Activists push for ‘third sex’ ID cards for Nepalese transgenders

The Global Forum on MSM & HIV has called on Nepal’s Home Ministry to issue
“third sex” citizenship cards to transgender people in accord with a 2007
Supreme Court decision.

“The legal verdict, which was the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Blue
Diamond Society, obligated the government to issue citizenship cards to
transgender people … recognizing their gender as a ‘third sex,” the
forum, known as MSMGF, said Sept. 19. “Despite lobbying by activists to
move the Home Ministry to deliver on this ruling, transgender and meti
individuals in Nepal today still do not have citizenship cards reflecting
legal recognition of their gender identity.”

MSMGF and openly gay Nepalese MP Sunil Babu Pant say that without the
cards, transgender people are denied access to education, jobs, health
care, inheritances, passports and foreign travel.

LGBT people staged a protest over the matter in Kathmandu on Sept. 14,
resulting in some 60 arrests, apparently because the demonstration
occurred too close to government buildings.

Activists later had a meeting with Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, and
Pant wrote on Facebook, “He said he would solve the Citizenship ID problem
soon, but we need to keep the pressure.”

“Governments that deny fundamental rights to their citizens — in this
instance, communities that are already marginalized — actively exclude
these individuals from civic participation as equal members of society,”
MSMGF said. “This sends a strong message to the people of Nepal and the
broader global community that prejudice supersedes social justice and
human dignity.”

Founded at the 2006 International AIDS Conference, MSMGF is the only
global HIV advocacy network specifically devoted to the needs of men who
have sex with men. It is governed by a 20-member committee of
internationally recognized advocates and HIV professionals representing
each major region of the world.

By Rex Wockner