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Nepalese trans activist on the landmarks achieved by her country and the work that still needs to be done

Over the last decade, transgender activist Manisha Dhakal has witnessed significant change in her country. Unlike other South Asian countries that still adhere to long-ago imposed colonial laws on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, Nepal – which was never colonized – has been at the forefront of LGBT rights progress, enjoying relatively greater freedoms than its regional neighbors.

As the executive director of Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s first and largest LGBT rights organization, Dhakal was involved in the court pleadings on behalf of the LGBT community on a case that concluded with the Supreme Court of Nepal issuing a verdict to enact a law enabling equal rights for all LGBT citizens. She has since worked tirelessly to lobby parliamentarians to include further protections for Nepal’s LGBT communities – an effort met with great victory when the country ratified its latest constitution.

In 2015, shortly after Dhakal’s participation in the third session of the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum, her country took historic steps to pass a new constitution that provided explicit protections for LGBT people from discrimination and violence. These new constitutional protections, along with the legal recognition of a third gender category passed in 2007, were celebrated by human rights organizations as a pathway to a more inclusive Nepal.

The Blue Diamond Society was founded in 2001; it was the only organization working for Nepal’s LGBT community at the time. Starting with HIV/Aids awareness and condom distribution, the organization has come a long way in advancing its advocacy.

“HIV is the entry point of our movement. Within [the past 15 years] we changed a lot. We entered in the HIV/Aids awareness program and slowly strategized into activities in rights issues,” Dhakal explains. “We worked with the government, we worked with the Human Rights Commission, police, judicial people, political parties and parliamentarians,” which has helped the organization’s influence reach those at levels possible to implement wide-scale change.

Dhakal and other Nepalese trans individuals have also seen greater inclusion from the government in the past decade. In 2011, Nepal became the world’s first country to include a third gender on its federal census, and, in 2015, the same year as the new constitution, the government began issuing passports recognizing three genders. However, despite these advances, challenges persist.

As Dhakal shared on a panel discussing trans issues in Asia at the 2016 session of the LGBT Forum in Thailand, health care providers are being trained in sexuality, gender and HIV care, but in some hospitals, health personnel would bring curious colleagues into the room to "observe our check-ups,”  violating the patients’ dignity.

Often, trans women in Nepal take hormones without prescription and estimate dosage following their peers’ rather than doctors’ advice, prompting organizations to translate and improve information on hormone and transition process safety. (This situation is better than in neighboring Bhutan, where trans women have difficulties accessing hormones at all.) These persistent problems were particularly stark in the aftermath of the two devastating and deadly earthquakes in 2015.

Speaking to Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) one year after the tragedy, Dhakal said although the LGBT community has been recognized by the government, much of that recognition remains “in theory,” noting that many government relief efforts following the earthquake separated those in need by gender, leaving transgender people with nowhere to go.

“Some transgender people were not able to claim relief material and many were laughed at or made fun of when they tried. This deterred many from seeking help. We as civil society need to monitor the implementation of the relief efforts by the government,” she explained to UNAIDS.

While the Blue Diamond Society continues in its human rights advocacy and HIV education and care, the earthquakes have given the organization another focus: disaster preparedness. In the immediate aftermath, the Blue Diamond Society provided funds to LGBT applicants in need and provided temporary shelter in their HIV centers. But as Dhakal admits, more needs to be done, and they need to ensure that the LGBT community is better supported during unforeseen events where governmental support may falter.

“At the Blue Diamond Society we prided ourselves on our focus on HIV programs and our Human Rights advocacy. One thing we failed to do was prepare for a natural disaster,” admits Dhakal. “Because of that, our community suffered a lot. We realized that apart from HIV prevention and Human Rights advocacy, there is a need for us to focus on better prevention of any unforeseeable natural disasters whether it’s an earthquake or a flood.”

The Blue Diamond Society started in 2001 with just six volunteers in the Kathmandu Valley. Today they have dozens of staff and programs conducted across the country; through their outreach efforts, the Blue Diamond Society has directly helped over 350,000 LGBT Nepalese. Increasingly its expertise is called upon from neighboring countries. Just as the Blue Diamond Society’s journey has progressed positively in the face of struggles, so too has Dhakal’s.

As part of the LGBT Forum’s “Family is…?” project, Dhakal shared her experience of gaining her family’s support during her transition: “When I started to work with the Blue Diamond Society, at that time I was a cis-guy, and did not have the long hair and didn’t wear the female dress. I hid myself within my family; I didn’t tell them I worked for the Blue Diamond Society. I said to them I am working in the HIV prevention project.

“One time, they knew that I belonged to the Blue Diamond Society, [and] for three days they didn’t allow me to go to the office — and [those] three days changed me a lot. It gave the opportunity to me to convince my family. Over those days I told them, and convinced them of who I am, what is my sexuality… I told them all the things that I faced as who I am, and that changed me a lot. [It changed me to be] more to be involved in LGBTI movement, [and realize] how family is important and how important it is to convince the family, and how to get the support from the family. If we get the support from the family then we can progress a lot in our personality, in our activism. If there is no support from the family it’s very difficult to work and to involve in activism.”

With support from her family, and growing legal protections, she hopes to see further progress not only for herself, but for her country and the region at large.