to think about my sexuality. After excelling in my high school
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exams and the SATs, I went off to the United States at the age of
18 on a full scholarship at a private liberal arts college. I returned
home in 2012 after eight years of schooling and work to take up
a position as a senior advisor at Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s
leading LGBT rights organization which had become renowned
around Asia and the world for its pioneering work for the rights
and health of sexual and gender minorities. It was then only that I
met fellow Nepalis who had overcome obstacles of every kind and
many horrors to become leading activists.
Despite the sense of optimism and commitment that comes
through in these stories, many huge challenges remain before
Nepali LGBT people can be truly equal citizens. The threat of
HIV remains ever present, especially for gay men and transgender
women who are at massively higher risk than their straight counterparts. HIV interventions have been ongoing and have formed
the backbone of funding for organizations such as Blue Diamond
Society and the Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities Nepal. This is excellent, but it has also had the consequence of often overlooking subgroups such as lesbians and transgender men.
These subgroups are not at high risk of HIV, so the current programming in Nepal generally does not address their unique needs.
More needs to be done to introduce additional programming on
human rights, mental health, and sexual and reproductive health.
A focus on the needs of lesbians, transgender men, and bisexual
women (LBT) is also crucial given that Nepal is a deeply patriarchal society where women face extreme difficulties in being visible
or “out.” Organizations working on LBT rights such as Mitini
Nepal should be encouraged and supported.
12
Many LGBT people are forced to marry opposite sex partners
against their will given the overwhelming social expectation of
marriage. This point has been demonstrated by the stories of Yubraj, Simran, and Shiva. The family in Nepal, like in many other
Asian countries, stands at the center of society and of individual
aspirations. Unless more is done to communicate that LGBT
people are our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and relatives,
there is only so much that reforming laws and policies can achieve.
Nepal’s record of achieving LGBT rights looks great on paper.
But as a Nepali I know how difficult it is to be fully accepted—not
merely tolerated—as a gay person in my country. Despite coming
from a privileged, worldly, and highly educated stratum of society,
the level of ignorance and the rigid stereotypes that I have come
across are breathtaking. Most Nepalis assume that being gay implies cross-dressing and adopting feminine mannerisms or that it
is the same as being a transgender person. It is a shock to most
people, even highly educated and self-proclaimed cosmopolitan
ones, to learn that many gay men can be quite heteronormative
and “normal” in their behavior, dress, speaking, and interests. Gay
men, transgender men, transgender women, lesbians, and bisexual
people encounter variously damaging misconceptions across the
board. Convincing our family and friends to become allies and
supporters of our right to full equality is a challenge, but a challenge that I believe will be met well by the new generation of
activists whose stories are presented here and by others like them.
It will be wonderful to see the day when Nepalis can marry lovers
of any sex, when gay boys are not made fun of simply because they
may prefer reading or cooking to rough and tumble sports, when
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lesbians are not forced to marry a man against their will as soon as
their sexual orientation is discovered, when transgender men and
women can choose the identity they wish on their government
documents and walk into a restaurant without people sniggering.
I hope this anthology will be a step in the right direction in bringing about the needed change of perspective in Nepal, South Asia,
and the world so that LGBT people may live lives of honesty that
are free of hatred and prejudice. As UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon has noted, widespread abuse, violence and discrimination against LGBT persons around the world is a “monumental
tragedy—a stain on our collective conscience” requiring renewed
efforts to ensure that the human rights of all persons are protected.
Saurav Jung Thapa is a Technical Officer for LGBT and Human Rights
at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Asia-Pacific regional office in Bangkok. He works on a joint UNDP-USAID
initiative called ‘Being LGBT in Asia’ which is being implemented in
eight countries in South, Southeast, and East Asia to gather and analyze information about how LGBT people and LGBT organizations
are faring in the region.
14
“When you’re lonely you become unhealthy. But if you’re with friends, even
the unhealthy becomes healthy.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
15
Nepal OVerview
Danny Coyle
Nepal is a small Himalayan country historically described by its
first king as a “yam between two boulders,” India and China. However, despite its relatively small population of 26.5 million, Nepal
is staggeringly diverse with many different ethnic groups, religions
and languages. The world’s largest mountains have helped make
Nepal a complex mosaic of different cultures with influences from
both India and Tibet along with its own unique history and characteristics. Any generalization about Nepal, therefore, will inevitably fall far short of its realities. Nepal has unfortunately been the
target of endless orientalist portrayals over the years: a peaceful
shangrila, a “pure” un-colonized Hindu Kingdom, failed state, an
underdeveloped and impoverished country, a geopolitical strategic
buffer, and so on.
Yet, what can be said is that Nepal is currently undergoing rapid
changes in respect to its society, politics and cultures. The past decade has seen the end of the world’s last Hindu Kingdom, the
establishment of a federal democratic republic and the cessation
of a ten year long civil war. The Comprehensive Peace Accords in
2006 ended the civil war by abolishing the monarchy and bringing
16
the Maoist insurgents into the government. In the aftermath of
the violence, people were optimistic of the promise of a “New Nepal,” democratic, developed and inclusive—one that would finally
begin to address the historical grievances of the war, social inequity, and marginalization. Internally, many spaces have opened for
marginalized ethnic groups, low caste groups, women, sexual and
gender minorities, and others whose rights, issues, and concerns
were “invisible” under the monarchy. However, almost eight years
later, four years past the original deadline, the new constitution
has yet to be ratified. Economic hardship is still a pervasive experience for many Nepalis. Many people, youth in particular, are tired
of the difficult economic and political reality they endure.
Alongside this, a quarter of Nepal’s economy now relies on millions of Nepalis who work, study and live abroad in order to send
home remittances for new levels of consumption. The migration
of people and capital through the remittance economy and tourism has brought with it new media, fueling new ideas and discussions about lifestyles, relationships and desires. Many of these
discussions have at their center issues that involve gender roles
and sexuality: some women want careers, other people don’t want
to be married at a young age, while others want to choose their
spouses for themselves. None of these desires are uniform across
the country and it would be a failure to assume that traditional
Nepali values are gradually being replaced by modernity and its
associated values; rather, many new ideas and desires are being created, adapted, and incorporated into people’s lives and identities in
complex and uneven ways that often reflect the many dimensions
of Nepal’s diversity: social class, caste, gender, sexuality, religion,
and ethnicity to name but a few.
17
Within this context, Nepal’s sexual and gender minorities face a
highly ambiguous social and political climate. Nepal in many ways
evinces a progressive legal environment for sexual and gender minorities, having made several positive reforms and decisions that
uphold their rights to social and political equality. Important to
sexual and gender activism has been the work of Blue Diamond
Society, an organization that works with sexual and gender minorities that was initially registered to protect and promote men’s
and transgender women’s sexual health. With over 750 employees and 50 field offices, Blue Diamond Society has also become
an important network for sexual and gender minority activists in
Nepal—providing counseling and legal services as well as pushing
for nation-wide reform in policy and legislation. In 2007, Nepal’s
Supreme Court ruled in favor of non-discrimination of “LGBT”
peoples1 in a case jointly supported by Blue Diamond Society, Mitini Nepal,2 and Cruiseaids3 and Parichaya Samaj Nepal.4 Since
the decision, there has been substantial progress regarding rights
for sexual and gender minorities at the national level and regional
levels: the decision was followed by the election of the first openly
gay parliamentarian in Asia, Sunil Babu Pant, a revised national
curriculum that includes sexual and gender minority issues, the
establishment of a same-sex marriage policy committee, and the
inclusion of third gender identified citizens on the census, passport and citizenship documents.
1 The Supreme Court Decision refers and upholds the rights of LGBT people though this terminology is not commonly understood by wider society and many people do not identify within the
framework, in part because there are other terms and identities that refer to same-sex sexualities and
gender variant identities.
2 An organization working with lesbians, bisexual women, and transgender men.
3 An organization that works with HIV prevention, counselling and testing for men who have sex
with men (MSM), transgender sex workers (TSWs) and male sex workers (MSWs).
4 An organization that works with HIV prevention.
18
Yet, despite the legal progress, social attitudes and bureaucracy
have been much slower to change and many reforms have yet to be
implemented. There have still been periods of arbitrary arrests of
sexual and gender minorities. Many who were legally provided the
right to identify as third gender on their citizenship cards have yet
to be allowed to do so in practice. Perhaps most importantly, the
majority of sexual and gender minorities are afraid that their relationships, desires, and gender identities will be discovered by their
families, friends, and wider social groups. Many fear discrimination and stigma for having same-sex relationships or gender variant identities; some might be cut off from the only support they
may have in their lives—their families and communities. Others
face ridicule, discrimination and harassment. This is not to say that
social attitudes have not changed in recent years or were historically never in any way in favor of sexual and gender minorities’
equality. Indeed, the recent years have seen a growth in awareness and acceptance of different forms of lifestyles, relationships,
sexualities, and gender identities—a shift that holds promise for
the prospects of sexual and gender minorities’ social equality. Yet,
larger and more substantial discussions over sexual and gender difference need to take place and the current issue is often overshadowed by the many other pressing concerns and challenges people,
including sexual and gender minorities, face on a day to day basis.
Part of the difficulty surrounds the fact that many matters regarding gender roles and sexuality are not discussed openly—something that this anthology will hopefully help promote.
19
Danny Coyle graduated from Michigan State University with a BA
in International Relations in 2008 and shortly thereafter first went to
Nepal on a Fulbright Grant to research the politics of cultural heritage
conservation. Since then, he has worked on several research projects related to community security and gender. In 2013, Danny began working on a research project exploring the legal context of sexual and gender
minorities in Nepal. He currently lives in Nepal and is planning to
enroll in a PhD program to continue his research and work.
20
“Every photo has its own story.”
Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
21
Introduction
Chad Frisbie
I’m smooshed between women wearing kurtas and saris in a van,
the interior covered with decals of Hindu gods and emblems: Ganesh, Lakshmi, flowers, tridents, om. The van jostles through traffic
on the smoggy roads of Kathmandu. If people face me, they stare
right into my eyes. It’s public transportation, and I am a stray white
dude outside the enclosed tourist district, the glitzy playground
for trekkers. Years ago I came here for five months studying Nepali
culture and development. I think I know this city—its Hindu and
Buddhist overtones, its diverse populations from different regions
of Nepal, its mix of mayhem and serenity. Since there are no exact
addresses, I’m going to a specified chowk (pronounced “choke”),
an intersection, to meet a stranger. As the van swerves around
cows lounging in the middle of the road and cuts through seas
of buzzing motorcycles, I converse with my fellow passengers in
half-functioning Nepali to make sure I don’t mistake my chowk for
the wrong one. People are happy to help. They grin at me and ask
interview-like questions. When it comes I shout over the blaring
Bollywood techno. The driver hits the brake.
At the chowk I look for someone who looks like they’re looking
for someone, but no matter: they’re already waving at me, greeting
22
me. We head for a place private enough to discuss topics that the
sidewalks would probably be scandalized to hear, or maybe pleasantly surprised. We go to the back corner of a grungy tea parlor,
swivel in chairs at the office of an NGO, or hike up steep hills to
a quiet Tibetan monastery during its off-hours—settings that are
not merely matters of taste but critical considerations of privacy.
As we grow more comfortable with each other, this new friend
and I ask more private questions. An urge to communicate seems
to trump any nervousness. We gradually learn about when we each
came out to our families, we laugh about which celebrities we have
crushes on, we discuss the discrimination we’ve each experienced,
and more.
These conversations steadily evolved into writing lessons. In this
fashion, I scrambled around the city to work with lesbian, transgender, gay, and bisexual Nepalis on writing autobiographical stories for this publication. Even though the writers and I came from
enormously different backgrounds, the theme that brought us together resulted in some unexpected openness: a teenage lesbian
brainstormed the details she wanted to use to describe her suicide
attempt; a gay man dug for the most accurate adjectives to evoke
the emotions of coming out to his relatives in Nepal through the
Internet while living in a European country; a transgender man
recounted scene by scene the familial pressures that led him to
leave his home in a remote village for a life in the capital city. I
asked each person to think of a story they felt would be important
for Nepalis and the rest of the world to hear. In these one-on-one
writing lessons, participants read nonfiction stories from various
sources, wrote material based on prompts, and revised their drafts.
This book is the culmination of that summer writing program.
23
I’m the writing instructor and editor for this project, but I am
also one of its readers. As a gay American raised in a suburban
town where relentless homophobia was the norm, I connected
to these stories through a shared sense of oppression, yet I often felt so distanced—me, the Western middle class white boy,
rich by Nepali standards—that I began to question sexuality and
gender as unifying factors. On one hand, I felt my identification
with the global queer community widening and widening. On the
other, I saw glaring schisms in the ways our particular identities
were being defined: I didn’t grow up in an agrarian village where
it’s customary for men in elaborate women’s dresses to perform
at wedding ceremonies; I didn’t come of age as a woman whose
life choices were dictated by a patriarchy much harsher and more
oppressive than that of the USA; I didn’t go to college in a city
where the most visible queer community consisted of older sex
tourists, young Western backpackers, and foreign NGO workers;
I didn’t wake to my real sexuality—a world-shattering experience
for many—in extreme poverty, under a routinely unstable government. Even though I’m gay, none of my growing solidarity could
overpower that disconnect I felt toward my Nepali friends’ identities. This realization reminded me of the author David Levithan’s
notion that “the minute you stop talking about individuals and
start talking about a group, your judgment has a flaw in it.”
That idea touches on a major purpose of this project. The transgender, lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement in the USA and the
West has an inherent bias of voice within the arts. One problem is
the tendency for any queer narrative to present itself as the queer
narrative. Many queers around the world, especially in poor countries or rural areas, have stories projected upon them instead of
24
being empowered to speak and share their own experiences. It’s
not hard to notice that the dominant narratives are centered in a
white, male, Western subjectivity much like my own. Centralizing queerness under such privileged ways of being cuts people off
from reality, encouraging audiences to ignore the ways race, class,
nationality, body, and culture impact people’s own unique experiences of their sexuality and gender. It also diminishes our sense
of the possibilities for an identity group like “LGBT,” especially
considering that many people either simply do not or chose not
to identify as “lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.” Much of the
thinking in America and in this book does occur within the lines
of LGBT identities, yet people’s experiences are often not so cut
and dry—many times being “gay” was something people learned
and not something people were necessarily “born as.” Some of
the writers here talk about how they didn’t think of themselves
as LGBT until they migrated to the city and were told by urban
Nepalis that that’s what they are. As for me, I’m frequently boxed
into stereotypes about how gay men should think and behave, stereotypes enforced by straight and gay people alike. The senselessness in denying individuals the right to their own stories is very
personal to me, and this project aims to do the opposite.
Insisting on that right to storytelling in Nepal may not have been
possible without the Blue Diamond Society,1 which graciously
connected me to its community. BDS’s consolidated network of
outreach workers helped me find people who wanted to write autobiographical stories. Without BDS, Nepal wouldn’t be where it
is today in terms of political advancements nor would people be
so poised to voice their histories. In order to participate, people
1 An NGO advocating for the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Nepal.
25
needed a working knowledge of English, an openness to writing,
and a readiness to reflect on their lives. I strove to recruit an equal
mix of variously identified people first and foremost, whether they
were transgender men, transgender women, lesbians, or gay men.
Many of them migrated to Kathmandu from rural areas of Nepal
with drastically different languages and cultures. Add the fact that
there are so many voices, experiences, and identities even within
a single life, and it becomes impossible to think of these stories
as the Nepali “LGBT” experience. Rather, these stories are autobiographical snapshots from distinct individuals whose narratives
need to be more actively welcomed into the bigger picture.
The arts offer a way to extend our imagination of queer experience. I often heard the participants say that it felt strengthening
to produce their own narratives and hold authority over their life
histories. History feels slippery and ungraspable if you do not
preserve it. As Bharat said in a reflection piece, “This is my own
story, which I’ve not told people yet… It is very personal, and I
enjoyed looking back on my life to witness all the changes I’ve
gone through.” This agency to construe and articulate a personal
narrative was one of many outcomes. I think much of the social
dialogue that needs to occur to obtain full social justice for sexual
and gender minorities will rely on people’s ability to relate their
lives to their larger social settings.
Before I left Nepal, I asked the participants to evaluate me and the
process. A majority said that they had never edited a document
multiple times to deepen its nuances or rethink its organization.
The long stretches of time spent rummaging for the best possible
word, often with frustrating compromises, can seem pointless, but
26
expressing the scope of a personal history at the atomic level of
particular words is a vital skill, in life and in advocacy, and that effort matters to an audience. The lesson on continuing to imagine
an audience at every step of the writing process also struck a chord.
I told participants that people across Nepal, India, the rest of Asia,
Europe, and beyond—a seemingly infinite set of eyes and ears—
could be on the receiving end of their words. With that in mind,
Vishnu asked himself, What details might a transgender person in
the USA need to know about this scene in order to understand me?
Ankit wondered, How might I structure this narrative so that other
dudes in South Asia can more deeply feel the urgency behind protecting
themselves against HIV? Circling back to thoughts about audience
not only reminded participants of the broader significance of their
work but cued them in, as writers and activists, to the responsibilities of communication at stake when you put pen to paper: intention, persuasion, accuracy.
This project was specifically designed for English Language Learners. Some people were already quite proficient English speakers
while others worked with me to develop their competence. A
couple participants had to work with translators or dictated their
stories to me. It might seem awkward that they didn’t first write in
Nepali then have their stories translated into English,2 but English skills are a valuable asset in the 21st century and this aspect of
the project appealed to some of the participants as there is an outspoken demand for English lessons in this community, especially
as people have often been forced out of schools and barred from
college degrees due to their circumstances.
2 The translation process went in reverse: from English to Nepali. Gita Manandhar of the Fulbright
Program in Nepal offered her translation services.
27
I’m awed and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with
these twelve people. I tracked them down in the maze of Kathmandu, sometimes tagging along like a shadow as I waited for
whenever they had a free moment. In this way, I saw the participants going about their daily lives. I am thankful for so many
engaging, joyful, serious, and hilarious conversations with these
people who became my friends. Our meetings were eye-opening
for both parties. I was able to meet with each person for an average of six sessions over two months, yet I found myself wishing for
more time to delve deeper. Here in New York City I teach creative
writing to all types of young people, and I’m used to working with
the same students for an entire school year. I also regret that I was
unable to include more than twelve individuals. Fortunately my
few dissatisfactions point toward a future direction for my work.
