Nepal has become the most recent country to legally recognise more than two genders on official documents. Monica Shahi made history as the first Nepali person to have their passport marked ‘O’ for ‘other’ rather than the traditional ‘F’ for ‘female’ or ‘M’ for ‘male’. This acknowledgement of gender identity is the result of years of activism on the part of the LGBTI community in Nepal pushing for a more flexible system of gender identification. In addition to citizenship documents, Nepali activists have succeeded in adding a third category to the federal census and public bathrooms.
Since the dissolution of its monarchy in 2007, Nepal has become one of the most progressive countries in South Asia for LGBTI rights. The official recognition of a third gender follows a Supreme Court decision of 2007 which ruled that gender should be assigned on a “self-feeling” basis. The Court held that this was necessary in order to uphold the dual rights to privacy and self-determination guaranteed by international human rights instruments.
As evidenced by the recently enacted Gender Recognition Act 2015, the definitive global trend is towards recognising, both socially and legally, a person’s chosen gender where this differs from their sex assigned at birth. However, there is still only a very limited list of countries that go one step further, recognising gender identities outside the male-female binary. These include Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Malta, New Zealand, Australia, and now, Nepal.
Click here for 2007 Supreme Court judgement.