Nepal’s LGBTQ community celebrates first transgender woman lawmaker

2026.03.16 15:20 Bhumika Shrestha, Nepal’s first transgender woman to become a member of parliament, is congratulated by members of the LGBTQ community in Kathmandu on Monday. Photo: EPA Draped in garlands, Bhumika Shrestha on Monday became Nepal’s first transgender woman lawmaker, marking a proud milestone for the marginalised community in the Himalayan nation. Nepal’s Election Commission confirmed the 37-year-old as a proportional representation MP from the centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won a majority in parliament with 182 seats last week. “I am very excited but also feel the responsibility on my shoulders,” said Shrestha, an LGBTQ rights advocate. “Our constitution has provisions for our community but they have not translated to laws and policies. Our community expects me to raise our issues [in parliament].” Bhumika Shrestha receives garlands from other LGBTQ members at a Blue Diamond Society event on Monday. Photo: AP Shrestha will sit in the 275-member House of Representatives elected on March 5, the first poll since the deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government in September last year. RSP, led by rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, won 125 of 165 directly elected seats and secured 57 more through proportional representation, leaving it just two short of a two-thirds majority. Umisha Pandey, president of the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), a leading LGBTQ rights group, called Shrestha’s election a “historic” moment. “Our pains, our sufferings, our feelings, our stories and our every problem is only understood by us, not by others,” said Pandey. Supporters gathered at the BDS office in Kathmandu to congratulate Shrestha, offering her scarves, flowers and gifts, including a pen symbolising the legislative power she will now wield. Nepal has some of South Asia’s most progressive laws on LGBTQ rights. It outlawed discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation in 2007. A third-gender category for citizenship documents was introd

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