This book is the beginning of a longer process of sharing and discovery. Selected stories will be featured for free online through
Creative Nepal, a new collaborative project that runs creative
workshops with sexual and gender minorities. On Creative Nepal’s website (www.creative-nepal.com) you can also find photography and research. Many photographs by Creative Nepal’s Photo
Project participants are featured throughout this book. This book
was funded through a crowd-funding campaign, and I’m grateful to the many family members, friends, colleagues, and strangers
who supported it. I hope they are pleased with the result.
Precisely because these stories are so individuated, they are very
private. I echo Saurav Jung Thapa in celebrating these writers’
bravery for being so open about themselves in front of you, their
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manifold audience. In some parts of the world perceptions of sexual and gender minority people are changing. Still, certain parts
of my own country and many other nations remain unthinkably
hostile places to those who are as open as these writers. While I
have been putting this book together, a new Russian law stokes
violent homophobic action. Uganda and Nigeria’s revised anti-gay
criminal penalties now submit people to life in jail for simply being different from the rest of society. India re-criminalized homosexuality, taking a step backward from a 2009 court decision
that struck down a colonial ban on gay sex. In Nepal, meanwhile,
things remain in limbo. None of the dozens of openly LGBT candidates won their bid for a seat in the Second Nepal Constituent
Assembly—the latest of many attempts at drafting a constitution
in post-civil war Nepal. Anxiety over India’s reinstatement of sodomy laws raises questions over whether Nepal’s progressive legislation will survive after the constitution’s ratification. While I was
darting around Kathmandu to meet with people in private spaces
for this project, I saw that behind Nepal’s image of legal progress
lay socially conflicted and sometimes hostile attitudes towards homosexuality and gender variance. For instance, four participants
chose not to publish their real names with these stories and two
requested that their stories be published only in foreign countries.
This anonymity seems to be rooted in fear of social retribution
should their identities be discovered by their families or larger
communities. Sadhana’s story, How to Be Bold, explores those familial pressures in detail.
Solidarity happens when people empathize with each other’s
situations, realize a common interest, and collaborate in pursuit
of a goal. It happens when people are more than merely aware.
29
What forms of global solidarity are possible for sexual and gender
minorities? Considering the fragmentation across nations, races,
classes, genders, sexualities, ages, physical abilities, and cultures, it’s
a fraught question with no clear answers or solutions. Rather than
scare us off, this complexity should interest and challenge us. I’m
reminded of the times each of my friends who wrote these stories
said they once felt like they were the only person of their kind in
the world. In Roshan’s story, he remembers asking himself how he
could be like this, how he could be the only one, and “all the questions felt like a phone ringing deep inside me, but I could never
answer.” The haunting ringtone of that phone is probably familiar
to many of us. But no matter how isolated, these writers each met
a person who related on some level, and more people, and more—a
process that did not rely on magic but real, grueling, painful bravery. These pages ask you to meet some people. To me, they prove
that solidarity begins at the most individual level no matter how
far apart those individuals might be.
Chad Frisbie graduated from Bates College in 2010 with a BA in
Engish and creative writing. He currently works as a writer and arts
educator in New York City. He studied in Nepal in 2009 and returned
to Nepal to lead writing workshops in 2013.
30
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the writers of these stories for being brave, eager,
and determined: Vishnu, Anjali, Simran, Bhakti, Sadhana, Shiva,
Ankit, Sita, Yubraj, Anjali, Bharat, Roshan. To Daniel Coyle and
Ola Perczynska for their resourcefulness and support. To associate publishers Billy Clem, Mark Minton, Terri King, Jon Frisbie,
and Barb Frisbie. To the other major contributors who helped this
project reach its funding goal on Kickstarter: Hayley Conway, Simon Shikongo, Madeline McLean, Saj Pothiawala, Laura Schneider, Ray Chan, Darrell Crawford, David Marienthal, Lily Joslin,
Emma Bloomfield, Rachel Kurzius, Alberto Means, Raul Tovar,
and Matthew Marienthal. To everyone else who contributed to
the Kickstarter campaign. Thank you to Blue Diamond Society
leaders Sunil Babu Pant and Parsu Ram Rai. To Kyle Knight, Gita
Manandhar, Adheep Pokhrel, and Danielle Preiss. To everyone
else who influenced this project in your various ways.
32
“What I’m trying to show is that life has both bright and dark sides to it.”
33
A Note on the photos
Creative-Nepal’s Photo Project hosts research conducted by sexual and gender minorities in Kathmandu, Nepal. The aim of the
project was to add visual depth and engagement to wider research
being conducted on sexual and gender minorities, and to offer coresearchers and collaborators in the project a means to creatively
portray and explore their own life-worlds. Participants were given
film cameras and a brief training on photographic methods. They
were asked to take photos on a variety of themes related to their
society, sexuality, government, law, the state, and social change in
Nepal. Afterwards, participants discussed and arranged their photos in different ways as a means to explore the meanings involved
in their photography. The aim was to shed new insights into peoples’ experiences of risk, community, and legal recognition, among
other themes. Working visually allowed for emotional engagements with the research, beyond words alone. Images often evoked
uncanny associations and moved the research agenda beyond a
purely rational register, to allow for creative insights to emerge.
Many of the photographs from this publication are the product of
Creative Nepal’s Photo Project. The rest of the work can be viewed
here: www.creative-nepal.com
34
“Birds are free to fly, but this one is trapped and kept alone. We
shouldn’t keep birds in cages. We should not be left alone.”
37
Pressure from everywhere
Sita Phuyal
I could tell he liked me as well. We always sat on the bench together at school in 7th grade. I knew he was a girl, yet I liked his
masculine voice, eyes, and actions. We couldn’t say anything about
these feelings. We lived in houses very close to one another. Our
village was called Itahari, a very pleasant place in the jungles East
of Kathmandu. There is only one shopping mall there, called the
Gorkha Department, and many rickshaws fill the streets. It’s always hot there, and it’s near the tea plantations on the foothills of
the Himalaya. Ram and I always saw each other at our school in
Itahari. At first we were friends. I couldn’t believe I was a girl attracted to another girl!1
Each of us had told our friend Sangita separately that we had
crushes on each other. Sangita was a little bit shocked. She didn’t
say anything, but she remained faithful and supportive. She gave
hints that she was okay with it. Sangita is friendly with everyone,
a very popular girl. She was Ram’s best friend, and this is why I
trusted her. So I gave the letter to my friend Sangita, and she delivered it to Ram’s house. I deeply feared that he would reject me,
1 Although in most of the story he is seen by others as a girl, Sita refers to Ram with masculine
pronouns throughout. Ram was born a woman but identifies as a transgender man.
38
but I hoped he would tell me he loved me back.
After school the next day, Sangita and I were walking through a
peaceful place near the bushes by my house. That’s where she gave
me a letter from Ram. I was so excited to read what he wrote. Even
though the letter was positive, I was still very afraid. The next day
in school, when I first saw Ram, I was biting my nails and fingers,
feeling so shy. But from then on, he and I stayed at each others’
houses and slept over a lot. Our parents didn’t know we were dating. Our relationship lived in secrecy for five years.
In Nepali society, the radishes—sinki—are cut into many thin
slices and dried. Because I’m very slim, Ram’s father always asked
him, “Why are you after this Sinki?”2 His father suggested that he
go to Kathmandu, where there are good universities and colleges;
it wasn’t a good thing to spend so much time with another girl.
Meanwhile, both our parents were always asking us, “Why are you
both sleeping in the same room? Why are you spending so much
time together?” Five years is a long time.
At that time, Ram had earrings and long hair, but he was allowed
to wear shorts and sometimes went jacketless—half a man, half a
woman. If there were family members around, we never had private time. There was so much societal pressure. We always had
to wait until one of our families went away on a trip. Ram was
so masculine: cutting crops in the field and lifting heavy things.
His cousin nicknamed him dhode, which is slang for tomboy. We
still loved each other but we fought a lot. Sometimes Ram bit me,
teased me, scolded me; he was as dominating as a man. That’s one
2 Sinki is a common nickname for someone who is skinny.
39
of his forms of love. I think he was imitating male behaviors because that’s what he wanted to represent. Always, indirectly, people would think I was flawed or broken because of Ram, because
we spent all our time together.
One day my father chose a husband for me. I didn’t have the language for it yet, but I told him that I’m not like that. My father
accused Ram of turning me into a lesbian. Of course that wasn’t
the case, but he wanted to beat Ram. I argued with my father that
it’s not from Ram—that it’s from inside me. I was quite depressed
that someone would be blaming my nature on innocent Ram. After some days, my family wanted to beat me too.
Eventually Ram and I no longer wanted to live in our village’s
community. One day, while returning from school, we stopped at
the chemical shop and bought pesticide tablets that looked like
little sugar cubes. We were just teenagers. We hiked into the jungle
together. The chemical was used in rice paddies to kill bugs. We
knew they were very deadly. Ram fed me my poison in a handful
of rice, and I fed him in the same way.3 We were not very familiar
with the world. We felt pressure from everywhere. We had no idea
about how to run away. Out in that jungle, we thought, If we love
each other, let’s live together and die together.
While we waited for it, we were crying and scared, but nothing
seemed to happen, so we left the jungle for our village. By the time
we reached our homes, we were both vomiting. Ram’s family took
him to the hospital. After three days, the doctor pronounced him
dead. I cried a lot that I had lost my soul mate, my lover, forever.
3 Spouses feed each other as part of traditional Hindu wedding ceremonies in Nepal.
40
I also received threats from Ram’s family that if Ram really died
they would come and kill me too. As is the custom in Hinduism,
his family prepared to cremate him by the river.
At the bank of the river, people gather around the body and the
family wears white. They made all these arrangements, and the
body was delivered from the hospital by ambulance. In Hinduism,
we cremate dead bodies by the river and then push the ashes into
the river. This was all going on, and it brought back memories of
when Ram was taken to the hospital in the ambulance. I saw everything. I was terrified. But just when the ambulance arrived back
at his house with his body, Ram woke up.
I was so excited it was like the sky was falling, and I was dancing and everything had no boundaries. I knocked on Ram’s door
and ran and hugged him while he was in bed. I didn’t care about
Ram’s family. I ran right by them. It was the blessing of the Gods.
It proved that our love was okay. But the situation was not: from
then on, I could only hear about Ram, of course, since my family
still kept me locked in one room of our house. My uncles, fathers,
and brothers would beat me there. They took my phone away. For
a week things went on like this.
Luckily, Ram had two mobile phones. Our friend Sangita visited
Ram and retrieved one of the phones for me. One day, I escaped to
the jungle by pretending to go cut some grass and called Ram. We
met right there and decided to sneak away to Kathmandu.
Ram’s sister lived in Kathmandu at a hostel for disabled people.
She said she knew that there was an organization that had some41
thing to do with boys who act like girls or girls who act like boys.
I think she suspected this about Ram. Maybe she already knew
some transgender people. We had only 2,000 rupees;4 we paid
1,000 for the bus. When we came to Blue Diamond Society we
met all different kinds of friends. We stayed in the Blue Diamond
Society’s crisis room for nine months. They helped us open a stationary store on loan in a nearby neighborhood. Then I got an opportunity to intern at a Family Health International (FHI) project
for USAID. I did the internship, and it was very fruitful for me.
Ram was finally able to cut his hair. He took the earrings out and
dressed like a boy. I used to see Ram as a girl, and I was kind of
surprised by these changes. I liked his long hair, but now short hair
is his habit; it’s alright.
I am working a very small job for Blue Diamond Society, but I
want to learn more about different languages, dancing, and singing. I’m sad on the one hand that I left my family, but I want to
groom myself and prove myself. Here I’m an office assistant, but I
also help with counseling and reporting. I’m learning a lot about
advocacy and am very eager to learn. I’m making many friends and
people seem to like my sense of humor. I’m never bored by work
either. I cook lots of food for the office too, and I always welcome
people here. I’m hoping to start my studies again. I’m only twenty
years old, so it’s still very sad to live without my family. Sometimes
they still call me, but they aren’t happy calls. We lost our relatives.
Now it’s only us in Kathmandu.
4 Roughly $20 USD, at the exchange rate at the time of publication.
42
Sita is not using her real name for this story and refrained from providing a bio to protect her privacy.
43
“This photo is of me and my partner. Since we’re gay we share a lot of love.”
44
Roshan Mahato. Photo by Chad Frisbie
45
The Fortunate Accident
Roshan Mahato
At the public university in Kathmandu, it’s always a big crowded
classroom where not too many people listen and too many people
talk. Students wander in and out at any time while the professor
is talking. The seats and benches are so dusty. The professor comes
late sometimes. Not many people seem to care.
While I was earning my Master’s in Sociology in 2009, my professor was teaching a lesson about gender. He explained what is
male, what is female, masculine, and feminine all in a way that
was very traditional. Because I knew about gender and sexuality
differences, I wanted to test my professor’s knowledge. On the one
hand, I was about to raise a controversial question, which made me
excited. On the other hand, I knew asking this question could lead
my friends and peers to guess that I was gay. Still, I had to do this.
People should know more about LGBTI identities.
I stood up. I raised my hand. I asked the professor, “What is Third
Gender?”1 in front of the seventy-five students in attendance. The
room became silent for a moment. They must have thought that I
women.
46
was rude for asking a question most of them had never heard out
loud before. The professor didn’t know how to reply during this
pin-drop silence that lasted for a few seconds. The whole class
became one big sigh. All along I was never afraid. I thought to myself, This is a natural campaign for me. I could feel my pride climbing higher.
Once he composed himself, my professor started to scold me for
asking nonsense questions. “There is no information about that,”
he claimed. Everyone was talking, whispering, and shouting like
seventy-five people leaving a crowded micro-bus.2 He continued,
“I don’t specialize in that. It’s complicated.” While we were arguing, the class dismissed itself. I can’t remember how the professor
and I finished our discussion, but the class ended without even
starting.
Long before this incident, when I was living in my village and
studying in primary school, I felt my inner desire—an attraction
to another guy. I used to be afraid because I knew I was different. I
lived in Chitwan, a town six hours south of Kathmandu by bus. It’s
in the jungle close to the Indian border in an area of Nepal called
the terai.3 In my village, a traditional place with tons of giant
jungle trees, all sexuality is forbidden to elaborate on or describe.
Especially in Hindu culture, people don’t feel comfortable even
when a straight person describes sexuality. I always asked myself,
Why am I like this? All of my questions felt like a phone ringing
deep inside me, but I could never answer it.
2 Mini or “microbuses” are a common forms of public transportation in Nepal.
3 The terai is the Southern geographical belt of Nepal that is comprised of flat plains instead of
foothills or mountains.
47
When I used to clean and cook and help my mom and sisters
inside the house, people in the village would treat me like a girl.
Those were the gender roles. People used to tease me because I
cooked and cleaned very nicely, saying that if any girl married me
she would be lucky because I would do her job for her. I felt pressured to hang out with my brothers and male friends, but I could
not change. There was no other option but to accept myself. How
else could I live? However, I couldn’t think properly at the time. I
didn’t know what LGBTI identities were, so I accepted myself in
silence.
People used to tell me about Nepal’s capital city. I thought, Oh my
God, maybe I’ll have the chance to go to Kathmandu at least one time
in my life! I thought my family would never allow it, so I dreamed
of just taking a visit there at least once. When my parents could
no longer support me, one of my friends found a job for me in
Kathmandu. When I got here, I didn’t miss the terai jungles at all.
I enjoyed everything here: it’s such a big city with lots of vehicles,
three-story buildings, people, electricity, and everything made me
relaxed. I totally forgot to think about my family. I would run up a
five-story building to get used to looking around at the metropolitan landscape. People would wonder why I did that, but I was so
impressed by the size of the city.
Because my native language is Tharu,4 it was difficult for me to
speak Nepali, the national language of Nepal. There are nearly one
hundred languages spoken across Nepal, and most people from
4 The Tharu are another of Nepal’s ethnic groups that live in the Southern belt of Nepal that used
to be largely jungle forests. The Tharu have multiple languages and their own cultural traditions and
religion.
48
the terai, and Nepal, for that matter, have an indigenous language.
I had many other struggles to adjust to: how to use electricity, how
to ride vehicles, and even how to wear shoes. I had never worn jean
pants. Everything was testing me.
Within the first year, I saw in a weekly magazine an awkward
photo of people cross-dressing at Gai Jatra, a festival where people
in Nepal can wear anything. This festival started in ancient times
when Queen Ratna lost her baby son. She was in so much pain,
crying and weeping, that the Malla King planned a celebration to
make her happy. He requested all the people in Kathmandu who
had lost loved ones that year to decorate cows as a symbol of peace
so the Queen will not feel like the only one who is mourning a
death. This festival is still celebrated today, hundreds of years later,
and it’s not just cows these days. Even though Gai Jatra means
“Festival of the Cow,” people decorate themselves too.
Maybe because people are allowed to wear anything on this day,
LGBTI people have been able to use this festival as a kind of pride
celebration. The Gai Jatra Pride Parade happens every year now. A
lot of LGBTI friends have died due to violence and discrimination, so it also feels like we’re celebrating people in our community
that we’ve lost. Continuously, I read more newspapers and saw
more articles about LGBTI activism by Blue Diamond Society,
an NGO. Through these magazine articles, I learned that I was a
homosexual and that I am part of this community, although my
realization was gradual.
In that classroom, I realized that it was not the professor’s error or
the students’ error for their lack of knowledge, but an error on the
49
part of the Ministry of Education, which has a duty to sensitize
the professors and students to LGBTI material in the curriculum.
Within one week, I got calls from two classmates who said they
were gay and wanted to help me. They knew I was working for the
Blue Diamond Society, and these two boys explained that they
couldn’t support my effort openly or directly, but that they wanted
to support it in some way. They didn’t want to disclose their sexual identities in public and to their families. I was understanding
about how difficult it is to come out in Nepal. Their motivation
inspired me.
After two months, there was a student election held at the university. I thought it was a great time to run in the election as the
first openly gay candidate. Blue Diamond Society’s Director, Sunil
Babu Pant, had recently been elected as a member of Parliament,
and that was the first time that an openly gay person had been
publicly elected to a Parliament in any Asian country. I thought
that if I ran in the student elections, the university would realize
that there’s an LGBTI community fighting for their equality. One
of the two guys who met with me agreed to be my running mate.
