Is Nepal Ready for Marriage Equality?

KATHMANDU, Nepal—After years of hiding their relationship, Jeshika Gautam and Samjhana Bishwakarma now openly live together as a lesbian couple in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. Despite familial disapproval, the pair, both in their 20s, say the gradual shift in social attitudes and the country’s progressive LGBTQ laws encouraged them to declare their love publicly. Now, after dating for five years, they’re ready to marry.

But Nepal has yet to recognize same-sex marriage, 15 years after the country’s Supreme Court granted equal rights as other citizens to people of sexual minorities and ordered the government to form a study committee on marriage equality. Now, a petition at the court is demanding marriage equality by challenging the country’s 2017 Civil Code, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Petitioners are asking for an amendment saying marriage should occur between two individuals of undefined gender, which would pave the way for same-sex unions.

The hearing for the case, initiated by Mitini Nepal—a nonprofit working for the rights of the lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community—alongside its president, executive director, and others, was scheduled for Wednesday, May 31. But it has now been postponed to Nov. 8.

“It’s been a long battle,” Gautam told Foreign Policy. “We want the same rights and equality as other couples. We want to get married.”

Nepal is touted as a leader in LGBTQ rights in the region, thanks to the landmark 2007 case—which was cited by India’s Supreme Court when scrapping India’s colonial-era anti-gay law in 2018—and its new republican constitution, passed in 2015, which is among the handful of pro-LGBTQ constitutions in the world. The 2007 case was the result of onerous advocacy and legal battle by LGBTQ activists and nonprofits, such as the Blue Diamond Society, a group founded in 2001 to advocate against the country’s discriminatory laws.

Thanks to these efforts, the Supreme Court, in a remarkable decision for the time, heralded a new chapter for LGBTQ Nepalis, saying in 2007 that the community was being denied fundamental human rights and should be guaranteed equal rights in the upcoming constitution.

The Himalayan nation now has provisions to identify as “other” instead of male or female on citizenship ID and passport, though transgender activists say it’s still a daunting task. In 2021, Nepal added the third gender category to its census for the first time. But while many of Nepal’s LGBTQ rights laws are progressive on paper, rights advocates say implementation hasn’t been on par with the promises.

A week before last month’s scheduled court hearing date, Sarita KC, executive director of Mitini Nepal, told Foreign Policy that the petition against the Nepal government wasn’t just about demanding marriage equality but also about securing LGBTQ citizens’ safety and security, from parenthood to inheritance to insurance-related rights. KC, along with her nonprofit and its president Laxmi Ghalan, petitioned against Nepal’s Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers; Ministry of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs; and Federal Parliament Secretariat. Responding in January to the court’s show cause order, all three government bodies separately wrote, in documents seen by Foreign Policy, that the constitution guarantees equal protection for LGBTQ people and that the petition to amend marriage law in the Civil Code should be annulled.

“Even though the constitution guarantees it, we have yet to be equals,” KC said. “We just want people from this community to be able to marry whom they want, start a family, and have all the rights just like heterosexual couples.”

Activists say legalizing same-sex marriage in Nepal is just a matter of time, though it’s taking longer than expected. The same-sex marriage study committee formed after the 2007 decision submitted a report recommending the government act in 2015. The detailed report suggested the government remove legal provisions allowing only a man and a woman to marry and “embrace the norm that marriage can occur between two persons, and … grant legal recognition to same-sex marriage on the basis of the principle of equality.”

Today, the signs from the court itself are good, given it has also acknowledged the validity of same-sex relationships in multiple cases. Nepal’s constitution has a provision for 20 justices, to be appointed by the country’s Judicial Council, to sit on the Supreme Court. There are currently 15 sitting justices, including Hari Prasad Phuyal, who represented the petitioners in the 2007 case and was a member of the same-sex marriage study committee.

In a 2012 case that granted cohabitation rights to a lesbian couple, the court said that “comprehensive measures consistent with the law and policy should be in place to address such relationships.” In a case this year, the Supreme Court also directed the government to recognize a same-sex couple—Adheep Pokhrel, a Nepali citizen, and his German partner, Tobias Volz, who had filed a petition against the Department of Immigration after Volz was denied a spousal visa despite a precedent from 2017. Phuyal was one of the justices in the case.

Nepali immigration officials asked for a local marriage certificate—the couple married in Germany in 2018—but Pokhrel and Volz couldn’t provide one, as the marriage registration form only had “husband” and “wife,” Pokhrel told Foreign Policy. They visited several government departments, where officials were “very positive and curious” about same-sex couples but also “confused and clueless” about the legal procedures, he said.

“It was very emotional from every sense and every angle,” Pokhrel said of the arduous process of securing his husband’s visa, which came through in April. “It’s unfortunate that my government or country doesn’t care about me. You feel very left out for being different. It makes you question the progress we have made.”

