At least 1,500 members of the LGBT community in Nepal have changed their gender on official documents.
Following a historic court ruling in 2007, Nepal implemented one of the world’s most progressive gender identity policies in the world. Nepal prohibited discrimination and allowed self-identification of gender. It also recognized a third ‘other’ gender’. Pahichan reports about 1,300 people have now chosen to list as Other (O) in the gender section, citing the home affairs ministry. ‘All citizens have right to get citizenship as per their gender identity and citizenship is not provided on the basis of body structure,’ said Ram Krishna Subedi, Spokesperson at Ministry of Home Affairs.