We became candidates for members of the Student Union.
One’s first election is very tough. We campaigned by email, mobile
phone, and Facebook. One time, another candidate was making a
speech for his campaign, and he scolded another party by telling
them that they are weak flip-floppers just like the Third Genders,
changing their minds all the time like people who dress like females but act like men or the other way around. I realized that
people were aware of transgender people but negatively aware. In
the end, I didn’t win, but I was so happy and proud.
50
In 2009, I formed the Student Forum; we started giving orientation programs that introduced people to LGBTI issues. We went
to private institutions like Kathmandu University and public ones
like Tribhuvan University. We held an essay competition. We set
up an internship program with students from different universities. As a result of our work, the Education Ministry now includes LGBTI content in health, environment, and gender classes
at Tribhuvan University. We also collaborated to create the first
South Asian LGBTI Sports Festival and the Mr. Pink beauty
contest for transgender men.
We have come pretty far since that day with my professor. Professors and educated people have started to accept us, but the Education Ministry still needs to include LGBTI issues from primary
schools and up. They have to open more scholarship programs, as
they’re doing for other marginalized communities. When somebody tells their family about their sexuality or gender identity, parents fear a negative image for their family. That fear creates a negative learning environment, and the student might get kicked out of
their home. Many LGBTI people in Nepal have their education
interrupted in this way.
When I finished my Master’s Program in 2012, I had to present
my thesis, and the same teacher who first argued with me appeared at my thesis defense! He looked a little red in the face
with drops of sweat. All of the other professors were calmly sitting
across from me, but this guy came right up to me and sat beside
me and took the thesis document off the desk in front of me. I was
nervous that he was seeking revenge.
51
I introduced myself, but he seemed hurried. He raised many pointless questions, saying that I spent too much time analyzing one
topic and that I made many mistakes. He told me I should go back
home to rewrite it. None of the other teachers agreed and they all
asked productive questions. When my thesis was approved, the
angry professor didn’t talk any more.
Accidents are always great lessons in life. If somebody makes a
mistake, that should be seen as a great lesson. I don’t like to think
about what my life would be like if I had remained silent in my
seat.
Roshan Mahato identifies as a gay man. He earned a Master’s degree in
sociology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal, and served
as the LGBTI representative for two years on the American Embassy
Nepal Youth Council. He founded the Sexual and Gender Minorities
Student Forum Nepal in 2009. Mahato won a gold medal in the 100
km race in the first South Asian LGBTI Sports Festival in 2012, and
he worked as the program manager for that event. He also won a gold
medal in the 5km race at the New Zealand Asia-Pacific Out Games in
2011. He currently works as the National Coordinator for the Federation of Gender and Sexual Minorities Nepal and serves as the Board
Secretariat for the Blue Diamond Society. He has traveled to Uganda,
New Zealand, Mexico, USA, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.
52
Machhapuchchhre, or “Fish Tail,” is a peak in the Annapurna Himal of north
central Nepal. Photo by Chad Frisbie.
53
power from the inside
Simran Sherchan
When I was a child, I always thought, Why is my body like this? I
was always frustrated, crying alone because I wanted to be a girl
but my body was male. Many times I would wear my sister’s clothes
secretly, and many times my mother would tell me, “Why do you
behave like a girl? Change your behavior.” At school many times
my colleagues would point me out, “Hey, look at him, look at him,
he’s like a girl!” Ever since I was twelve years old I never wanted to
go to the toilet because the boys would try to check what genitals I
had. They’d say, “We want to see, we want to see.” I felt so ashamed.
I would have to wait until everyone else was inside the classroom,
and I would never go during the regularly scheduled toilet times
so I would always be late for class. My teachers would punish me.
This was in my hometown, the tourist city of Pokhara in the western part of Nepal. Pokhara is surrounded by beautiful green mountains. Behind the green mountains, there are much higher snowwhite mountains. There is one mountain, Machhapuchchhre, that
looks like a fish’s tail, the roof of Pokhara over 7,000 meters up in
the sky. With fresh air and a large lake, Pokhara is more quiet and
peaceful than the capital city.
54
I had many lady friends, and boys would tell me, “Oh, wow, how
do you have so many girls? Please find me one.” Even though I
had those girlfriends, I had to sit with the boys and wear boys’
uniforms. I felt very, very uncomfortable in those clothes. I sat in
the second row of the classroom and the boys behind me would
always pinch me; touching my chest, bullying me, and teasing me.
I wanted to tell the teacher, but I was scared that maybe the boys
would abuse me after school. I kept this secret all the time, and I
cried inside because I thought I was the only one in the world who
felt like that.
After grade twelve, I read about the LGBTI movement in newspapers. I was eager to come to Kathmandu but I had no money for
the trip. Luckily, one day, my parents sent me to get my passport
so that I could study abroad in Cyprus. I met lots of gay men and
transgender women friends in the city, and suddenly I didn’t want
to go abroad because I felt more comfortable in my country’s capital. I met my boyfriend too. But I had no options—my family had
already spent money on the visa. My gay and transgender friends
also said that in Europe there would be more freedom. Finally, I
flew away to Cyprus.
I knew nothing about Cyprus, but I was studying travel tourism.
For my studies I needed 400,000 rupees, but I told my parents it
required 800,000 rupees so that I could give the rest of the money
to my Kathmandu boyfriend to come with me. During the first
three months, I was alone in Cyprus. It was totally different from
Nepal: a different culture, a different society, a different language.
Many people say that when we go to another country we will be
homesick, but I wasn’t ever homesick because I knew that my
55
boyfriend would come very soon. When I saw him in Cyprus I
thought I was in a dream. I felt like I had won the jackpot.
For a few months we stayed together with pleasure and with everything. I had no idea that he was greed-minded. When I ran
out of money, he changed. He would fight with me constantly.
Meanwhile, I had already passed one year of school and my parents were begging me to come back to Nepal on my vacations to
begin arranging my marriage. They told me all the time, “Send us
your picture to show the girls.” I wanted to tell them that I didn’t
fit in that category, but slowly, every time, I would tell them, “Next
year I’ll come back.” Next year. Next year. Always next year. Seven
years went by without my parents.
Between these seven years of my life, things were very up and
down. My boyfriend left me. He flew to another country with my
money. He never even spent one euro on me, and I supported us
the whole time. I hear that now he is in Holland. He left me when
I had only had 20 euros total, and my landlord threw me out. I
stayed in the park for seven days. I spent one Euro on bread. I slept
in the park and drank any water I could find and ate the oranges
from the orange trees in the gardens. Their taste was so bitter. At
that time, hunger tasted better than food. I felt so bad that I could
not pay my parents back.
After six days, I met a Sri Lankan guy who was a gay cross-dresser.
He saw me crying so many times and the last day he asked me,
“Why are you crying?” I told him the whole story of my life, and
he took me into his house and gave me shelter for free.
56
My visa was finished already; I was illegal. My new friend wanted
to help me as an asylum seeker, but I had no money to pay the
lawyer. Because I had no other choice, I had to sell myself… for
100 euro. I went with an old man. After I had come back home, I
felt so guilty that I wanted to commit suicide, but that Sri Lankan
guy gave me advice: “This is life. We all have ups and downs and
we have to survive.” In this way, I ran my life.
Slowly, slowly, I found a job as a child caretaker and housekeeper
in Cyprus. Later on I found a job at a nail salon. I never said that
I was tired because I didn’t want to lose the work; I always worked
long hours. I lived at the salon, waking up at 6:00 a.m. and working until midnight. My boss was very happy with my work and my
honesty. She knew that I was illegal but didn’t have any problem
with it because she thought I was a good boy. In this way, I suffered
on the inside in Cyprus.
At the end of those seven years, a policeman accosted me and deported me to Nepal. My boss met me in the prison to give me my
luggage and 200,000 rupees as a gift. I was like her brother. She
always inspired me, saying, “Life is very special and we don’t have
to give up on life. At every turn, we can discover opportunities.”
For this hope, I was grateful.
When I arrived in Nepal, my heart would not allow me to return
to Pokhara because my parents would force me to marry a girl. I
didn’t want to ruin somebody’s life, my wife’s life. So I hid here in
Kathmandu. In front of the mirror in Kathmandu, I took off my
clothes. I looked at my body. I felt that my soul was in the wrong
body. I realized I had to wear what my mind and heart wanted. The
57
very first time I wore the clothes I wanted to wear since childhood,
a woman’s casual attire, I felt like a magician’s wand had touched
my body—I became a lady.
Slowly, my money in Kathmandu ran out because I had no work.
My many transgender sex worker friends advised me to go to
Thamel, the tourist district. At the beginning, I went for prostitution hesitantly—my heart never allowed me to stay. Slowly, slowly,
I found a better job in a branch of Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s
NGO for sexual and gender minorities. I would still go to Thamel
sometimes, but later I met a friend who persuaded me not to do
that anymore because the lives of sex workers are very risky. The
police can catch you any time, the clients can harass or rob you,
and you can get sexually transmitted infections like HIV or syphilis. Sex workers have to be careful; money is not everything, and
life is so precious. Money can buy only the cheapest happiness.
I was working at a satellite drop-in center as a peer educator. It
was only three hours per day working in the field, meeting people
in Shanker Park and other cruising1 zones to educate them about
HIV/AIDS and about the LGBTI community. In the beginning,
I felt shy to speak about these things with strangers, but then I
felt that if I am telling ten people about HIV/AIDS and LGBTI
issues, if at least one person out of every ten can eventually understand our issues, then my work will be a success. I had a male
get-up at that time, but with some make-up on my face. I was not
a man and not a girl. Many people pointed this out and would talk
1 “Cruising” is an English word that refers to the practice whereby men seek and sometimes have sex
with other men in various pre-designated public places; in Nepal, often bus parks, public toilets, the
tourist areas and large temples. Though this term is new to Nepal, cruising is a practice that pre-dates
its arrival.
58
back to me. Yet however many people teased me, I got that much
power from the inside. Always, I said to myself, I will show you one
day what I am. I never gave myself up. I’ve seen my life go up and
down. At some points, I didn’t even have one rupee to eat, and in
those times I wasn’t even frustrated because I knew money would
come and go. I never gave power to the money. I just considered
my work.
If you want to wear ladies’ clothes but pretend you are male, or if
you are gay but pretend you are attracted to girls, you live two lives.
You’ll always have to play two roles. If you try to save your family’s
honor, you will always lose your own happiness. If we always keep
ourselves a secret, every single day we are dying. It’s much better
to tell your family and die that one day than to die every day for
the rest of your life.
Simran Sherchan identifies as a transgender woman. She finished her
plus two in Prithivi Narayan University and was working toward a
diploma in Hotel Management & Travel Tourism from Americanos
College in Cyprus but had to drop out due to financial problems. She
has worked as a peer educator for the Blue Diamond Society branch
office in Chabahil, and she is now a Secretariat Coordinator for the
Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities Nepal in Kathmandu.
She won the 2012 Red Ribbon Award at the Ms. Pink Transgender
Beauty Pageant.
59
“A person is already beautiful, but their society and environment also need to
be beautiful. If our cities are beautiful then there will be more tourists coming
in, and locals will get more job opportunities.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo
Project participant
60
“This photo of Nepal’s flag is very colorful because Nepal is the ‘garden of four
castes and thirty-six subcastes.’ What I am trying to show is that we are one of
the flowers in the garden.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
61
a different kind
of battlefield
Bhakti Shah
When I was a child, I always dreamed of serving Nepal as a soldier. I felt like a powerful person. Even though I was born in a female body, I felt like a boy and wanted to join the forces to express
my masculinity. For a while, female-bodied people could only join
the police. That didn’t make sense. Why could women join the
police and not the army? So I came to Kathmandu from my home
village, Darna Acham, in the far western remote area of Nepal, to
apply for a job with the police.
While I was taking my exams for that position, news came out
that the Nepalese Royal Army was finally open to applications
for women. Maybe this was a response to the insurgent Maoist
rebels’ use of female soldiers. After all, this was during Nepal’s
Civil War in the early 2000’s, between the Maoist rebels and the
Royal Army.1
During the recruitment process, I encountered so much discrimination because I sounded like a boy yet was applying for a female
1 Nepal had a ten year long civil war between the government and a Maoist insurgency that since the
Comprehensive Peace Accords in 2007 has joined the government. Over 15,000 people were killed,
the majority by the government, and over 100,000 were internally displaced.
62
seat. Everyone was asking what I was. After a special medical examination to determine my sex, I passed as a female and began my
training in Chhauni, a district in Kathmandu. Everyone felt very
excited for me. Joining the army in 2003 was my greatest victory.
During training, the officer above me became suspicious, and he
sent two of my colleagues on a mission to check my private parts.
These two women took me to the toilet. When they tried to remove my clothes, I told them, “If you are going to strip me naked,
you should get naked as well.” The women realized they shouldn’t
violate me like this, and I think they were afraid of me, so they lied
to the officer that they had already confirmed I was a female.
Later on, I had lots of crushes within the army. I don’t know why
these ladies were attracted to me. I guess I was a talented leader
and seemed like a physically strong man. They liked my deep laugh
and my masculine face, or so they said. Some delivered flirtatious
notes on tree leaves or scribbled in my notebooks when I wasn’t
looking. They would help iron my clothes all the time. One day a
storm hit my barracks and the roof of my room went flying, along
with all my possessions. All the women went running after my
things to save them. The next day, I circulated the barracks to collect my possessions from the girls, bedroom by bedroom.
Among all the crushes, there was only one who I truly loved. She
didn’t write love notes. She didn’t try to do my chores. Sadhana
was nothing like the other girls. She joined in 2006 as a cadet,
and I met her in our training camp, Karipati, where I was her
instructor. I liked her smile and her simpleness. She didn’t wear
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make-up. Sadhana seemed real. Once when Sadhana went home
for the weekend, I decided to call her and asked if she had reached
home safely, how her family was doing, what she was eating. I
also reminded her not to forget to bring the assigned gear for
next week—an essential duty. If she forgot, she would have been
punished and her weekends off may have been taken away. Even
though there was love between us, I wasn’t allowed to treat Sadhana any differently than other female cadets. But I was happy once
she entered the gate of the barracks. Every cadet used to call me
for advice, so it wasn’t unusual that I was calling Sadhana. In the
background, there was attraction. We never thought very deeply
about our relationship. It just was.
I never felt that something bad would happen to me—I never realized this because it was a common thing for all the leaders to
have cadets visit their rooms. I was very close to all the cadets who
came into my room to talk, even though they were technically
not allowed. One day, Sadhana was with another colleague in my
room. She fell asleep in the bed next to mine while she was reading her book. She just fell asleep. When a duty officer found her in
my room, on that very day, they made a huge deal of it and called
in other colleagues and started investigating.
Another duty officer who was a major general called me and said,
“You are the person who has spoiled it all for the cadets.” He took
my badge. After that, they imprisoned me in a big hall without any
windows. Sadhana was imprisoned too. They told people to stop
in front of her room and make her feel left out. She would start
crying. Sadhana was there for 45 days.
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I was imprisoned for 60 days in a big hall with vaulted ceilings.
They kept telling me that I was a criminal, and that other people
were not allowed to talk to me. There were holes with water leaking onto my bed, and they wouldn’t let me shift it. They always
asked nonsense questions. They kept on asking us about “lesbian
relationships.” At that time, we had no idea what a “lesbian” was. I
don’t know what they asked our colleagues, but one day the army
very quickly read us some documents that we didn’t even have
time to absorb or analyze. We just wanted it to be done, so we just
signed it. They told me that I showed homosexual behavior, that I
was a black mark on the whole army because I was a homosexual
and a terrible person. Then there was another document on which
they wanted our signature. They threatened me when I tried to
read through the paper more slowly: “Just SIGN HERE. It’s an
order.” After 60 days, they called me and said that I was now expelled from the Nepalese Royal Army and that I should go home.
While we were in prison, a newspaper discovered our case and
published an article about it. Then an NGO for sexual and gender
minorities called the Blue Diamond Society came to know what
was happening. Some activists tried to contact the army but the
army directly denied that anything involving homosexuality was
happening. A guy named Sunil Babu Pant called me and asked if I
needed any kind of help. When I came to Blue Diamond Society,
I was not well. I had low blood pressure and infections from the
cold conditions in the cement cell. Sunil visited me in the hospital
and took care of me like a father. He always took me to different
meetings to help make my mind fresh. For two years, he took care
of me.
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Eventually, I went to the army court to challenge the expulsion.
I filed a case against the Nepalese Royal Army in the Supreme
Court. There’s no law against homosexuals in Nepal, so there was
no ground on which the army’s expulsion could stand. It was clear
that they had made an example of us, and the army doesn’t ever
want to compromise when it comes to disciplinary issues. During the trial, my colleagues from the Nepalese Army were afraid
to talk with me as well. If the army officer found them talking to
me, they might suspect that person of also being a homosexual. If
we had won, it would have been a big victory for the community,
encouraging others to come out, but I lost the case.
At first my family was very happy because I was one of the first
people born as a female who had joined the army. They were very
proud of me. Everybody thought I could do anything, but they
never found that I am a transgender man. The media covered my
case widely, but my family was not informed about the incident
because they still lived in a remote village in western Nepal. However, all the people from my village who were living in Kathmandu
came to know about this scandal after two or three years.
While I was in the army, I was only focused on the battlefield
matters. Especially because I was a teacher, I was always focused
on physical training. But after coming to Blue Diamond Society, I came to know how to speak professionally, how to convince
people to become more aware, and how to gather support. Also,
after improving my English, now I can understand or figure out
what English-speakers are saying. Even though at first there was
no goal in front of me and I had lost my dream, these days I’m
feeling very happy because I get opportunities to meet with other
66
human rights activists. Now I have so many friends with whom I
can talk. There aren’t any kind of rules or regulations. Unlike in the
army, my life is free.
Still, the army shouldn’t do this to other community members. This
case happened in Nepal, but other armies in other countries could
also benefit from hearing this story. Homosexuality and gender
identification should not be reasons to discharge people. Due to
my case, community members who are in the army are still hiding
their identities. They are unable to be themselves while straight
people are allowed to be themselves. The army made an example
out of me and Sadhana, and it has had such negative effects.
