Transgender Pioneer Enters Nepalese Politics

by Juliet Blalack · 2010-03-17 07:45:00 UTC
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Bhumika Shrestha, who won the first Miss Pink Nepal pageant, joined the Nepali Congress last week. Shrestha's journey from harassment and isolation to being sworn into one of the biggest political parties in Nepal symbolizes the amazing progress metis (transgender women) and the entire LGBT community has made in this conservative, majority-Hindu country in the past few years.

Shrestha told Sindh Today that she was constantly harassed by her peers in high school, and was eventually expelled because her teachers thought her gender non-conformity was harmful to the other students. Then Shrestha was arrested in 2007, when police were regularly using the obscenity law to take transgender women into custody for simply being out in public.

To combat this overwhelming stigma, Shrestha became active in the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's largest LGBT rights group. She spoke out against the (now extinct) policy of denying citizenship to LGBT people who were born in Nepal.

"We are like any other Nepali, so we have every right to get the citizenship," she said in a press release for the Pink Pageant.

Shrestha won the Pink Pageant in May 2007 which, according to Sindh Today, made her both familiar to Nepalis and an icon for transgender people. After Blue Diamond Society gained more traction, Shrestha advised legislators on incorporating transgender concerns into the new legal code. After enduring a decade-long civil war, Nepal adopted a new constitution in 2007. The following year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of laws guaranteeing equality for LGBT Nepalis.

Now that LGBT people have complete legal protection in Nepal and have achieved marriage equality, it only makes sense to see a pioneer like Shrestha entering the political realm. Will she follow in the footsteps of Sunil Babu Pant, fellow Blue Diamond Society member and the only openly gay MP in Nepal?

At this rate, she better run for office before another amazing activist beats her to becoming the first transgender MP.

Photo credit: Olen Sanders (used with permission)

Juliet Blalack writes about LGBT rights, with a focus on international issues. She previously lived in Cairo, Egypt.
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