KATHMANDU, NEPAL — Tina Rai paints her lips red. It’s the final touch. After her morning makeup routine, which hasn’t changed in 20 years, she will wait for customers near Ratna Park, popular with sex workers, in the heart of Kathmandu.
In addition to being a sex worker, Rai is also a makeup artist, but she no longer works in that field. She would like to open a beauty salon, but a lack of proper documentation complicates things. Although Rai is a trans woman, her citizenship certificate identifies her as a man.
The certificate, issued at age 16, is a crucial legal document that establishes Nepali citizenship and allows citizens to access public services and obtain other documents, such as driving licenses and passports. Since Rai’s was issued before she came out, it bears her birth name and gender, which means that she struggles to access services.
By law, Rai is entitled to an updated citizenship certificate that accurately reflects her gender.
In 2007, Nepal’s Supreme Court mandated the government to issue sexual and gender minorities, including transgender people, with identity documents that reflect their preferred gender. The ruling also recognized a “third gender,” a broad category for people who do not identify as male or female or do not perform or present as the gender assigned to them at birth. Gender, according to the ruling, is based on self-feeling, and “other individuals, society, the state or law are not the appropriate ones to decide as to what type of genital s/he should have.”
Nevertheless, trans people like Rai say they continue to face significant barriers to proper identification.
Officials sometimes impose invasive and humiliating medical procedures to confirm that their sex matches their gender, they say, although the law doesn’t require this. Sources who spoke to Global Press Journal say that to overcome these barriers, they have had to undergo gender-affirmation surgeries that are inaccessible in Nepal, partly because the law is unclear, forcing them to travel abroad at a high personal cost.
Even after surgery, a citizenship certificate with the correct information isn’t guaranteed. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, government officials sometimes base their decisions on stereotypes and assumptions, and issue documents with wrong names or genders. As a result, trans people struggle to access public services and other legal documents, which often strains their mental health.
Rai tried unsuccessfully to amend her citizenship certificate for a year. Toward the end of 2019, she traveled to Delhi, India, for gender-affirming surgery. Although no government official had explicitly told her that she required surgery, she knew of the hurdles and had seen a few friends successfully obtain citizenship certificates after undergoing surgery.
The surgery, she says, cost her life savings — about 800,000 Nepali rupees (6,000 United States dollars).
After six months, she traveled back to Kathmandu and went to a government hospital, where she says a doctor instructed her to stand naked in front of him to confirm that her gender matched her sex. “[I] did not feel anything standing naked in front of the doctor,” she says. “I wanted a citizenship [certificate] with my identity. Necessity forces people to do all kinds of work.”
A medical board issued Rai a certificate confirming the surgery, and her ward recommended that she be issued a citizenship certificate under a female name. But when Rai went to the district administrative office in Kathmandu, which issues citizenship certificates, she says an officer refused to enforce the law and denied her application, telling her to follow up with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“One needs [a citizenship certificate] to go even to the Ministry of Home Affairs,” she says. “When I call, they say that it is in the process and cut the phone.”
Since she is a woman, with a citizenship certificate that identifies her as a man, she says she has trouble accessing services. For example, she is yet to get a passport and has had trouble opening a beauty salon.
“My bank account [is] under a male name,” she says. “When that name is called loudly, the people around look in shock. My self-confidence drops to zero. I am ashamed of my former name. If I had a [woman’s] citizenship [certificate], I would feel confident.”
A process fraught with challenges
Sujan Pant, an LGBTQ+ rights advocate in Nepal, says processing citizenship certificates for transgender people depends on the leniency of the government officer. “If the government officer is compassionate,” he says, “then it is easy.”
According to data from the Ministry of Home Affairs since the 2007 court ruling, district administrative officers have issued citizenship certificates to 1,405 people under the “other” category and classified 188 as “third gender.” (Even though the third gender is recognized as a gender marker, it is not an official category; “other” encompasses the third gender in legal documents. However, officials sometimes erroneously categorize people as third gender.)
The problem, says Pinky Gurung, the president of Blue Diamond Society, an organization that works for the rights of sexual and gender minorities, is the haphazard interpretation of the law. “When someone goes to get their citizenship [certificate], the government officer interprets [the constitution] in their own way,” she says.