I still feel exactly like a man. Excluding my body, I am a man. Since
my childhood my family knew that I liked girls and they were
afraid that I would spend my life with a girl. But after discovering
my identity as a transgender man, I shared all of this information
with my parents. They were shocked, but later on they never tried
to ask me why I am what I am. They never challenged me. Now
they are realizing I’m happy with this identity so they have accepted me. They don’t know each and every thing very clearly, but
they know some things. Although I was expelled from my job, I
found lots of friends. I’m now helping other community members.
Now I can share my identity with anybody.
Bhakti Shah identifies as a transgender man, and he works as a regional coordinator for the Blue Diamond Society. He has been an LGBTI activist for six years. He is also the President of the Sexual and
67
Gender Minorities Student Forum Nepal. He is currently waiting for
the results of his college exams at Tribhuvan University, Ratna Rajya
Campus.
68
“We worship Ganesh every Tuesday. We do not discriminate in worshipping
gods, and I wish society would do the same and accept us for what we are. Both
straights and LGBTI worship the same gods.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo
Project participant
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how to be bold
Sadhana K.C.
My father was in the Nepalese Royal Army, and as I was growing
up my uncle, brother, and father would always talk about warrior
activities. My home was also very near to the barracks. I frequently
saw army personnel roaming through the fields of my village. I was
so impressed with their dress, personality, and discipline. Working
for the government was a prestigious profession. I wanted to be
like that. I wanted to feel more bold.
Growing up, I never thought I was attracted to girls. I always
agreed with my father when he wanted to search for boys to marry
me. Sometimes he would come home and tell me that he was out
searching for boys for me and that he found none. “Oh, that’s OK,
I can marry a girl instead,” I would joke, and we laughed together.
At that time I was so small, I didn’t feel like my real self.
When the army finally opened entry for women, it felt like fate.
I was in the army for one year, and then, after the incident with
Bhakti, I was expelled for fifteen days. They called my father and
told him that now I could go home and complete my studies. Since
childhood, I had been very keen to join the army. All of these in70
cidents with homosexuality charges happened. My father took me
home. I was so depressed. I lost my career—my everything. My
world was so blank that I could hardly even stand up. The army
was a very healthy challenge. I had never been punished before.
After the incident, villagers were gossiping about my character.
From my room, I could hear them. There were rumors that I was
pregnant out of wedlock. Not only that, while I would be traveling out of the house they would confront me. I was always completely speechless, completely blank. I never even came out from
my room. I watched TV, played with my mobile, and cried.
Later on, Bhakti called me. I blamed him for letting me stay in his
room in the barracks, so I never picked up. During the investigation the army officials asked me why I brought things from outside
for him and why I was lying on the bed in his room. Because of
those long ago phone calls over the weekends, they blamed me.
After two or three months, I got another phone call. My niece
picked it up—Bhakti was keen to talk with me again. I thought,
Okay, what will happen if I talk? I will just pick up the phone and scold
him. But he told me, “There is an organization that wants to help
us. If you want, you can come and see.”
For the first time, I came to the Blue Diamond Society with my
father. It didn’t feel awkward because at that time I was completely
unaware of the community and its issues. I think my father was
searching for some kind of support for me, so that it might freshen
my mind. Bhakti said the organization wanted to help and support our case, and my father came to find out what kind of support they would give us. In the end, my father was worried that if
71
we filed the case against the army, that my little brother would be
discharged too. None of us wanted that.
Gradually, I started meeting with Bhakti again. After about four
or five months, while I was so depressed and unable to stay with
my parents at home and in my gossiping village, Bhakti offered
me to live with him closer to the center of Kathmandu. There was
no smile on my face. I was completely unable to live with myself
anywhere. I thought, If I leave my village, it will be easier for me to
forget that situation. So I moved in with Bhakti.
I was afraid of my parents when they were slowly coming to
learn about our relationship. When I started living with Bhakti, I
stopped going back to my home. Through phone calls, my family
realized that I had become happier. Once my elder brother called
me and told me he was on the street outside of my room. Over tea,
he said that I shouldn’t have to worry about my situation and that
everything will be fine soon enough. He said that he was fine with
the fact that I was staying with the girl who was expelled with
me for the same case. He said, “Just try to be happy. Just tell me,
whatever makes you happy, I will do that and accept you. Even if
you want to go abroad, I will help you. Just don’t be alone and keep
yourself isolated.”
In Nepali society, all family members are usually very attached,
and we spend a lot of time with our families. This can either help
or hurt the coming-out process. My brothers, sisters, nieces, and
nephews helped me a lot. So I agreed with my brother and slowly
started going home to meet my parents.
72
Soon Bhakti and I both did an interview on a news station. They
wanted some information about whether a lesbian couple has a
desire to have children or if there were other options. I thought
many other lesbian couples might come to learn about lesbian relationships and feelings. I wanted to inform people about that,
but I asked the news station to blur my face because at that time I
never wanted to disclose my identity and hurt my parents’ dignity.
They said, “Yes, of course.”
I never watched the interview when it aired, but my family members did. It went viral, and my family started calling me, crying, and
asking, “Why are you doing all these things? We are still fighting
with the villagers. We are telling them you’re not a lesbian, but still
you’re opening yourself in this way.”
The TV station had not blurred my face! I thought of killing myself because I never wanted to hurt my parents, and even today I
don’t want to hurt my parents. At the time, I went to the television channel and told them it troubled me deeply. “Please do not
repeat that interview again,” I said. I asked them to erase it from
the program, and they did.
Soon I learned that the television station had called Bhakti to ask
if they should really blur my face. Bhakti wanted to give me a platform to talk with my parents very clearly, so he told them it wasn’t
a big deal. He wanted us to live more freely. Until then, I wasn’t
able to talk with my parents in a direct way about being a lesbian. Nepal is a male-dominated society where females have very
little privilege and rarely get chances to leave the house or decide
their futures for themselves. We are not often economically inde73
pendent or able to raise their voices against what we’re facing in
their families. It’s taboo for women to talk about what’s happening
within relationships—whether they’re happy or not, whether they
want to leave their partners or not. It’s taboo for women to do this.
Once a woman gets married, she must stay with that person for
life. Because of these structures against women, I think lesbians
are one of the most ignored minority groups in Nepal. My parents
knew about my relationship with Bhakti, but I never told them
very clearly that I’m attracted to girls and that I’m in love with a
transgender man. How confusing!
When I came to know it was Bhakti’s fault, I was so furious with
him. My brother came to our office and talked with our senior officials, and he wanted me to come back home to stay with my family. I stayed with my family for a month to get away from Bhakti,
but I missed him. I was habituated with him, so I had to come
back. I couldn’t forget about my love and my relationship, which
went deeper than that incident. He didn’t want to hurt me, I realized. That incident was about giving me a platform to talk with
my parents. Now, because of those conversations with my family
about the interview, they are okay with me being a lesbian.
My family said, “Whatever you are, we are happy with this. If you
are happy, then we are happy. But please don’t disclose this in any
media.” I agreed to that. I never tried to give my interview to any
newspaper or television with my real name revealing that I’m was
a lesbian. If I’m thinking about my happiness and my rights, I
should fulfill my duties to my parents. If I want love and respect
and everything from my family, I should respect their thinking
and feelings as well. I’m still doing my job. I’m an activist and
74
everyone knows I’m working for the Blue Diamond Society. I can
still do the work. Now I’m engaged in documenting human rights
violation cases in Nepal. I’m advocating for the rights of community members. I’m running awareness programs and delegation
programs for people from the government and civil society. I’m
still fighting for rights, but it doesn’t mean that I should broadcast
my identity in front of the world. Why should I?
Even though my situation turned out alright, if I wasn’t so lucky,
I could have easily killed myself.1 If I was born into the kind of
family that wasn’t able to support me or if my family was telling
me to die, the TV program could have caused my suicide. The
Media shouldn’t ask somebody else’s permission about whether to
reveal another person’s identity. Although Bhakti is my partner, it
was not his decision. After he disclosed my identity, the villagers
would not let it go. I hope eventually villages and families will be
more accepting of their children coming out in public, but it will
take time.
I used to focus on guns and war; I used to work in the army to feel
strong and bold. Now I’m trying to be bold in different ways, by
raising my voice against homophobia and gender discrimination.
Very recently I came to know that there are lots of lesbian and gay
couples in the army. They know that there are sexual and gender
minorities in Nepal and in the army, but they probably don’t have
clear knowledge. One community member suggested to me to go
to the human rights program in the army and try to start sexual
1 Suicide was the leading cause of death for women aged 15-49 in 2008. (Source: Suvedi, Bal
Krishna, Ajit Pradhan, Sarah Barnett, Mahesh Puri, Shovana Rai Chitrakar, Pradeep Poudel, Sharad
Sharma and Louise Hulton. 2009. Nepal Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Study 2008/2009: Summary of Preliminary Findings. Ministry of Health, Government of Nepal.)
75
and gender sensitization programs. Now that the army is considering the human rights of army personnel as well, I think there is
hope for this. We might have some success. I will try to be bold
on that too.
These incidents gave me a new style of confidence. Back when the
interview showed my full face, my uncle asked me why I gave this
kind of interview and I strictly told him, “You’ve known me since
childhood and you know my behavior very clearly since I grew up
with you. If I like females, then I like females, and that’s that.”
Sadhana is not using her real name for this story and refrained from
providing a bio to protect her privacy.
76
“I took another photo of a group of pigeons where there were two white ones
who got along well with the other black ones. Seeing that made me a little
happy. In my mind, I imagined the white pigeons to be the king and queen, and
the rest of the black pigeons were their subjects. This thought made me really
happy. Just like the king and queen keep their subjects happy, the government
should also serve us to make us happy without any discrimination.” Photo and
quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
77
an identity i couldn't hide
Yubraj Chaudhary
I belong to the Tharu1 ethnic group, from Kusheha, Nepal, and
in my community people love their cultural traditions. We like to
dance and celebrate, and we always follow tradition, from festivals
to customs. We have our unique type of houses made of straw
bamboo and mud, and they are always kept clean. We eat lots of
fish, seafood, and snails from the river. We respect people and love
receiving guests. We always trust strangers. But at the same time,
we are so strict about our culture. In our community, when people
get married they always marry within the same caste. Inter-caste
marriage is not allowed. It’s very hard for this society to accept
anything different from regular culture. Work is divided by gender. The household chores are done by women who wear saris and
blouses, and if they have extra time they help their husbands on
the farm. Men work in the fields; sometimes they go to India,
other parts of Nepal, or abroad for work.
In Kusheha, our most famous dance is called the dhumbra, where
the man performs the dance while wearing a woman’s big skirt.
Through his song, he tells stories that are always about falling in
1 The Tharu are another of Nepal’s ethnic groups that live in the Southern belt of Nepal that used
to be largely jungle forests. The Tharu have multiple languages and their own cultural traditions and
religion.
78
love. Everyone knows the dancer and singer is a man, but they
pretend it’s a girl. In our community, because the people who perform this dance are called natuwa, gay or transgender people are
also usually known as natuwa. The performance celebrates happiness, and when people are happy they ask for a natuwa. People
pay and ask for traditional stories about kings and daughters. The
performances can get very emotional. Sometimes people even cry.
So in some ways, in my culture, parts of LGBTI culture have been
apparent since ancient times, but it’s complicated. If I want to tell
my family that I’m gay, they won’t understand. Only a natuwa can
be visible, and if the boys are acting in a certain way, like a girl,
they will become a natuwa. Natuwa is a very respectful word. In a
way, it defines and tells us something about gay and transgender
people. The sad story about the natuwa is that they are forced to
get married, and gay people who are not natuwa are called chakka.2
People only accept gayness in performance, not in real life.
I’m 26 years old, and from the beginning of my childhood, I used
to help clean and do household chores. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to do this typical women’s work. I also wanted to work in the
field. I wanted to do it all. When I was 13 years old, I realized that
I had begun to act and speak a little bit femininely. When I used
to work in the household, my neighbors, aunts, and uncles would
always ask why I’m doing women’s work. People would call me bad
names like maugiya, a slur against gays, which is similar to chakka.
Very close to my village, there was a famous teacher. I went for
tutoring and classes there. I was especially looked after by that
2 Chakka is a derogatory word that is directed at many sexual and gender minorities, particularly
transgender women and gay or bisexual men who don’t conform to traditional codes of masculinity.
79
teacher. I only went home for food, and the rest of the time the
teacher looked after me. At this boarding school where I spent my
time with lots of boys, I knew I was gay; I discovered myself, my
attitude, and my attractions. At the same time, my friends would
call me a maugiya, and I would feel so embarrassed and guilty.
People I was very close to would call me these terrible things. They
could sense that I was a little different.
Maybe in the city area young men go on dates with girls and whatever. But in the village, there is no place to take your girlfriend. You
have to share your bedroom with siblings or parents in your home.
You can barely masturbate. But we were at boarding school. When
I started to emerge as a gay man, most of the boys also wanted
to sleep near to me to try to have sex with me—maybe because
I seemed girly. This one guy’s name was Umesh, and we shared a
bed. He tried to touch me and approached me this way, so this is
how the first thing started. I agreed to it. He tried to touch all my
parts like a girl, kissing me.
The other boys knew what was happening in my bed. It was one
big bunk room, so everyone wanted to try too. These nightly sexual
encounters didn’t stop. They happened at night. I was quite excited
to have sex for the first time in my life. But at the same time, I was
unsure and scared that the teachers might find out. I wondered,
What if they will tell other people? Will my parents find out? I would
always desperately wait for the night to arrive so that I could be in
someone’s arms. When I left school I was no longer a virgin.
There was a guy, Ram, who fell in love with me. He used to help
me in many ways with schoolwork, and we spent time together as
80
friends. Ram suspected I was either gay or transgender. He expected me to sleep with him, but he would also get angry with me for
talking to other guys, which was annoying. Then we had to go to
college, which was far away from where our village was. Everyone
was very grown-up in college, and it was a very important time of
life. Ram followed me there, and again he wanted to continue our
relationship, whatever it was. He became crazy with love. I didn’t
like him at all. Now that I was 16 and 17 I wanted to be with older
people. For me, it was just a childhood fling.
By age 18, people would still call me bad names. There was nothing wrong with me—I was always doing everything right, helping
people, and doing well in college, and I always felt inspired by
public figures. The people who called me these slurs just didn’t
care. They didn’t care about their parents or families. Look at me,
I thought. I’m doing good work and going home to help farm. Compared character-wise, I felt like the good son, the good person. Yet
why was society still pointing its finger at me?
I am my parents’ only son. I have four sisters. My parents knew
me as a maugiya but because of our culture, they still expected me
to get married. The gay thing is always there: natuwa, maugiya,
or chakka. It is definitely a part of Hindu culture and society. Apparently, my parents didn’t care whatever I was, they still wanted
me to get married to a woman. Now my turn is coming, as I’m 26
years old the pressure to marry is greater. I feel suffocated by this.
My cousin’s wedding last year was the last time I saw a natuwa
dancing in the old cultural way. While wearing a langa choli, a long
gown that begins at the waist and flows far down, the natuwa
81
blessed my cousin’s relationship with his wife. At this occasion, I
felt a desire to perform like a natuwa too. I spoke with her very
openly. I really supported her and treated her like a human being.
The natuwa is a major figure of society, but their lives should be
more open. They should be what they want all the time.
For some reason, no one ever tried to turn me into a natuwa. Sometimes I disguise myself as a drag queen here in Kathmandu, but I
identify as a gay man, not transgender. In the beginning, we only
used the words natuwa, maugiya, chakka, so that’s how I identified.
I didn’t ever really want to be an actual natuwa because I wanted to
do something in an academic field or work in an office. I’m not an
entertainer. Other kinds of gay people should be more respected
as well as natuwa. I hope that my society can accept more different
and positive versions of gay people. Gay people have many different identities, and they should all receive equal respect.
Yubraj Chaudhary identifies as a gay man and is from Siraha, Lahan.
He attended J.S. Muraka Multiple College Lahan and wanted to complete bachelor degree in hotel management but due to financial reasons
he could not complete the degree. He worked at Blue Diamond Society
in 2012 as a Peer Educator and was promoted to Outreach Worker. He
participated in the first South Asian LGBT Olympic Games in 2012.
82
Anjali Lama
83
Nepal's First
Transgender Model
Anjali Lama
When people in my village finish school they try to go to Kathmandu. In my village, Nuwakot, there’s no tourism—you can’t
see the Himalayas. People farm corn, wheat, mustard, and rice to
make their money. When I came to Kathmandu from Nuwakot
for higher education I went to school for two years and then had
to drop out because it was financially and emotionally difficult;
everyone was making fun of me for speaking like a girl.
For people who come from the village it’s very difficult to live in
Kathmandu, even if you’re not transgender. I missed the kindness
of the villagers, who sometimes let people borrow food. People
are more selfish here and money is tight. I worked in a restaurant
where customers would always tell me that I looked like a model.
I am five feet and nine inches tall, and they told me I was tall
enough. I only thought, What is this modeling?
At that time I dressed like a boy and presented as a boy. Yet, when
I walked in the road if a mannequin was wearing a beautiful dress
in a window, I would think to myself, Oh, God, if I was a female I
could wear that beautiful dress. Why can’t I wear that beautiful dress?
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Why didn’t you make me a girl? Every shop front tempted me with
its big flowing gowns and saris.
One day I was watching TV in my neighbor’s room in Kathmandu, and a program showed transgender people in Kathmandu
doing sex work in the street. My neighbors were saying, “Look!
Look! They are chakka1 and hijra!”2 Those are such bad words!
From inside, I felt I belonged with the people on TV. I didn’t tell
my neighbors because I knew they would start to hate me and call
me the same names. I thought if only I could meet the transgender
people, I would share my feelings with them. I wanted to say, “I
am just like you!”
Once, while I was coming back from the restaurant at night, I saw
two transgender women in the street. I saw them from behind, and
I saw that they were wearing jingly bracelets on their ankles and
enjoying themselves. I ran past them. Then I turned around to examine them. They were all dressed up, but I was in a boy’s clothes.
I called, “Excuse me, sister, excuse me?”
They played with their hair, asking, “Yes, what do you need?”
I was bursting with excitement. “I am like you. I also want to dress
like you and walk with you.”
