The multifaceted lives of queer Nepali people feature a complicated intersection of caste, class, religion, and geography. Angel Lama faces her own complex set of issues as a trans woman living in Kathmandu. She came from humble beginnings- parents that eloped and sold chicken to finance their migration to Kathmandu in the hopes of a better future- and growing up as a male child did not make things easier. At home she was burdened with the expectation of marrying a woman and starting a family; at school she was bullied for being “too feminine.”

Grappling with her gender identity in the era of the internet, she soon found an online queer community. “I thought I was the only one who was different. Just me,” says Angel about this revelatory moment of discovering a community she belonged to. This feeling of belonging emboldened her to take part in and win Miss Pink 2016-a queer pageant with a focus on training contestants on advocacy and awareness. By 2018, she crossed paths with Blue Diamond Society (BDS), an NGO that has pioneered queer advocacy in Nepal, and began working there.

Established in 2001 to address the social exclusion, discrimination, and violence against LGBTQI+ individuals, BDS provided Angel a space to learn queer terminology, participate in orientation programs, and counselling sessions with psychologists that helped her comprehend her identity. Although Angel began understanding herself better, her parents struggled to do the same. She credits a BDS-Save the Children program aimed at queer individuals and their families for helping create a safe and friendly environment for her mother to accept her queerness and love her the way she needed.

In her journey to make sense of her gender identity, Angel became heavily involved in queer rights advocacy and has flourished in the process. She has worked on AIDS awareness and prevention programmes, been a Top 20 contestant on Miss International Queen 2019, and worked with international organisations including mechanisms within the UN. Today, Angel is a prominent figure within the queer scene in Nepal, and an extremely resourceful and insightful individual regarding LGBTQI+ rights and awareness. 

With BDS, Angel has gained access to more than 24 nation-wide networks that work to bring queer people together. In explaining queerness in the Nepali context, Angel talks about caste and rural/urban divide as important factors one must understand. In her observations, indigenous caste groups are more accepting of LGBTQI+ people, perhaps due to their less patriarchal and religious tendencies. Consequently, there are more openly queer indigenous people in Nepal. As for the rural/urban divide, big cities like Kathmandu or Pokhara regularly host public events for queer people, but rural areas lack such inclusive public spaces. And so, upper-caste and queer people in rural areas are target groups that BDS and its network is working to incorporate via focused outreach and awareness activities.

Luckily, the Government of Nepal has been attempting to embrace BDS and its values albeit imperfectly at times. BDS has a strong reputation within the government as they have been in constant collaboration and communication since their inception 24 years ago. Angel says that government officials have been “curious, warm, and very welcoming” which makes her, and her colleagues feel listened to, and motivated to advocate for LGBTQI+ friendly policies. Although the government gets open communication and affability right, they do have some shortcomings. Two main things hinder BDS’ ability to lobby within the Nepal government- political instability and funding or budget allocation.

BDS mainly works with the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens (MOWCSC) who assigns a focal person to liaise with BDS on behalf of the MOWCSC. Nepal’s curriculum leaves much to be desired when it comes to LGBTQI+ education, which means that the assigned focal person is not equipped with the knowledge required to create policies that cater to Nepal's queer population. BDS tackles this challenge by assigning a large portion of its resources to educating this person since meaningful conversations cannot be had without a solid foundational understanding. Unfortunately, due to Nepal’s political instability, BDS has been dismayed multiple times because the focal person was changed right after BDS invested time and resources into bringing them up to speed.

This year, the changeover happened just as budgets are to be allocated within the government. Naturally, having a government representative that does not understand queer needs does not help secure funding for queer issues, and this has culminated in the government allocating an insufficient budget for LGBTQI+ issues. The explanation provided was that few people registered as queer in the 2021 census- a perplexing decision that does not consider how difficult it is for queer people to be openly out. Even this inadequate budget, Angel claims, is assigned on programs that the government deems necessary without researching the actual needs of the queer community or collaborating with them.

The second issue that troubles BDS regarding pushing for policy change is funding. BDS is compelled to invest heaps into lobbying because it must go above and beyond to lay the groundwork for government officials. When the organisation receives much needed external funding, there is rarely budget allocated for lobbying. While BDS generally uses core funding for such activities, Angel credits the Right Here Right Now (RHRN) programme- a strategic partnership between CHOICE for Youth and Sexuality, Rutgers, and other organisations, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that aims to strengthen the capacity and collaboration of civil society organisations - for accounting for lobbying and advocacy in budget allocation. She says that RHRN’s support was key to the assertive 5-year-long lobbying that culminated in the Supreme Court passing an interim order to temporarily register same-sex marriages!