Bhumika Shrestha, an activist and trans woman, says the journey to update her citizenship certificate details was marked by several attempts and mistakes. She was issued the wrong certificate twice, she says, first with her deadname and then with the wrong gender. The first time she tried to update her citizenship certificate was before the Supreme Court’s decision in 2007, at the district administrative office in Kathmandu. A government officer told her to remove her nose ring, cut her hair, and put on men’s clothes and a hat, she says. She needed a citizenship certificate to match her gender, so she went through with it.
Although the district administrative office issued her a new one, it was under a male name. It also identified her as a man.
Shrestha says it was challenging to receive government services because of the mismatch between her appearance and her documentation. “When I show my citizenship, they say, ‘This is not your citizenship [certificate].’”
In 2015, she started the process of correcting her details again. She was issued a certificate that declared her as belonging to the “other” gender category, but it retained the male name because she had not undergone gender-affirming surgery. “I was questioned every time,” she says.
The 36-year-old says that in 2019, she traveled to India for surgery and returned to Nepal to try again. “The doctor looked at every part of my body. What kind of system is this that makes us beg while naked to receive citizenship?” she says. “We are also citizens of this country.”
The medical board gave her a recommendation to proceed with her application. Normally, district officers under the Ministry of Home Affairs issue citizenship certificates, but at times, the local body advances cases to the council of ministers, an executive body of the federal government. “The cabinet of ministers decided on my case quickly because people recognize me as an activist,” Shrestha says.
She finally received a citizenship certificate with her preferred name, but her gender was wrong — again. The certificate categorized her as a woman, not “other,” as she preferred. “The Nepal government’s disregard of the Supreme Court’s directive and law is an unfortunate thing for us,” Shrestha says.
A step forward
Narayan Prasad Bhattarai is the spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs. He says that it’s a big step for the government to provide citizenship certificates for gender minorities. He worries that critics are focusing only on what isn’t working. “Nepal is at an experimental phase for citizenship based on identity,” he says. “We need to keep on successfully implementing and [discuss] if there are problems.”
Bhattarai denies that the government puts transgender people in a position where they are forced to undergo gender-affirming surgery. “Not everyone has been sent for medical examination,” he adds. “One cannot generalize based on exceptions.”
A 2012 Ministry of Home Affairs directive stipulates that a government official can “conduct a necessary investigation” while processing an application for citizenship based on gender identity, but the directive is vague on whether that includes medical examinations.
Bhattarai says that the Citizenship Act gives the chief district officer the discretion to determine whether someone is a Nepali citizen, and that officials conduct these investigations with consent and in a way that ensures dignity.
Inaccessible and complicated surgeries
Lack of access to gender-affirming surgery compounds the situation. Dr. Jayan Man Shrestha, a plastic surgeon at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, says it’s difficult to perform this kind of surgery in Nepal, as the law is not clear on whether it’s permitted. Pant agrees, adding that while there have been no instances of people penalized for performing gender-affirming surgeries, their legality remains ambiguous.
Not all trans people want or are ready for gender-affirming surgeries. Rubina Tamang, a trans woman, is not prepared, financially or mentally, to undergo surgery. In February, she went to the district administration office in Babermahal, Kathmandu, to apply for a citizenship certificate that reflects her chosen female name and has “other” as her gender identity marker. Officials told her that without surgery, she would receive a citizenship certificate with the “other” gender marker — but under her male name.
Because her documents are in her deadname, she has had issues in college. Her exams are approaching, she says, and she will have to prove her identity. “I have a strong desire to continue my studies if only my citizenship is issued in my female name.”
Sarita KC, the executive director of Mitini Nepal, a nonprofit for sex and gender minorities, believes that trans people should file lawsuits against government officials who require certificates confirming surgery. “How will a person manage to fund surgery in another country?” she says. “Especially when the rate of poverty is higher in this community than in others.”
For now, Gurung says Blue Diamond Society has helped about 500 people apply for identification documents that match their chosen identities.
Rai hopes that after she receives her citizenship certificate, she will finally be able to open a salon and teach makeup arts to members of her community. But she worries about the time she’s lost.
“Who in the government made it so difficult for us to get citizenship?” she wonders. “I want to question [them] when I meet them.”