They were so shocked and excited too, and said, “Oh my God, you
2 Found across South Asia, hijras are commonly understood as transgender women, traditionally
male-bodied, who often (but not always) undergo a ritual castration and play a role in various religious
and cultural ceremonies and rites. Hijra is a complex subject category, however, and cannot be reduced
to simplistic stereotypes. The word can often be used derogatorily to refer to transgender women.
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are also like us? How brave you are for saying that in public and
revealing yourself.” Usually, people try to hide these things, but
from that point on I always expressed myself.
They said, “This is the phone number of our office and you can
join.” They had part-time jobs at the Blue Diamond Society, an
NGO supporting sexual and gender minorities. They told me to
call on Saturday at 10 a.m. That day was Tuesday. All week I was
waiting, thinking, Oh my God, please, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
Finally, Saturday morning came, and I was thinking, Oh my God,
please, what time is it? Ten, ten, ten! I woke up so early. I didn’t even
eat. Finally, when the clock struck 10 a.m. I called the office immediately, and they said to wait at the main road.
When I got there, two other boys with very dark skin came by and
said, “Hi! How are you?” I had no idea who they were. In the daytime, they were dressed like boys. At night, they had make-up and
very white skin from the cosmetic products they used. I thought,
It’s impossible! Finally, I recognized them. When we reached the
office I met many transgender friends like me.
Every week the Blue Diamond Society gave an awareness training
about what we are—what is gay, what is transgender, what is safe
sex… I was so happy to receive that type of training because it’s
very important for us to stay safe, healthy, and informed. I thought
I was in another world. That was 2005. In 2006, I got a job at the
Blue Diamond Society as an outreach educator. In Kathmandu,
there are many secret public places to meet lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender people, like parks and what not. My job was to
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find those people, teach them how to use condoms, inform them
about what our community is, and provide services for people with
sexually transmitted diseases. Again, during this work, my transgender friends told me, “You look like a French model. You should
be a model! Such damn good height! What a figure!” I knew about
figure and height, but I thought, What is a French model? I was too
shy to ask. I would just smile like a fool and say, “Thank you.” It
was funny.
My questions were finally answered when my friend said, “Wow,
what beautiful models!” They were on a runway on TV. I thought,
How tall they are! From that day on, I wanted to be a model. Even
in my dreams, I walked down the runway and imagined people
watching me on TV. I started learning from Fashion TV every day.
In 2007, Blue Diamond Society organized a beauty pageant for
transgender women. The title was “Ms. Pink.” Through that event,
I learned how to do a catwalk, how to do a pose, and so on, but I
didn’t win the title. I didn’t even place in the top ten. I won “Ms.
Charming.” Everyone said this prize was very suitable for me.
That same year, our director, Sunil Babu Pant, told me that a beauty pageant for transgender people has been happening in Thailand
since 2004, called Ms. International Queen. People come from all
over the world to participate. I had to pay $200 US dollars for my
application. I used most of my savings to pay for this. Three people
from Nepal, including me, applied, and we were all selected.
We were so surprised by how big the airport was in Bangkok! A
very big airport! We got lost in the big roads and underground
tunnels. It was a very developed city compared to Kathmandu.
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Most people didn’t speak English. But I loved the street food; they
would mix fruits and package them. I will always remember how
sweet and clean those fruits were. The weather was so hot, as if the
sun was so near I could almost touch it. They had no motorbikes
like those that cover the streets in Kathmandu, only scooters. That
was my first time outside my country.
Pattaya City was where the pageant was held. First of all, we saw
that we were very unlucky. All the participants came professionally prepared with very good catwalks, dresses, make-up, and skills.
They had sex change operations. They had big boobs and real vaginas while none of us from Nepal had any sex changes: no boobs,
no make-up, no costumes. We were very unfortunate. Even now in
our country, we have no doctors or facilities for the sex change procedures; it’s too expensive for most people in Nepal. We thought,
if only we were from Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, the US, or
the UK, or Australia—they were all so professionally beautiful.
But in our country, nothing. Still, it was the first time Nepal sent
people to that pageant. The stage in Thailand was so damn good,
and even if we won nothing, walking across the stage like Miss
Universe or Miss World made us feel like a part of that world.
When I came back, I started work again in the Blue Diamond
Society office. Every day I still watched Fashion TV. It was like
a drug for me. In 2009, one of Nepal’s most renowned Englishlanguage magazines, VOW, which means “voice of women,” offered me and one of my transgender friends the chance to be the
covergirls. They wanted to do a transgender cover. That was the
first photo shoot in my life. We were both wearing three or four
casual dresses for the photo shoot. I was quite nervous, but also ex88
cited. The photographer said, “Wow, your face is very photogenic.”
From that day on, I wanted more. I knew that this could be a kind
of awareness program for the transgender community. If people
came to know me as a model they might open their minds and
begin asking, “What is transgender?”
My family, neighbors, and friends live very far away, in the village
of Nuwarkot. If they read, they can only read in Nepali, but VOW
is in English. But I wasn’t trying to keep it secret; I would have
happily been published in a Nepali magazine too. I wanted to be
in every magazine, in every newspaper, and I wanted to walk on
the runway. My mind was rolling over and over again like a wheel,
What to do? How do I start?
That same year, I got an opportunity to do a photo shoot for a
renowned Nepali fashion website www.cybersansaar.com3. I wore
saris and around six dresses. That was my second photo shoot. I
was so excited. The beautiful make-up was done by my transgender friend who is now a very famous make-up artist in Nepal. Everyone responded, “So beautiful, so gorgeous!” And then I thought
again, It’s not enough for me! I was hunting for more jobs, but no
one, no one, no one called me.
During my search, I took a training course at a modeling agency
called Ramp for one month. I learned about catwalks, poses, and
all the different types of modeling available. I learned so much
from that training, and I said, “Now I will get a job easily.” I went
to many auditions at the same agency, Ramp, but I was never selected. I was the only transgender person out of everyone in all
3 “Cyber world”
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the auditions. The owner of that agency was a lady. I asked her,
“Ma’am, why am I always rejected? Is it because of my identity?”
And she said, “Yes, they didn’t want to select you because you are
transgender.” She was supportive but honest. I had no idea what
to do. I felt so down and had low, such low spirits that I thought
modeling wasn’t for me, so I quit.
Soon I found out about another agency that kept telling me they
could get me a job. After some weeks, finally, the agent told me,
“You shouldn’t try to be a model; it’s not a good job for you. There
are no transgender models in the world.” But I didn’t lose my confidence. I thought in my heart, Look. I will show you. There will be
transgender models in the world... And in Nepal. So I left his agency
and kept trying. I went for auditions by the hundreds. Finally,
slowly, I got a few chances. I did some ramp-walks. I did some
photo-shoots. I never tried to hide my identity in the auditions.
Every time I was fighting society.
In 2010, I spoke with one writer named Lex Limbu, who lives in
the UK and is Nepali, and he offered to feature me on his blog.
Because of him, I became known as Nepal’s first transgender
model. I’m also the first model from my village Nuwakot, and the
first model from the Tamang4 ethnic group. Since that day, people
slowly began to know about me. Anjali Lama is Nepal’s first transgender model. I felt so proud. Now in Nepal, many of my friends,
neighbors, and family members know that I am a transgender
model. I have four brothers, and one really loves and supports me.
One day he saw my picture in a famous Nepali magazine and told
4 Tamangs are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group who historically migrated South into the Himalayas
from Tibet. They have distinct languages and culture, and under Nepal’s caste system were historically
considered “enslavable.”
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me he thought this was a famous English actress. Then he realized,
Oh, it’s my sister! I’m so proud!
Even now, I’m still being rejected from almost all of my auditions,
but I never lose hope. I keep trying. The agencies keep telling me
they will provide me with jobs, but it’s only words. Yes, there are
some who support us. If those few people didn’t give me a chance,
my work wouldn’t be possible. We can’t take everything negatively.
We have to think about it in positive ways too. But because of my
identity as both a Nepali and transgender person, it’s very difficult
still. My parents don’t support me financially or emotionally. They
still don’t know what transgender means, even when I describe it
to them. Nepal is a very small country, and the combined lack of
education and conservative roots makes it very difficult for my
parents to understand. Even if people are educated, they’re likely
to be very conservative, and the fashion industry here is very small.
Sometimes I feel like I’m going to quit modeling, but every time I
see an advertisement for models online or somewhere else, I think,
Oh, I’m going to try again! If you want to achieve something in
your life, you have to keep trying. A few months ago I applied for
a shoot. Finally, I was selected. Again, I was so excited. Since I
started my modeling career, this has been my biggest opportunity.
The international designer’s name is Bishaal Kapur, and he’s from
India. He supports me with all his heart and tells me that I am
perfect for modeling. He says, “Whatever your identity, it doesn’t
matter. You have that quality to be a model.” Never in my life had
I received the opportunity to wear such elegant dresses: beautiful
gowns, saris, and lehenga, the Indian dress. I never worked so hard
either; we started in the early morning and finished at midnight.
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Even if he wanted to work with me for the whole night, I would
be ready for that. I’ll work anytime, for any duration; it’s my passion. Everyone was looking so tired at the shoot but not me. I
always showed them grace. I was always ready to be there. I hope
this work will bring me some magic. When I came home at 1
a.m. I saw that Bishaal had given me some money. I counted that
money—it smelled of hard work and results.
Anjali Lama identifies as a transgender woman and is from Nuwakot.
She is currently earning her Bachelor’s degree in sociology and population from Trichandra College, Kathmandu. She joined in Blue Diamond Society in 2006 as an Outreach Worker and was promoted to
Field Supervisor. She often works as a model for South Asian designers.
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“This photo is of Lord Buddha. Our society thinks that third genders are always
fighting or are always angry, but just like Lord Buddha, third genders are calm,
polite, and elegant. Society treats us badly, and only then do we react angrily.
If society would treat us nicely, then we would respond nicely. But in reality, we
are calm like Lord Buddha. I wanted to show the nature of our inner peace.”
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The one single thing
That Changed My Life
Ankit Sharma
Yeah, I have profiles on Planet Romeo, Silver Daddies, and Nice
Daddies.1 If guys want to visit Nepal, they can put information
about themselves on these sites in a traveler’s section that shows
who’s visiting where. I see who’s here right now. I make contact,
and I ask if they would like to meet me. But one of my friends
introduced me in person to David, a guy from Europe. Three
years ago my friend met him in Ratna Park, a cruising2 place in
Kathmandu where you can find gay people, transgender people, as
well as straight female prostitutes. This is one of the few places in
Kathmandu where you can find LGBTI people in public.
I feel misunderstood in many ways. In Nepal, if people find out
that I’m gay, they will think I don’t have a dick. They will think I
have a manly build but a woman’s parts. But I feel completely like
a man, and I have a man’s parts. I’m not even the girlish type. Also,
people think that if you are gay, you are supposed to be attracted
to younger guys, but it’s in my nature—it comes from my heart,
1 These are websites that provide online dating services for men who have sex with men.
its arrival.
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my soul, that I am only attracted to older guys. All over the world
there are younger guys who are only attracted to older guys, so it
shouldn’t be hard to understand. Everyone has their types. Since
my childhood, I have only been attracted to guys who are sixty
years old or older, but I have been unable to find anyone here. So
I asked my friend if he knows any old men who are looking for a
relationship. I’m not just looking for sex like many people in their
mid-twenties. I don’t like to change my bed every night, and I’m
not the kind of boy who’s looking for money—I’m no gold-digger.
I spoke with David on my friend’s cell phone and made plans to
meet him the next day. In Thamel, the tourist district, one store
might be playing a death metal song right next to the shop that’s
playing Nepali traditional folk songs—it’s all mixed up. One place
might be playing the Buddhist chant om mani padme hum right
over classic rock songs coming from across the street. You can find
lots of traditional handicrafts, antique pieces, and foreign food.
When I went to Thamel and met David at his hotel, I immediately
thought, He is too old. He’s very thin and seventy-eight years old. He
took me inside his room and without warning started kissing me
so deeply. After he touched me, I felt really good. I’ve never felt
like that before. He wanted me to treat him like a slave, and I was
so surprised that he wanted such dirty rough sex. I found myself
more and more satisfied with this old man. When we set a date, I
would be thinking all day about the time to come.
Every day I was enjoying David more and more, and that’s why I
told him I loved him. He would convince me that I need to focus
on my future. That’s why he won my heart. When someone encourages you to do that, you feel a nearness, an intimacy. That’s re95
ally what I want in life—someone who can guide me like a father.
Usually I don’t like anal sex, but David loved it, so he forced me to
do it. He handed me a condom, and I knew that it was the proper
thing to do, but I made a big mistake. I was emotional. In the
middle of everything, he told me to do anal. That’s why I was too
emotional and I felt a little bit of hesitation, and that’s maybe the
reason why I didn’t use a condom. Then the second time, I used
a condom but it broke. After that, the condoms didn’t break anymore because I used them correctly. Many of my friends told me
not to fall in love with David because he wants sex with everyone.
In fact, a lot of my friends had already had sex with him. In front
of me, he would point out other guys he liked, but then I told him,
“If you want to be with me, you are with me.” After that, he totally
stopped.
Then David went to Pokhara, a tourist town in the East. I wanted
him to take me with him, but I never asked because I thought it
was up to him. I was hoping that if he really knew me and really
felt my love, that he would certainly ask me if I’d like to go to
Pokhara. I never heard that question from him. He returned after
one week and told me that he had nice sex there as well with two
young guys. I was surprised again and felt jealous that someone
I love was touching other guys. When David was in Pokhara I
called him every day and asked if he was well or not, if he had eaten well, telling him to go to bed early and to take care of himself. I
had never cared for anyone like that, not even my family members.
The day before David left for Europe, we went to a very expensive
restaurant called the Garden of Dreams in Thamel. I’d heard about
the place. We went there at 5 p.m. to walk through the enormous
96
garden and explore in the sun, so we could see how it looks both in
the day and at night. At night there are different kinds of blinking
lights inside the pond. Lots of young Nepalis go there with their
boyfriends and girlfriends. The place is for lovers. After dinner we
sat under a tree and cuddled under the moon. It was like a dream
for me to enjoy such a royal palace with someone in the moonlight
on Nepal’s New Year’s Eve. The moment was special for me because the year was changing at the same time that David was leaving. What a meaningful coincidence. At 10 a.m. the next morning
was our last goodbye. I didn’t know what was going on inside my
heart. I was totally out of my mind. The main thing is that he had
no reaction when I left his hotel. If he just said he would miss me,
it would have been good for me because at least I would be getting
something from him. He said nothing.
After a week he sent me an email to say that he got a check-up
with the doctor because he wasn’t eating very well and he had
some digestive system problems. Sometimes, you know, I feared
that he would have a problem with HIV. But as I’m sincere and
honest with everyone, I believed that he was too. Many times he
told me he would go to Kenya, Thailand, and other countries, and
that he had a lot of nice sex. I never asked him about his status, but
I hoped that he was not positive because actually, you know, he’s
a pastor. So he’s also educated. From the beginning, I thought he
had such a nice profile: pastor, P.h.D., a wise man. I thought, He
has learned a lot in his life so he won’t have unsafe sex.
After two days, the real feeling was here. I reached home at 9
p.m. I didn’t even make myself dinner. I comfortably lay down on
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my bed and opened my mobile. I clicked on Yahoo mail. I felt so
happy when I saw his name. Then my eyes went to the subject line
of the email: “Sad News.” I prayed, Please God, don’t let this happen. Please don’t write this. I couldn’t read the whole email—I just
scanned it for the word HIV. And suddenly my eyes caught the
word—positive. My body was shaking, my mind was not working,
and I felt blank. I wasn’t able to breathe as if someone was pressing
against my throat with their arms. He wrote there:
You may be angry with me reading this email, but
this is my responsibility to inform all and tell you
the truth. Today I went to collect all the results, and I’m really surprised that I’m infected with HIV. It’s
my responsibility to tell you because you had unsafe sex with me. Please go get a check up.
I had to call a friend. My mind was not working. Life here felt
dim: no job, no responsibilities, no money. I wondered, How could
I share this news, live like that, and communicate with people? I met
this friend in Ratna Park a while ago, and I knew he was gay but
he’s my age, twenty-six years old, and not my type. That night
found out about David’s status, I tried a thousand times to call
my friend. It was already 10:30 p.m. I couldn’t sleep, so at 3 a.m.,
I walked to the Pashupatinath Temple3 because I had God on my
mind. Please, God, do not do this. I already have a lot of pain in my
life, I don’t have a nice background, I have such a bad history; I lost
my mother to cancer. I do not have good family relations. Pashupati is
a Hindu temple for the Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva, you must forgive
3 Pashupati temple is one of the most famous temples dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva; pilgrims
from all over the world and South Asia come to visit every year. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage
Site.
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me because you also have sex with lots of people! You must forgive me
because you are like me! I spent all night at Pashupati, where I wasn’t
able to look at anybody’s face. Imagine a man in nice clothes with
a sad face. I thought of myself like this. People could easily guess
that I was not in the right condition. Some people were out and
about at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Older people in Nepal often wake up
early to walk around in the morning darkness. Whenever I saw a
handsome old man that morning, I had no attraction to him. I was
behaving like I had already gotten HIV.
Pashupati is also the ghats4 of Kathmandu, where dead bodies are
cremated and pushed into the holy river Bagmati. We use a special kind of wood that smells good, and it catches fire easily. We
don’t have a culture of burying people. If you go there, you can
see a different kind of world. You can see life ending there, life
starting there. A child is playing right where a dead body is being
burned. Monkeys are crawling everywhere. Sometimes I blamed
the naughty monkeys, those bastard monkeys, for giving us HIV.
But you can feel peace at the temple too because you can think,
Life is just this way. We need not put tension on ourselves. You can
feel reassured if you have any kind of bad history; the temple can
give you strength.
I wished my friend would just pick up the phone and help me
calm down. He was living near Thamel. When I reached there, the
place reminded me of David. It was already 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. and
my friend was still not answering my call, so I went to a cybercafe
to reply to David. I thought it’s best to do this work before I meet
my friend. I wrote directly to the old man saying,
4 A series of steps leading down into a body of water, usually a holy river.
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I am not worried about anything. I am not blaming it on you. It’s my mistake that I had unsafe sex with
you. As I told you, I used to love you, I still love you.
Now my love is increased more and more because
now you are infected and you need care. I’m really
worried that you have positive status at seventy-eight
years old. Who makes food for you? Who takes you
to the hospital? Don’t think I’m angry with you. I
hope I will not get this, but do not think about me
because I am still young. This is nothing.
