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KATHMANDU, JULY 06
Every now and then, we see a debate on gender-based issues in Nepali society. Women complain about the violation of their rights.
Swarms of people run movements to make sure their rights and demands are not overlooked. Feminists across the nation wave the flag of feminism, protesting against patriarchy and demanding equality.
Activists spill onto the streets to fight against the wicked system. But there is a group of people whose voice is seldom taken into account. They go largely unnoticed. Nobody sees their pain. Nobody sings their songs.
I'm not talking about the Dalits or any other ethnic group.
I'm talking about that marginalised group that is oppressed for what they are. While filling up the official forms, you might have seen three options when it comes to choosing a gender.
Have you ever thought of that 'other' gender? The term people use to indicate that 'other' is gay, but it means more than that. There is diversity even between homosexual people, but very few people know about it.
For many people, homosexuality is something out of this world. Every human should at least be aware about people's sexual identity and orientation.
We should have knowledge about this matter to make the lives of queer people less miserable.
There's a term called LGBTQ, which is used to generalise those people of a homosexual nature. LGBTQ is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. So those we simply label 'gay' might be quite different from our perception as all homosexuals have a unique identity. If we understand all these identities, it will help the community to live more comfortably.
A lesbian is a woman who is interested in other women. We are quite familiar with the term 'gay'. It refers to men who are interested in other men only.
Similarly, a person who is emotionally or sexually attracted to more than one gender is termed as a bisexual. 'T' in LG- BTQ stands for transgender. A transgender shows behaviour or desires that do not match the sex they were assigned to at birth. If someone were to be born with male sex organs, but developed a desire to dress and behave like women while growing up, such a person would be identified as a transgender person.
The last letter 'Q' in LG- BTQ refers to all the homosexual people. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender all fall under the group of queer people.
Queer people are struggling on their own, but by developing knowledge about them, we can narrow the bridge between heterosexual and homosexual people. First of all, we are humans regardless of gender.
Whatever the sexuality, we all should have the liberty to live the life of our choice.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 7 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