Sunil Babu Pant, a pioneer LGBTQ rights activist who founded the Blue Diamond Society and was Nepal’s first gay lawmaker in the country’s Constituent Assembly, knows the bureaucracy firsthand. Nepal has come a long way since the landmark 2007 Supreme Court case, which bears Pant’s name, and the country’s LGBTQ people are now more vocal than ever. Annual Pride marches have made community members more visible in public, and LGBTQ protagonists in Nepali and Hindi movies, which are immensely popular in the country, have brought those characters into the living rooms of many.

Pant himself released a movie titled Blue Flower this year that showcases the consequences of forced marriage on couples—something he says could largely be prevented if Nepal legalized same-sex marriage. But 15 years after Pant’s 2007 case and eight years after the submission of the report on same-sex marriage, Pant blames inadequate action from both the government and rights groups for the stalled progress on marriage equality.

“There is no skillful, persistent, and consistent lobbying for a country like Nepal that has a complex bureaucracy,” he told Foreign Policy. “No one [in the government] has prioritized this issue, and even the Supreme Court hasn’t asked why its orders haven’t been implemented.”

When asked about the holdup, Ram Hari Gaihre, who oversees LGBTQ issues at the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens, said the ministry had studied the same-sex marriage recommendation report and devised a “concept paper” accordingly. A February 2021 document seen by Foreign Policy shows the ministry seeking further clarification from four LGBTQ rights organizations, including Mitini Nepal, on topics including post-marital rights, marital rape, and other laws same-sex marriage might impact.

“We don’t have any record of the feedback and suggestions [from the rights organizations], so it’s pending,” Gaihre said. However, KC from Mitini Nepal blamed the ministry for not following up on the issue with the community members.

While Nepal initially emerged as a regional beacon for LGBTQ rights, many activists say it’s now slowing as other Asian countries catch up. Just a few years after decriminalizing homosexuality in 2018, India’s Supreme Court is soon to announce a decision on same-sex marriage petitions. In May alone, a district court in Nagoya, Japan, said preventing same-sex couples from marrying was unconstitutional; South Korean lawmakers sent a marriage equality bill to parliament; and Taiwan granted full adoption rights to same-sex couples, four years after legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said in its 2023 report that Nepal’s LGBTQ “legal progress has been exemplary for the region, but implementation had proven inconsistent.” Both KC and Pant agreed, saying that the absence of political representation had stalled policies, including on same-sex marriage. Nepal hasn’t seen an openly queer parliamentarian after Pant’s single tenure at the Constituent Assembly ended in 2012.

“One of the major roadblocks is that those in the government haven’t understood that marriage equality is the right of this community,” KC said. “LGBTI issues haven’t been the agenda of political parties—they haven’t taken it seriously. If [LGBTQ people] had our representation in the parliament, we could raise our rights and push for marriage equality. When the constitution has guaranteed us equal rights, we should have equal rights in every aspect—not just on paper but also in reality.”

Kumud Rana, a sociology lecturer at the Centre for Gender Studies at Lancaster University in the U.K., said that marriage equality was just one part of the struggle.

“Formulating and implementing laws following such directives has been an uphill battle, for instance on legal gender recognition for trans people,” said Rana, who did her Ph.D. on Nepal’s LGBTQ rights movement. “Marriage equality is but one of the many rights denied to LGBTI+ people.”

And that’s what many LGBTQ people want—equal rights in every aspect, including the right to marry their partners and start a family. But is society ready? Many activists say Nepali society has become increasingly accepting of LGBTQ people in the past decade, particularly in urban areas. Last month, prominent social and political commentator Deepak Thapa wrote, “Nepal has become a society much more accommodating of all kinds of differences than could ever be imagined earlier.” And in March, an earnest essay by a father—Pokhrel’s father—in the leading Nepali-language daily newspaper, Kantipur, on accepting his son and his son’s husband reached thousands of readers across the country.

But deeply rooted conservative values mean many Nepalis still see marriage as a union between a man and a woman—an important religious and social contract essential to continuing their lineage. Not everyone is ready to embrace same-sex relationships or marriage.

Bishwakarma, living in Kathmandu with Gautam, said her family in Sarlahi district, nearly 125 miles from the capital, has been against her relationship. She said they often tormented her mentally, while her father even abused her physically. Meanwhile, Gautam said her family members “understand” but don’t support same-sex relationships.

However, the pair wants their families and others to acknowledge their love and normalize such partnerships.

“We came out so we could inspire those still hiding, as we [were],” Gautam said. “They should know they’re not alone. As long as we hide, we’ll never be able to move forward.”

Bishwakarma added: “We just want to get married like everyone else … My family says society won’t accept. But if the government allows same-sex marriage, we’ll have legal rights. We can then say we’re equal and accepted.”