The one thing I wanted to hear from his mouth was “I love you.” I
told him this too. After that, I got many emails but he never said it.
Then I called my friend and shouted at him, “Where are you?
Why are you not answering my phone calls? I called you a thousand times!”
“Oh, you called me? I put my mobile on silent for a while. Let me
check.”
I screamed at him, “You have to meet me right now. I’m in Thamel.
Meet me right now.”
He asked, “What happened to you? Why? What happened? Just
tell me.”
I said, “You will meet me now. You must meet me right now. If
you don’t, I will not talk to you anymore. I have to talk about this
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face to face.”
“Please tell me,” he begged.
“No, please, come to me,” I said. “I am near your room. I can’t come
to your room because your boyfriend lives with you and I cannot
share the matter with anyone.
“What happened to you? He’s just like me. He’s my boyfriend.”
Again, I yelled at him, “Do you want to meet me or not? It’s about
my life.”
He saw me on the road with a sad face. I told him everything. My
friend told me all about HIV/AIDS testing and how it’s not a
genuine report until three months after they take your blood. He
told me about other friends as well, that a lot of people here in
Kathmandu are HIV positive. The medication is free in Nepal, so
you can survive. For the most part, you can live as long as normal
people, so you need not fear. But there would definitely be challenges. It’s still a hard life no matter where you are from. I told him
the fear is inside me because there isn’t a total cure yet.
At the health center, after I told the nurse all about my gay life,
the lady said, “I have actually had some cases like this. They come
with sad faces like yours, and they had unsafe sex. When foreigners return to their country, they will tell you about their status.”
She shouted at me, “They just want sex with you! Why would you
do that?”
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It would take three months to know what my status is. In between,
I had nothing to do. My mind was running: I do not have a job, I
am completely depending on my father’s money, how can I ask him for
money if I get positive status? At my age, I need to be self-dependent.
Sometimes I really thought about suicide. I’ll go to a lake or a big
river nearby. I’ll knowingly swim where the water is deeper, and I’ll
drown there. So people will think that I couldn’t swim and I died that
way—not a suicide. This plan was always in my mind. How could I
live? How could I face my friends and family?
Two and a half months later, all night my heart would beat, beat,
and beat. The time was coming. I had insomnia. Sometimes in
dreams you speak; I didn’t know I was speaking. The words were
not clear. This was all due to the depression and tension in my
mind. My brother and family members who slept near my room
asked, “What were you doing last night?” I decided to go back to
the health clinic to check so that I could make peace with myself.
I arrived at the clinic ten days before three months were over.
When the same lady saw me, she asked if I had completed three
months. I told her, “No, I have ten days left.” Then she shouted
at me, “Why have you come here? Your status will be the same!
Negative.” I asked to be tested for my sanity. I just wanted to reassure myself, so they took blood from my body.
After fifteen minutes, the first report for minor sexual diseases and
the second for HIV were ready. She called me in the room, and
said, “Your results came. You don’t have any kind of minor sexual
diseases.” But I didn’t want to hear that. “In the next room,” she
said, “we’ll bring your HIV status report.” Another five minutes
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later, an old man called me into the room. The report was unopened. It was confidential. They always open it in front of you.
“If you get positive status, you will not die,” he told me. “You can
get medication.” Then he said, “We have not seen your status yet.
We will open it in front of you.”
My heart was beating, beating, beating. He opened the file.
He said, “You are not HIV positive. We are really happy for you,
but you told me you have not completed three months. So this is
not a secure report for you. You may still be infected.” But I had a
different kind of feeling, I felt a little bit more comfortable with
myself.
Fifteen days later, I had a one-day fast—sometimes in Hinduism
we can’t eat. It’s for God or for goodness. I carried photos of Shiva,
Vishnu, Durga, Ganesh, and many other Gods in my bag wherever I went. First I went to the temple, Pashupatinath, and prayed.
I don’t know why I felt a kind of confidence in my heart that I
would not get positive status. In my community, my village in the
far west, Durga is considered the most powerful Goddess. Gods
have animals that they ride: Ganesh rides a mouse, Shiva rides an
ox, and Durga rides a lion. The lion is a symbol of strength. I have
heard lots of stories about the Goddess Durga, and many people
share stories about her involving good lifestyle, and I prayed, Please
God, bring my status to negative. I want to live a healthy lifestyle.
Again, the nurse took blood from my body, and the fear was always inside my heart. I had plans flying in my mind, sometimes
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about friends, sometimes about family members, what stigmas I
would have to face, and so on. My mind was working like a supercomputer, its ups and downs rushing. My heart beat once.
Normally the report takes fifteen minutes, but twenty-five minutes had already passed. Then it came out that I had no minor sexual diseases. Again, I wasn’t waiting for that. I yelled at her, “What
about my HIV status?” She told me it will be in ten minutes, with
the other man, in the other room. I thought, God, what is going on
inside my heart? The doctors were talking more and more outside
the room in the hallway. I heard them keep on saying, “How will
you say it? How will you say it?” They all knew about my story.
They had sad faces. I didn’t know why they kept saying, “How
will we tell that?” I felt, they were guessing that I would commit
suicide. I thought, No matter what, I must listen to my status. When
they called my number, the man locked the room after me. Oh my
God, my face was out of control. Even though he said he hadn’t
not seen my report yet, I was sure that the ladies in the hallway had
peeked. Then he said, “So now, we are going to open your report.”
When he said that word, my eyes were stuck on his file.
“Oh, good, your report is fine.”
I closed my eyes and breathed very calmly, taking a long, long
breath. I thanked God. I did not do any kind of sin. That’s why I
got a negative status report. I was thankful to God because I knew
I was very good in my heart. The doctor told me, “Now you can
be sure 100% that you are negative. But if in between that period
you have had unsafe sex or have had any unsafe injections, then we
are not sure.” I realized that when a foreigner comes to Nepal we
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are excited to meet him because he’s from the outside world, but
gay Nepali guys need to take care of themselves. Sometimes HIV
positive foreigners come here for sex, and they don’t reveal this.
Young guys in Nepal must be more aware of this.
Before my mother died many years ago, I hadn’t seen the cremation of dead people. I remember seeing it for the first time when
my mom was burning on the scented wood in my village, and I
thought, What kind of meaning is left in the world? I will die one
day. What will I get from this world? What will I contribute? These
questions make me feel responsible for this world. I won’t be rich,
but I want to devote myself to helping other people, those who are
physically disabled or socially discriminated. You must do something remarkable for people so that they will remember you.
Ankit is not using his real name for this story and refrained from providing a bio to protect his privacy.
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“I took this photo hoping that just like the birds we LGBTI could also be so free
and independent.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
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Vishnu Adhikary below a bust of Ardhanarishvara, a composite androgynous
form of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati. Photo by Chad Frisbie.
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A new minority
Vishnu Adhikary
In the early grades, my body was just like a child’s, and sometimes
you can’t tell if young kids are really girls or boys. After I passed
fifth grade, I started in a new school, Macchaapuchhara Higher
Secondary School in a town in central Nepal called Pokhara. This
was a new environment with new teachers and new friends, so it
was already somewhat difficult to fit in there. It was also difficult
wearing a dress because I wanted to wear the pants and shirt. The
college rule was that girls always had to wear a ladies’ half skirt, a
shirt, and a tie, and boys had to wear pants and a shirt. Teachers
kept asking me, “Where is your hair?” I always cut my hair short.
I tried to wear long hair, and by eighth grade my body began to
change. My teachers were confused because my body was developing like a girl’s but all my desires were that of a boy’s. What was I
supposed to do?
I felt too depressed and tense with the teachers. I had to care
for the buffalos and cows, but I didn’t like this work, so I copied
and learned the work that my brothers did. Brothers practice and
support their fathers. Sisters practice and support their mothers.
My father said, “You are a daughter, so you have to support your
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mother and not go with your brothers.” He just kept on saying,
“Go with your mother.”
In high school, I had a crush on one of the girls in school. I liked
her eyes, her hair, her legs, and I wanted to sit near her. Every day I
looked at her and was very impressed. We talked about everything.
At first, we met only in the daytime. I was so afraid to expose my
feelings to her. She was from the lowest caste, the Dalit,1 the lowest, actually, and I was from the highest caste, the Brahmin, so I
was not even supposed to be entering her home. When everyone
in Pokhara fell asleep, I would travel to her house through the dark
of night.
I would tell her that we need to change society, that there should
be no caste and no caste discrimination like this. I told her I was a
different person. Whatever society’s rules were, we didn’t need to
care about them. We had the right to love each other. At first, she
was nervous and shocked. She hesitated to accept my love and my
feelings toward her, so I had to give her many examples about how
society is always barring this type of love. Just like the caste differences, I was different too. As she was a Dalit, this insight opened
her feelings and she liked me.
Exams were coming. My family wanted me to study for exams
away from home, and they decided to send me to a hostel in another town so I wasn’t distracted by household affairs. My girlfriend and I decided to move in together at the hostel for about
two months. We stayed in the market area, where there was no-
1 Dalits are historically the “untouchable” caste in Nepal’s caste system. Dalits are not allowed to
enter the homes of higher castes, use communal water wells, and are still isolated from many social
functions to this day even though caste discrimination is prohibited by law.
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body I knew. That’s when I cut my hair. I bought men’s pants and
shirts. These changes impressed my girlfriend. She believed I was
a boy at that point, and kept on telling me that I was so handsome.
Our parents weren’t there; those two months were a safe place for
me. Each night my girlfriend would cuddle me and hug me while
playing with my hair. I felt so much more like myself.
After two months, we returned to our village houses. I felt so bored
with my parents and with conservative society. It was very stressful, and it was difficult to visit my girlfriend because I, coming
from a Brahmin family, was not allowed to go into a Dalit’s home
or even touch anything in a Dalit’s home. At midnight I would go
visit my girlfriend and then at 4 a.m. I would make the one hour
walk back to my home so that my family, who woke up at 5 a.m.
like many Nepalis, couldn’t catch me. During those late nights, my
girlfriend and I shared our love. We had little time to talk about
life, though, so we just enjoyed it.
Meanwhile, my parents couldn’t accept my new personality:
“You’ll cut our nose off in front of society. What have you done?”
My father and brothers beat me. My mother always cried and said,
“You are our daughter, what have you done?” I was always doing
male work and playing male games. My mother cried. “Why are
you doing these activities? Fix your behavior.”
After two years of this situation, somebody else proposed to my
girlfriend. I told her that we should get married instead, that we
could share lots of happiness, but she said her family would not
accept me. She had an arranged marriage to a Dalit, a same-caste
male. I was crushed. Meanwhile, my family was crying about my
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sexuality and my gender identity. I couldn’t change back to a woman because my mind and my behavior were just not like that. Sitting near boys, I didn’t feel anything. But sitting near girls, I felt
love, an emotion. I could not change my gender identity just as I
could not change my sexuality. My father beat me too much, and
finally he said, “We won’t give you any more money or any more
help. Just get out of here and away from our community. You’re not
my baby. If you are my daughter, stay here. If not, get out.”
All night, I smoked and smoked. I was full of cigarettes. I was so
depressed. I decided at midnight, in a room full of cigarette smoke,
that I would leave my home, my village, and my society. I had no
money. I put all my clothes in a suitcase and fled. If I went to the
market so late at night, somebody might find me and bring me
back home, so I traveled through the jungle. I got worried about
snakes, ghosts, and zombies. I walked one hour through the jungle
before I reached the bus stop. There were no buses leaving at night,
and I was so afraid that somebody might rape me.
Eventually, a bus came. I climbed the ladder to sit on top of it. I
didn’t have money to go inside the bus anyway. From Pokhara to
Kathmandu, I rode on the top of the bus through the winding
roads that careen over the edges of the steep foothills of the Himalayas. I was crying the whole time, wondering how my parents
could not love and support me. I thought on the bus, If my parents
are the one group that’s supposed to love me but cannot do this and
reject me, how is it possible for a new community to accept me in Kathmandu? I had no idea what was going to happen.
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I went to Sundhara, a neighborhood with a large white tower in
the center of Kathmandu, and I found a job as a cleaner in a hotel.
The hotel owner gave me new clothes—boy’s clothes—I felt so
good about this. Then some people from an organization called
the Blue Diamond Society came to my hotel. They found me and
asked me if I like being a boy and not a girl. Blue Diamond Society has mobilized lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex
people to search for more people in the community. They said to
me, “You are a lesbian, so you should come to our office.” I didn’t
know, What is a lesbian?
That Saturday, I was finally allowed to share my life story. I was
crying a lot and speaking with all these people who supported me.
For so long I thought there was nobody like me, and as it turned
out there were many, with many pains and many stories. I learned
that there is a lot of discrimination in families, and I wondered
how we could accomplish anything together in order to change
our condition. I convinced myself, Okay, I’m good, I’m natural, and
I have a backup here. I walked away from that meeting so proud
and with maybe even too much energy. This was 2005. Then I went
back to Pokhara, not to contact my family, but just to visit the city.
I linked up with media people and human rights people on a mission for Blue Diamond Society.
First, I began searching for more LGBTI people through my
friends and community. I would visit the parks and lakeside at
night-time. I would go to the dance clubs or other venues where
they would play local folk songs called dohori, where lots of LGBT
people could be found dancing and singing. I would find one person and then they would give me another person’s name and ad112
dress. Slowly I met 30 to 50 people like that. In this way, I started
the Blue Diamond Society branch in Pokhara, Pariwartan Nepal,
which means “Change Nepal.” When we started the branch in
2007 we went to the media to share our stories of discrimination.
The newspaper, radio, and television—we went everywhere. Because this was such a new story, the media loved it. They’re used
to covering minority issues, but this was a new minority to them.
I was especially interested in bringing the stories to radio stations.
Most Nepali people have no access to newspaper, internet, or television. They live in remote mountainous, hilly, or jungle areas, so all
people listen to the radio. While people can conveniently do their
work as they listen to the radio, the newspaper takes up too much
of your work time. Many Nepali people are also illiterate, so the
radio has farther reach in our country. Through radio programs,
many people had a chance to learn, Oh, these people also exist. After
the media coverage, we started overlapping with, partnering with
and coordinating with women’s rights groups, disability rights
groups, Dalit ethnic minority groups, and human rights groups;
they helped us improve our awareness and sensitization programs.
At that time, I couldn’t even put my feelings in words. It felt like a
lifetime achievement.
As for my family who saw me on the television and heard me on
the radio, they thought, Oh, Vishnu is in the news? Vishnu is doing this in Pokhara? Vishnu is going to the development center? They
thought, Oh, but now she’s doing such good work and we feel so proud.
I’m a lucky man because my name from birth was Vishnu, and
both boys and girls are given this name. Vishnu is a Hindu God
that sustains, that keeps things alive. Vishnu gives shakti, which
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is like energy and truth, to all living things, and Vishnu often appears in both genders. After my family called me to say they heard
me on radio, I returned home, and my parents hugged me and
cried. They kept on apologizing, admitting that they didn’t understand my desires. They told me that I have to do anything I can,
that I have to seek my freedom and enjoy my life. They respected
my social work, activism and attention—the connection with disabled people, Dalit people, and women’s groups definitely helped.
Then I decided that I had to change my citizenship to reflect my
gender identity. I have neither gender, so what was I going to put
on my citizenship certificate? Female? I am not a female. Male? I
am no male. The government at the time did not allow citizenship
for Third Gender2 people to show their true identity. By 2007, as
a result of Blue Diamond Society’s activism, the Supreme Court
finally decided to allow this. Under sex, where normally people
put male or female, I was allowed to put anya, the Nepali word for
“other.” This was not just a Vishnu issue, this was a Nepal-wide
issue that we resolved.
And then, finally, when I went to Kathmandu for the National
Youth Summit, I met my wife, Deepa. She proposed to me, “I
would like to be your friend.” She thought I was handsome, and
for one year we were just friends. Deepa liked my voice, my professionalism, and my speaking style. When we hung out, we would
share our life stories. Before we got married, we decided we would
just live together first. She was from a village in western Nepal,
800 kilometers away from Kathmandu. She was working in the
women.
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government hospital in the far west, so she left her job and came to
Pokhara for me. We were not married, which is unusual in Nepal
if you’re living together.
When I told my parents that I was going to marry Deepa, my
father immediately agreed. My brother was also getting married
to a woman, so we had a double wedding in a traditional Nepali
style in 2009. There were many people coming to my house and
shaking my hand. My family gave me a tika3 and offered me their
blessings. This was probably one of the first times in Nepal that a
third gender man and a woman were accepted by a family in marriage. People were wearing fancy clothes, girls were wearing saris
and blouses, and there was so much food and so much partying.
We were cutting vegetables and slaying goats in sacrifice to all of
the Gods. When we get married, in Hindu Society, we have to give
sacrifices to the Gods. Hindu Brahmins kill the goat at the wedding. Dalit people kill the buffalo.
My wife’s family, however, didn’t accept our marriage. They didn’t
come to the wedding. Even before our marriage, I would travel all
the way to Dadelthura to visit Deepa’s village. I traveled through
humongous forests and difficult hills. Deepa’s brother, Sujit, was
working as a journalist and media person out there. He had just
started a program called Voice of Change. I don’t think he knew
we were in love; it was still a secret to Sujit. But he wanted to do an
interview about LGBTI people, so I came to the FM studio and
gave him an interview about the LGBTI status in Nepal. After
three or four months, Deepa only told him that she was going to
Pokhara to get a job. He had no idea she was getting married.
3 A mark on the forehead usually made with vermillion powder as a blessing.
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But soon enough, Sujit read in a magazine that we had been
married. His family was so shocked, and his father spiraled into
a depression. Sujit had to read his parents lots of magazine articles about gender and sexuality so that they would eventually
understand and accept our relationship. For so long, Sujit tried,
but Deepa’s father could not be persuaded to accept the marriage.
Many, many times Sujit had to tell him that Deepa was also his
daughter so he had to accept us. Finally, after two years, Deepa’s
father told Sujit, “Call them into the home. She is also my child.
Okay, I will love them.”
Sujit is such a good journalist and a good advocate. He cares deeply
about this issue in his journalism. He’s not a direct member of our
community but he supports it very actively and sets an example. I
think the LGBTI community needs more straight allies like Sujit
enthusiastically supporting our issues.