The topic of funding led Angel to reflect on how BDS- an organisation that works with many international partners who provide funding- walks the fine line of balancing donor-driven agendas with their own. Angel says, “Now is the time to reflect on how we can create programs and activities that really address (our) needs rather than donors.” This struggle is not unique; any entity in civil society knows that this is an ongoing issue and BDS navigates this by conducting as much research as possible in collaboration with Nepali institutions and local queer communities. This research, combined with testimonies and case stories from their networks, helps make a compelling argument that Nepal has a complex community with specific needs that might differ from a donor’s standard approach. Beyond this, BDS actively takes initiative to internally create programs that cater to local needs. One such upcoming event is the Pride Month Gender Bender Program - a performance space for queer expression and resistance.

Besides this, like any other progressive organisation, BDS is challenged by the global shift to the right. Since Trump’s campaign , Angel recalls that Nepali ministers have felt emboldened to give transphobic remarks in parliament. Programmes that had been instrumental in creating positive change have been scrapped and people are losing access to essential services. Many LGBTQ+ individuals that were working for USAID programs are now unemployed, and AIDS prevention programs being scaled down has resulted in the rise of HIV/AIDS , with marginalised queer communities facing the brunt of it all. Similarly, Family Planning Association of Nepal’s (FPAN) clinic for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was halted after the media spread misinformation and attributed deaths to HRT.

In this context, BDS understands the importance of fighting misinformation, and that an educated public has the power to advocate for change. They are strongly promoting Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) that incorporates LGBTQI+ existence with the hope that the Nepali population can understand and respect the queer community from a young age and bring about change. Remarkably, BDS has managed to work with the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) of Nepal to successfully include a section on LGBTQI+ individuals in the curriculum of seventh graders (aged 12-13) . Another important aspect of guaranteeing that the public is being provided accurate information, is by ensuring journalists are equipped with knowledge. Many times, journalists cover queer issues with the best intentions but get things wrong due to a lack of factual background information. BDS is working with the media to sensitise journalists and help them cover LGBTQI+ issues in a meaningful manner.

BDS has come a long way from when it started more than two decades ago. Initially, Angel describes their approach as one-dimensional, with a focus on queerness and not much beyond that. Over time, the organisation has embraced an intersectional approach and become more mindful of how they could do better in terms of inclusion. Angel says that their partnership with CHOICE made BDS reflect on the fact that young people should be included in decision-making processes. BDS actively works on ensuring Meaningful and Inclusive Youth Participation (MIYP) and are strong proponents of embedding the youth into their organisational structure so that their diverse voices are heard.

On a similar note, they encountered Blind Youth Association Nepal (BYAN) in their work with RHRN, and ever since, they have been actively working to make their programs accessible to people with disabilities. RHRN has provided BDS the space to reflect and work within the intersection of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), CSE, disability inclusion, and queerness. Angel acknowledges that disability sensitisation programmes and the inclusion of young people and people with disabilities in the Board of BDS is only the beginning of BDS’ journey to creating an inclusive space.

Through BDS, Angel has thrown herself into this world of advocacy and is at the forefront of the queer rights movement in Nepal. In her personal life, she encounters challenges such as acquiring a citizenship document in accordance with her gender identity which leads to hurdles in accessing necessities such as acquiring a bank account or taking out insurance. Angel lists her perplexing problems but manages to also focus on the positives of being trans in Nepal and says, “I can express myself freely. The laws and policies don’t punish you and it isn’t illegal to be gay.”

Even then, there is a discrepancy between law and reality, and societal stigma persists, which is why Angel is working relentlessly to ensure policies that accommodate queer needs. Her own tribulation of finding a queer-friendly college led her to seek out trans people that were out and pursuing higher education. Despite her vast network and efforts, she merely managed to find two. Angel is the only trans woman studying at Kanti and Kunja International College, which fills her with pride, but leads her to contemplate whether other trans individuals have gotten the same access to education that she has. Her bachelor's in social work thesis is on the barriers that trans Nepali people face in accessing education, and she hopes to use this research as a starting point to discover more and ultimately influence policies that can remove barriers to education.

From wishing that she would fall asleep and wake up as a woman when she was a “naive young child,” Angel has come a long way. Her next big project is Eco Warriors Nepal- an initiative devoted to ensuring that conversations about climate change incorporate marginalised voices. She feels that one of the most important things for the future of Nepal’s queer community is to create a new generation of youth leaders that can shape policies. For now, Angel is working relentlessly to acquire skills so she can actively contribute to positive change in Nepal, and she hopes to one day be a bridge between BDS and the rest of the world.