Now some political parties have accepted us. They are giving us
chances to run in the upcoming election. This moment will help
provide awareness to all of Nepal that LGBTI people are also human. These days I’m so busy lobbying the political leaders. This
will give us the chance to be stronger in the Nepali government.
There are over a dozen LGBTI people who are vying to run in this
upcoming election, and I hope many of them will win.
Vishnu Adhikari identifies as a transgender man and runs a media
sector through BDS office called Identity. He is the Chief Reporter for
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BDS and speaks to the media on behalf of Blue Diamond Society. He
ran in the Communist Party Nepal-United Marxist and Leninist primaries to become a candidate for Nepal’s 2013 constituent assembly
election. His wife works at the government hospital in Pokhara.
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“I am carrying a colorful rainbow LGBTI bag. Just like this colorful rainbow
on this bag, we Nepalis want to be united and walk as freely as these colors.”
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“On the bike there’s a man and a woman, which shows that they are moving
forward while we are left behind.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
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My way out
Bharat Shrestha
I always remember from my school days going to bed and doing
all kinds of thinking. Alone in my room, I would always pray, God,
when I wake up in the morning, please make me normal. I used to feel
such low self-esteem and low confidence. Then in the morning it
was just another day with the same feeling.
I grew up in Chautara, 84 kilometers north of Kathmandu, in
a mountainous region of Nepal. It’s a small, hilly town at about
1,800 meters of altitude, and from Chautara you can see most of
the mountains of the Langtang Mountain range, like Mount Ganesh, and when the weather is clear we can even see Mount Gaurishankar to the far east. During the sunrise, rays would turn the
peaks orange. During the daytime, they’re shining bright white.
Then in sunset, they are orange again. My town is on a little plateau on top of a ridge, and on either side you can see plenty of hills
of all different sizes, forests, rice paddy fields, maize fields, wheat
fields, and during the monsoon season the forest grows greener.
After it rains in my village, the mountaintops are sparkling white,
yet everything below is green.
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Life was really weird because I never used to have any gay friends.
It’s all very new and depressing when you do not have any information. It makes you more confused. My male friends used to flirt
with girls, but I never felt comfortable doing that. Even though
boys wouldn’t say bad names in front of me, somehow it always
came back to me.
Every Friday after lunch all the students would go to a field to play
sports. My male friends were so much into outdoors sports but not
me. I was very talented in terms of indoor extracurricular activities such as quiz contests, debate competitions, etc. In my hands,
I always had books about geography and other types of general
knowledge. My friends would call me a bookworm.
My parents didn’t know about me. Even now, after all this time,
they don’t know, so I just pretend that I’m not. They often ask me
to get married and settle my own family. They sometimes bring a
girl’s photo and ask me if I want to meet her and consider her for
marriage. We have this culture of arranged marriage. You sit down
with the girl first and then both families come together. Most of
the people in my hometown are Newars, an ethnic minority caste
with various traditional beliefs and norms dating thousands of
years back, and they have a historical affiliation with both Buddhism and Hinduism. We are very tradition-based, and there are
plenty of gender stereotypes in Chautara, just like other towns
across Nepal. Even though transgender people appear in Hindu
mythology, our traditions have no culture of homosexuality.
Life often changes quickly. One Saturday morning I went with
my sister to this little stream, half an hour walking distance from
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our house, where most people do their washing and gather water.
While we were returning home, one of the staff from the District Education Office sprinted out of her house and asked us to
stop. She started congratulating me. I said, “Wait, why are you
congratulating me?” She told us that I’ve got the top score in our
whole district for the School Leaving Certificate (SLC)1 exam. I
couldn’t believe it all at first. I scored the district top in the whole
of Sindhupalchok District, and my father was ecstatic. He was the
one who decided that I would move to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, for my studies. My father’s colleagues and everyone were
congratulating him. I was so proud to make my parents that happy.
Even though my sexuality was there and I was so afraid of coming
out, the time was joyful. If I had stayed in the village like most of
my friends, what would I be doing now? I’d be married and living
a dual life, one side with my family in a married way and the other
with my real sexuality just like so many Nepali gay men. My life
wouldn’t have changed.
After finishing my undergrad at Purbanchal University in Kathmandu, I started volunteering with an organization in Nepal that
works with international volunteers. I was working with six British volunteers who would go to remote communities in Nepal and
run projects in the fields of education, construction, health, and
environment. I was their interpreter, and I liaised between them
and remote communities.
One time my teams from the University of Glasgow had these
conversations about a gay guy on one of the other teams. I wasn’t
1 The “School Leaving Certificate” is a national examination that students take to graduate the
Nepali equivalent of high school.
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comfortable talking about it even though it was right in front of
me. I was always shielded. I would never speak about that, but as I
learned about him, I was craving to meet him and talk to him. At
the end of the project, I got his contact information. I don’t know
what made me do this, but I emailed Jack and told him it was great
working with him, that even though he was in the other group I
had always wanted to talk to him. I asked him, “Any chance we
could meet sometime for a talk?”
Jack called me that same day. We arranged this meeting in one
cafeteria in the middle of Kathmandu that’s always crowded and
full of people. It was hard to start the conversation, but somehow
he started it. He asked a series of questions about me, and he was
trying to know what I wanted to say. It was not very clear in the
beginning, but Jack was the first person who I opened up to.
We ended up talking for two hours and decided to meet again later that evening in Durbar Square, a cultural heritage site in Nepal
from the 18th century, an old area of elaborate palaces and temples
where people hang out. Jack and I talked for two more hours at
the top of the Basantapur Temple. He shared his experiences from
school, such as how hard it was growing up gay in England and
how he wasn’t able to open up to his friends. He had recently come
out to his friends and parents but not his grandparents yet. We
did talk a lot about this issue: how it is in the UK versus in Nepal,
how our past lives had been, and how introverted we had both
been. There were so many similarities that we talked almost until
midnight. From then on, Jack and I met nearly every day to talk,
even though he only had one week left. He knew what I was going
through and he comforted me and told me not to be depressed.
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Right before he left, he came with me to visit my hometown in
Chautara.
By this time, I had already applied for a study visa in the UK. So
just two weeks after Jack left Nepal, I went to London—my first
trip outside Nepal. London was too massive in every way. People
were rushing, the climate was pollution-free, and the traffic was
quiet in the sense that vehicles weren’t blowing their horns all day
long like they do in Nepal. The roads were broad and busy. London
was very systematized. The main thing that was really challenging
for me was the food, of course. You have this breakfast, lunch, and
dinner—like toast, cereal, sandwiches, and mashed potatoes. I really missed my own food—lentils and rice, Nepali dal bhat.
Eventualy Jack visited me in Newcastle, at Northumbria University where I was studying, and during Christmas break I managed
to go to Manchester to visit him. His family was very welcoming.
Jack had this huge plan for me to go to this gay club. He invited
other gay guys to his home, and we were already drunk before we
left his home. This was my first experience getting drunk. At about
10:30 p.m. we went to this famous gay neighborhood called Canal Street, where I was so surprised to see these openly gay party
scenes in public, like people making out or drunk sleeping on the
sidewalk, talking, walking in a zigzag way.
We went to several clubs. Oh my god, we drank a lot, and it was
so expensive. We were completely wasted. We were still dancing,
and it was so surreal for me. Jack was protective around me, even
though he was wasted himself. One of his friends was like a caretaker, helping us stay aware. We danced until 4 a.m. that night,
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until the club closed, but I got locked inside. When Jack and his
friends left, I was in a bathroom. The bouncer accidentally locked
me inside the club alone. I was completely out of track about which
way to go out, and my mobile was out of battery. When I finally
found my way out, I saw Jack crying on the curb. He had left me
plenty of voice messages that we listened to the next morning and
laughed and laughed.
That’s how I started feeling comfortable with my sexuality. Jack
convinced me, looking at all these people, that it’s normal. There’s
no option left but to accept yourself. He convinced me to come
out to my friends.
In Newcastle, my two best friends were a straight Nepali couple.
They were working in Scotland, and I decided to send them an
email about myself. It was really hard to figure out how to write
it. I was all ready to tell them because they were my best friends,
and they never hid anything from me. In my email I told them not
to call me until they’ve replied by email. I was crying when I saw
the reply from them. They always knew that I was gay, they said,
but they never asked because they didn’t want me to feel awkward. That was my first exposure coming out to Nepali people.
With Jack, it was automatically comforting, but these friends were
straight and Nepali. It was the biggest secret in my life and they
were the first Nepalis to know. They told me that they loved me
even more. They invited me to celebrate Tihar,2 a big Nepali festival with lots of lights and colors, but I was still so anxious. I found
it so awkward to face them. On the phone is one thing, but in life
it’s another. Still, they comforted me.
2 The “festival of lights,” also known as Diwali in Northern India.
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I started coming out by email, then it became via phone, and now I
just tell people in person. If people ask me if I have a wife or a girlfriend, I just say, “No, I have a boyfriend. I’m gay.” If anyone here
in Nepal asks me, I don’t feel anything obstructing me. The first
time coming out, you will feel a great burden in your head. But it’s
like any process. When you get habituated, it will get easier. Now
it’s like, I ate rice this morning; I’m gay.
When I was in Manchester, I tried the same tactics to come out
to my straight Nepali flatmate. I wrote an email saying, “There is
something I need to tell you but I want to tell you on Facebook.”
Then on Facebook I told him to check his email. I was playing
around a little bit, sending him on a chase. I asked him to call me
as soon as he got that message. He was shocked because he used to
ask me about my girlfriends all the time, but he took it well.
I used Skype to come out to my cousins and other friends in Nepal. We would be chatting, and I would just tell them that I’m this
kind of guy; I like boys. My closest cousin was the first person
who didn’t handle it well, and I thought, Oh my God, what to do?
He asked, “Is that how will your life be? How will you tell your
family?” I found it really hard to convince him about my sexuality.
Whatever question he asked me I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know if
I would get married or if I would tell my parents and my sister. It
was depressing, but every time I came out to someone, no matter
how they reacted, I felt a little burden released.
And every time I came out to someone it was always completely
different. I used all different media but I found that chatting on
Skype was the easiest. One of my best friends actually cried when I
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told her because she was afraid for me to face all the awful stereotypes in Nepal. But I convinced her my life was going to be okay
because I’m meeting all these people, all these friends. I was building myself up. More recently, I came out to my sister too.
Then I went to a Mesmac, a health club for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and intersex people in Newcastle. This was my first
experience with activism, but I was so passive there. I couldn’t talk
at all. Then I went to this conference called the Scotland National
Men’s Sexual Health Conference in 2010. There was one scholar
who was the best part of the conference. He had been with his
partner for nine years, and they wanted to show me how a gay
couple lives in a home together, so I visited their home. Because
of him, I decided to do my dissertation on HIV/AIDS and sexual
health of gay men across the world. I conducted a comparative
study where I chose stories from developed countries and some
developing countries.
One Nepali lecturer in Newcastle who helped me edit my dissertation asked, “There are so many issues in Nepal and in the
world relating to public health, so why are you focusing on gay
men’s sexual health? Why not other things? There are so many
other problems.” He knew that I was going to come back to Nepal to work and he knew it was taboo here, so I would have little
opportunity to get a job when I came back. He said, “Why are
you choosing this topic?” And I said, “Because I’m one of those. I
belong to this community. I want to build my career around this.”
Then he suggested that I join other organizations first and build a
network and meet more people first, so that I can start working in
this field somewhere else.
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Looking back, I don’t feel sorry that I didn’t do that. I just jumped
into this field in Nepal. Through my research in Newcastle, I
started making contacts with the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s
NGO for sexual and gender minorities. When I finished my Master’s, I moved back to Nepal and started volunteering here. It was
so fascinating to learn about so many stories and to see all the
misconceptions regarding transgender people, gay men, lesbians,
and bisexuals.
Eventually there was a vacancy for a job at the Federation of
Sexual and Gender Minorities, Nepal, and now I’m working here.
I am developing both personally and professionally in so many
ways. My initial plan was to do a PhD, but working this job first is
much better. I play a pivotal role for LGBTI communities in Nepal, where I primarily lead trainings and strengthen the networks
of LGBTI-based NGOs in different districts.
I’ve explored myself. I’ve plunged into this activism, despite all of
the challenges and disapproval from friends, despite my professors’
advice. Now I am an openly gay activist working for the health
and rights of minorities like me in my home country. All that I’ve
learned and experienced has given me motivation and strength to
work for us, for our equal rights. The more I do, the more I realize
we have so much more to accomplish.
But I wish I was more open with my friends earlier in my life. I feel
like I lost the chance for important experiences and expressions in
my younger years when my straight friends were able to express
themselves, but I couldn’t due to fear. Imagine what it would be
like if young boys in a small village like Chautara could come out
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to their families and friends with no big deal at all. Imagine if boys
could date each other freely and openly even in a small town like
that, or elsewhere in Nepal—or all over the world.
Bharat Shreshtha identifies as a gay man, and he possesses a MSc. in
Public Health from Northumbria University, UK, and a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Purbanchal University, Nepal. He currently works as an LGBT Human Rights Officer at United Nations Development Programme for the UNDP-USAID “Being LGBT in Asia”
regional initiative. He has worked as the National Program Assistant
at Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities, Nepal (FSGMN)
and worked as part of the USAID funded Saath Saath Project that
primarily focuses on HIV prevention, capacity building, and network
strengthening of LGBTI-based organizations in Nepal.
129
“The color of a pigeon does not change the fact that it is a pigeon. The black
pigeons here represent straight people and the white pigeon represents us, the
LGBTI community.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
130
Photo by Nepal Photo Project participant
131
the light of knowledge
Jyoti Thapa
At eight or nine years old, I started realizing that I was a woman.
I was the youngest in my family, and nobody said anything when
I wrapped myself in my sister’s dresses. They were way too big for
me. My elder brother even used to do my make-up and dress me
like a doll. He built me like a beautiful doll, put me in a chair, and
left me, saying, “If you are happy with this, just stay like this but
please let me go study.”
At that time, my name was a male’s name, Krishna, which is also
the name of a God famous for being a playboy. When people were
calling me by that name, I never realized that I was a man. I always
thought I was a woman. I was not the son but the daughter of
my parents. Then I stopped wearing women’s dress and make-up.
Since then, I felt I was living a double role in my life: a male role
for society and a female role for myself.
When I entered a new class in 7th grade, I usually wore men’s
clothing, but I always clung to the girls in my class. There was
pressure to walk and talk with the boys. They were interested in
playing football and volleyball, and everybody noticed that this
132
one guy was not playing these sports. Teachers started telling me
that my eyes, my soft cheeks, my soft hands, and my small and
thin voice were just like a girl’s. I also never had a moustache and
a beard on my face as I grew up. Part of me felt happy to be acknowledged for who I was, but because I was in a man’s clothing,
I felt embarrassed. At different times, I wanted to show them that
I was either not a girl or that I was a girl. I felt very sad and confused.
When I entered college, people would often turn to me and ask,
“What kind of voice do you have? Your voice is so girlish but you
are a boy.” They would call me derogatory words like chakka.1 Later
on, I felt too discouraged to go to class. I still passed my exams, but
those incidents led me to study from home.
Due to the financial situation of my family, I started teaching in
the community school near my home in the town of Bhaktapur,
a mid-sized ancient city near Kathmandu. While I was teaching,
I heard from my students, “Oh, what kind of teacher is this? This
teacher has a feminine voice and acts like a woman?” Students
gossiped about my eyes and my body structure, and their parents
were also equally curious. Nobody was saying anything to my face.
Once there was an article published in the newspaper about a
homosexual marriage between two foreign women. My villagers
knew about these two females who lived together and got married
in Nepal. Slowly, I started hearing about those kinds of things—
that there are people attracted to the same sex. I came to know
that there are people like me, who feel like a man but are women
133
or feel like a woman but are actually men. Then I came to know
that there is an organization working for these types of people
in Kathmandu. I was at rock bottom. After the passage of time,
everything went in an opposite way. I kept wondering, How can I
expose myself ? If I expose myself, I’ll go crazy.
Everyone wanted me to get married to a woman. This is how it
is in Nepal. Arranged marriages are still more common than love
marriages.2 Parents feel that their child is their responsibility until
he or she is married. They think, If we give them a good family and
marry them into a good family, they will not have any sorrow or come
across harm. Their future will be secure enough. I made so many excuses: “I do not have my job yet, I haven’t completed my Bachelor’s
yet, first I would like to complete my studies, and then only will I
get married with a girl.” I said anything to delay it. I was so isolated at that time because I was silent. After my family went to bed,
I would always start crying because I felt like I had no choice. For
two years during my Bachelor’s, I put some clothes in my mouth
to cry at night so that nobody could hear, but I wished I could cry
in a super loud voice. I wanted to relieve myself. I was in a critical depression. I cried for two years. If somebody asked me to do
something, I would usually forget those things once I entered my
house. That’s a trait of depression: you usually forget everything
very quickly. I always thought about ways to die. I didn’t want to
eat my food, I didn’t have any kind of interests, and I was so, so, so
isolated. I only worked on my schoolwork.
In my third year of the Bachelor’s program, I joined the college
with my friends again. They were all new people to me. Being
2 In Nepal, “love marriages” are marriages in which people choose their own partners as opposed to
partnerships arranged by the family.
134
around people helped me get rid of my depression. I began seeing
a therapist. I also met a best friend, who was actually a boy, and I
explained everything to him. That situation was very relieving because I actually got to share my feelings with another human being. I acted as the mediator and messenger between him and a girl
he liked. In that way, we became good friends. At that time, I still
dressed as a man, but I shared my whole story with him, including
the confusion I’ve felt since my childhood. I came to realize that
my feelings were never going to change, so I decided to contact the
Blue Diamond Society, the NGO for sexual and gender minorities
in Nepal. My therapist told me to try and meet other transgender
women and to be open to these kinds of things.
As per her advice, I started coming to Blue Diamond Society on
Saturdays. I felt a very different kind of satisfaction when I shared
my feelings with these community members. I came to realize that
I’m not alone. Until then, it was unimaginable that other people
could be feeling the same thing. There were other community
members kicked out of their homes, rejected from their families,
and expelled from their schools all because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. I learned that many of them are forced to
do sex work to live. In reality, I felt fortunate. My family was accepting me to a certain degree. I was still staying with my parents
and had an opportunity to continue my education. I decided to
start thinking positively about my life. Okay, I should live. I should
do something with my life. I can’t do it for anyone else. I found lots of
community members who were deprived of their education because their family shunned them. Thinking all of those things, I
joined a Masters program at a university.
135
I was searching for an ideal kind of media that might help me
disclose my identity. The media has that kind of convincing power.
I thought, If it’s conveyed as information given through the media, my
family might have a better chance of accepting me. Then I got a job
as a peer educator at Blue Diamond Society’s branch office in my
hometown of Bhaktapur. At that very time, Blue Diamond Society
organized a beauty pageant contest for transgender women. I saw
this pageant as the best opportunity for me to disclose my identity
to my parents. I had no more excuses. It was perfect timing.
I planned to meet with my parents, brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law,
nephews, nieces, uncles, and aunts, grandparents—all of them at
the same time. I knew that in the worst case scenario I would
still have the Blue Diamond Society. While everyone was seated
around the chulo,3 I explained each and every feeling: how I had
been isolated and what those years of depression were like. I told
them, “Okay, if you want me to get married, I can’t marry a girl. If
you consider my happiness, I must marry a boy. This is my natural
preference.” I continuously showed them articles explaining that
other people are like this too, and I shared that I was working
with Blue Diamond Society as a peer educator. I told them that I
wanted to raise my voice for sexual minorities. “I will do as much
good as I can possibly do,” and I told them, “I will never fail you.
I will never create any kind of situation where I’ll embarrass you
because I’m a transgender woman, but I have to fight for our rights
and ensure that there will be laws protecting us.”
My family never showed any objection. In place of that, they asked
me, “Why did you hide yourself ? If you shared this with us, you
3 Round seats that surround the central stove in Nepali kitchens.
136
may not have felt so isolated or alone.” Everyone just encouraged
me, except my sister-in-law was very worried. She thought we
could find medicine to cure me. She was totally unaware of how
these issues existed and was worried about the backlash of the villagers.
But my father and siblings said, “Okay, you are educated, you know
what is right and what is wrong. Please be a role model for this
village. Maybe it’s not necessary to get married and have children.
However you want to live your life, it’s okay for us.” That was the
happiest day of my life. I felt like a bird flying freely through a giant blue sky.
Then I participated in the beauty pageant. As I was starting at
Tribhuvan University for my Master’s degree, I began coming
out as a transgender woman. A Nepali guy studying in England
wanted to make a video about me and the beauty pageant, which
involved filming me at the university. He was interested in shooting a film about my family’s accepting attitudes. I was the first
transgender woman who was exposed in front of that kind of huge
crowd at Tribhuvan University, the school where students from all
over Nepal gather together for their studies. Everybody wished me
well and hoped that I would win the beauty pageant. I think the
filming was why people took it very positively.
One day when I arrived home, I saw an article about the beauty
pageant cut out and hung it on the wall. My brother had written,
“Congratulations Jyoti for your success.” I had won the pageant’s
HIV/AIDS Ambassador prize, and I had also changed my name
from Krishna to Jyoti specifically for this pageant. My family
137
members kept saying I should be a role model, so that gave me
a clue for my new name. “Jyoti” is short for a Nepali name that
means “light of knowledge.” After I was in the newspaper, the villagers of Bhaktapur also came to know me as transgender. Because
they started gossiping about my character, it was not very easy to
walk freely in front of the villagers, so I looked for other opportunities to educate them.
In October and November, we hold the second largest festival of
Nepal called Tihar.4 During Tihar we celebrate for five days: for
the first day, we worship the crow because crows send us messages;
on the second day, we worship the dog because there is a belief
that after we die there will be a big, big dog in front of the door of
Yamraj, the God of the dead, and if we don’t worship the dogs we
cannot be let in; on the third day, we worship the cow and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. That very day, the third day, I dressed up
like a female in my own home, and I went out to the town square,
where the cultural program with microphones was held. I took ten
minutes at the microphone to explain my identity. On a stage! In
front of a microphone! Most of the older generation believed that
my speech was a theater performance, and the small kids thought
it was drama too, but I think the younger generations started to
understand me. The next day, everybody started gossiping about
me. The son of blah blah blah is a meti!5 He started wearing a woman’s
dress! But I only cared about raising awareness.
This gossiping lasted for three or four months. They asked if I was
a lunatic. The villagers started noticing me and following me ev4 The “festival of lights,” also known as Diwali in Northern India.
5 Meti is a Nepali term for transgender women.
138
erywhere, looking at me from head to foot, and some of them used
to say that I should get treatment. Everybody was saying, “Now
nobody will agree to give him a daughter for marriage and he will
never get married now!” Some people suspected that my parents
didn’t know about my gender while I was born and only now I was
exposing myself as the opposite. In the village, people still feel like
transgender individuals are intersex6—that they have both sexual
organs, which isn’t true.
That was the situation in 2008. Now, in 2013, everyone knows I
am a transgender woman. The villagers have changed their minds
towards me. They take me as a role model in the village. I find the
villagers of Bhaktapur very aware about these issues in comparison
to other villages where transgender women are out. I’m proud of
my neighbors.
If your parents and community do not accept you, try to convince
them. Tell them that as a person, you have a right to live. Don’t let
your education fade away. Complete it. Be persuasive with your
parents and don’t give up. Never try to escape any kind of chance
to have these conversations. Now there are NGOs in over thirtyfive districts across Nepal. There are communities that will support
you in fighting for these rights. Now you have to come out and
say who you are. Accept yourself first and then try to make your
family accept you. Responsibility is a part of your life. Don’t skip
that part. Struggle to be at peace with what you are and fulfill your
responsibility at any cost. We are able to take our society onto the
right track, but first you should be happy with who you are. Don’t
skip that.
6 “Intersex” refers to people whose sex is not clearly male or female.
139
Jyoti Thapa identifies as a transgender woman and is from Bhaktapur.
She graduated from Tribhuvan University in 2013 with a Master’s
degree in General Studies. She has worked as a LGBTI advocate since
2007 and currently works as Project Officer in the Blue Diamond Society Bhaktapur office.
140
“When we were kids my friends and I were very close, but in 8th grade when I
found out my identity they started ignoring me. I was always alone, even when
I went out.” Photo and quote by Nepal Photo Project participant
141
different decisions
Shiva Bhatta
In childhood, I was a very lighthearted boy, playing football and
cricket with my friends in my village. I felt very normal. Everyone
seemed to love me. Because my academics were going well, there
were expectations. Although I come from a Brahmin1 family, we
didn’t have the sense that we were superior or high caste. As kids,
we studied and focused on our careers. I was just shy and cute, but
when I started to be a teenager I got hints.
I used to go spend time with the men at my maternal uncles’ house.
I was a kid, so they didn’t mind changing their clothes in front of
me. Sometimes they took me to the river to bathe. They were so
macho and I was always attracted to them. There was always the
question: What’s that behind the underwear? Instead of wondering
about the girls’ stuff, I was interested in knowing about the boys’.
When I was fifteen I had to give an exam for the SLC.2 This is a
national exam, so all the students had to move to a different village
to take the ten-day-long exams. My science teacher was helpful
1 Within the traditional caste system in Nepal, Brahmins were the highest caste in Hinduism.
2 The “School Leaving Certificate” is a national examination that students take to graduate the
Nepali equivalent of high school.
142
and polite. He always wanted to teach me. When our exams started the science teacher hosted us in his house. It was a very good
chance for me because he was able to help me study. One night
while the other students were preparing for their economics exam
in the other room, my teacher asked me many times if I needed
help. He started to teach me everything. I was wearing shorts because it was very hot outside. He was wearing lungi,3 just a piece
of cloth around the waist. He made me sit very comfortably in the
chair. When he sat on the floor in front of me he was touching
my thigh as he taught me. At first, I was shocked: What was going
on? When he started to touch my thigh I felt all different kinds of
feelings. All of my blood was circulating very fast. I was red and
shy. But from deep inside, I wanted things to happen.
This guy slowly went higher and higher, and he played around
with me. I stopped like a statue. He didn’t say anything but he
performed oral sex on me. It was the first time in my life this happened, and it was so pleasurable. He was thirty and I was sixteen. I
felt so happy that I found him. I felt like that in the first moment
it happened. But when it finished I thought, Oh my god what did I
do? I started to cry. My teacher comforted me and told me nothing was going to happen. I couldn’t sleep the whole night. I was
paranoid that he would tell my friends or parents.
Still, every time I masturbated I thought of him. The guy came
to my home many times. He was trying to find a way to establish
this kind of relationship, but I was too scared. I did like him, but
I was afraid he would tell my parents. Many times he would drop
me off at my home on his motorcycle. We would go to the market
3 A traditional piece of clothing worn by men in many parts of South and Southeast asia.
143
together. He would buy me sweets. He was trying to be a little bit
more than a teacher.
I passed my SLC exams with a very good score, so I traveled to
Kathmandu to join a Bachelor’s degree program in charter accounting. I met one of my friends there, Sandip. He was so cute
and very helpful in my studies. As we became good friends, we
shared things, but not the bed. I knew that I liked this boy. He was
very handsome; he also liked me in a special way. I didn’t know if
he was gay. I didn’t even know that I was gay. I started being attracted to Sandip, but I never tried anything. Even though I was
a teenager with a high sex drive, I was so scared that my friends
would find out my secret—we didn’t know about “gay” things.
There is a dirty, polluted, run-down park in the center of Kathmandu called Ratna Park where a lot of cruising4 and other sexual
things happen within the thick crowds. From my cousin’s house
where I was staying, I had to cross Ratna Park on the way to my
college. I saw a lot of activities, so I sat by the fence. Lots of old
guys came. They started asking very weird questions: “How old are
you? Are you married? Girlfriend?” They were all sexual questions:
“You look taller, maybe you have bigger stuff ?” They kept staring at
my crotch. It was so funny and so weird for me. I didn’t know what
same-sex attraction was exactly, but it rose in my blood.
I met a very intellectual man one night there in Ratna Park—I
think he was from India—and he said to me, “I really like you,
its arrival.
144
that’s why I’m sitting near to you. I’m gay… do you want to come
with me to my place?” I knew that I was attracted to this guy, but
I didn’t know the word “gay.” In his room, he made me watch
some gay porn movies. It was so strange: boys having sex. I felt shy
watching these things. He started touching me everywhere and
kissing me. It was the first time in my life having full sex. After
that I thought, Okay, I like boys. I enjoy that.
When I needed a new place to live, Sandip introduced me to his
friend, Mohammad, a man in his thirties from a Gulf country. To
stay at Mohammad’s house, I had to look after a few things as if
I were a houseboy, cooking and cleaning. I didn’t want to do any
of this. That’s not a part of our culture: being a boy and doing this
work. But my goal was to complete my education, and I had to
live somewhere to do that. After a couple of days, I noticed that
this foreign guy had a lifestyle totally different from my Nepali
lifestyle. He smoked hashish in front of me, he offered me drinks,
and he used to have small parties every night. There were so many
rooms in his house. There was one Nepali guy who came very
regularly. He was polite but also aggressive, with very long hair.
One time he spoke very badly about Mohammad, complaining
that Mohammad promised him a job but hadn’t followed through.
One day when I came home early from college, I saw my good
friend Sandip at the house, half-naked coming out of Mohammad’s bedroom. Sandip used to put his arm around me and hold
my hand a lot, a common custom for male friends in Nepal. Sandip would also always talk about his girlfriend: how he was sad and
didn’t want to be with her. Shocked, I said, “You didn’t tell me you
were coming.” He said that he had to meet with Mohammad, and
that they had some work to do. He was so embarrassed and didn’t
145
say much else. I thought maybe they had some kind of relationship
so I just shut my mouth.
Then Sandip got a visa to Australia. Before he left, he invited me
for coffee and told me that he’s gay and that while Mohammad
wasn’t his life partner, they had been seeing each other. He told
me that Mohammad could be like a parent and look after me. I
was quiet. Sandip was so close to me. He’s a very handsome guy.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him about myself in that moment. I
still liked him, but I hid everything.
When I spotted Mohammad in Ratna Park one day, he came over
and started talking about himself and how he was gay and how he
also had a married life but was divorced and came to Nepal to work
for an NGO. When we went back to our home he made dolma,
a dish stuffed with rice, liver, tomato and onion. He made a very
nice meatball soup too. I’d never drank in my life, and I refused the
beer. He offered then for us to sleep together. In Nepali culture,
there are different people you have to honor and respect according to their age. I had to do work in order to stay in his home so
I never interfered with his personal life. But I was educated and
passing my classes. I was reading him. Sandip told him not to try
anything with his own friends, so that’s why he hadn’t touched me.
Yet on that night Sandip had already flown to Australia.
Mohammad was asking more questions about why I came to Ratna Park. He made me feel comfortable to open up, so I told him
all about the story with my science teacher. I’ve met a few guys in
Ratna Park before and had sex with them. They always ask what
you like to do. But that guy Mohammad, when he started kissing
146
me, started playing with my genitals, he never asked this question. He just dominated. He took out a lubricant and he used it
on my back and on his penis. It was so painful. I cried, in fact. It
was against my desire. Everything happened so fast. I was in my
bedroom the whole night, thinking, What did I do? I packed my
bag, but I didn’t know where to go.
The next day, Mohammad took me out for breakfast and we started being close to each other again. I counted the days until I would
complete my Bachelor’s degree. I know there are lots of gays who
come to this city. There are lots of temptations that people go
through, and there are lots of boys who are abused. I didn’t want
to do those things in that way, and many times I couldn’t stop
because I was staying at Mohammad’s house. He would react aggressively and scold me, telling me I couldn’t go anywhere.
When Mohammad brought straight people over to watch straight
porn, he would offer them drinks, and then they would play with
him even though all the Nepali boys seemed so straight. The boys
would talk to me the next day and ask how I knew this guy. I was
around twenty years old at the time. These young guys were all my
age, and they all still said they were straight. Mohammad had a
different nature. For him, domination was just normal. So yeah, for
a few years, things went by like that.
Later on Mohammad and I stopped having sex. There were always new faces in his room and in our living room. He was so
sex-addicted—I never asked his clients and friends questions. The
next morning, sometimes, with the new people, they would start
talking to me while Mohammad was in the bathroom. They would
147
tell me that he’s a bad guy. I was completely trapped. I feel so
much regret now when I imagine his face. It’s my country and my
people—all of these Nepali guys. Why didn’t I punch his face?
When you’re too innocent and too shy you just want to keep quiet.
When Mohammad went back to his country, I found a job teaching accounting. My life was normal again, but I was pained by my
history. I wasn’t happy for three or four years. Why didn’t I kick
him? Why didn’t I do anything? At that age, people should know
everything about their sexual orientation so that abusive individuals cannot take advantage of their situation. Younger people need
to be more aware of themselves and their sexualities. Typically Nepali people from outside of the Kathmandu valley have difficulty
opening up to anyone. These people need to learn how to take
action instead of being shy in those situations.
The battles of my life now involved different things. My family has
started visiting me from the village and asking if I will get married soon. My brother and I are quite happy being single. I have
started working for a technology company as a marketing person.
One of my gay friends told me about Blue Diamond Society, an
NGO for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people in
Nepal, and suggested that I start working there. So I applied for a
job and got it. Now I’m helping people learn about how to protect
themselves in their sexual activities. I got the chance to put my
education to use by helping people and counseling them. I know
in my blood that I’m gay, so I feel proud to serve this community.
I want freedom, but when I try to open this subject with my family, they don’t understand. They only think, You have to marry. Your
148
wife has to look after us. In Nepal, everything starts with the family.
We are a society that’s so close to our families. I feel uncomfortable telling them I’m gay or that I have a male partner because in
our society “gay” is thought to mean transgender. General society
doesn’t know the real definition of “gay.” Even my friends in college, in high school, don’t know the meaning. How can our parents
and friends learn about these things? More TV programs, radio
programs, and education in academic courses will help change this
perception. I’m sure society will change here, but it takes time. I
desperately want to tell people I’m gay, but only when I feel comfortable. Now I’ve decided I will not live here for a very long time
because I want to go earn a Master’s degree in a Western country.
But I love my country. Nepal is the best to me. Everywhere Nepali
people are so friendly. We have greenery, blue skies, and mountains, and we are so rich in culture. I like to participate in all the
cultural rituals. Now I have to make decisions about my family, my
love, and myself. All three of these decisions are different. All of
them are difficult.
Shiva is not using his real name for this story and refrained from providing a bio to protect his privacy.
149
150
151
Postscript
Participants react to the project
After the two months of writing workshops in Kathmandu had
finished, which included analyzing autobiographical stories from
various sources, writing material based on prompts, and editing
multiple drafts of their own work, participants evaluated the process. Here are excerpts from their evaluations.
I was excited to tell other people
about me. We can’t hide our reality.
~ Simran Sherchan
Only very few lesbians disclose
their identity. Still there are lots of
lesbians who are hidden, so I want
to encourage them to come out and
fight for their rights.
~ Sadhana K.C.*
152
This story reflects how far I’ve
come in my life. It is my own story,
which I’ve not told to many people
yet. It is very personal and I’ am so
glad that I’m comfortable enough
to share it now. I enjoyed looking
back on my life to witness all the
changes I’ve gone through.
~ Bharat Shrestha
In one sitting, we can’t complete
our story. I learned that we have to
edit it again and again.
~ Anjali Lama
Youth like me will make the same
mistakes and will regret them later
on, so I hope my story will help to
guide them.
~ Ankit Sharma*
153
I learned many things, most importantly I think I can now write stories about other things too.
~ Ankit Sharma*
I learned many new English words.
Similarly, I learned some new structures which make a story beautiful.
In this program, I was also able to
read and get inspiration from other
people’s stories from different parts
of the world.
~ Roshan Mahato
I like the structure that Mr. Chad
followed. He helped me write
what I mean without changing the
meaning. He motivated me to share
different emotions, and he creates a
friendly environment.
~ Ankit Sharma
154
I learned that to make a story interesting, we should consider the
audiences. While writing this story,
I was always concerned about the
readers.
~ Bharat Shrestha
Through sharing my story, I have
learned that life is always beautiful.
~ Shiva Bhatta
I learned that we have to edit our
stories many times in order to make
it perfect. Only one time is not
enough.
~ Sadhana K.C.*
155
156

Pride Climbing Higher

Transcription

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