This Time, Female Couple Registers Marriage in Nepal, 'First in South Asia'

In November Last Year, a Male Couple Registered Their Marriage

About three months after a male couple became the first same-sex couple to register their marriage in South Asia, a female couple has now also gotten married. This is also a first in South Asia.

On the 15th (local time), Spanish news agency EFE reported that 33-year-old Dipti Shrestha and Suprita Gurung, who are the same age, recently registered their marriage and received a certificate in Jamuni village in western Nepal.

LGBTQ+ pride parade held in Kathmandu, Nepal in August 2019.
[Photo by EPA/ Yonhap News]

Sunil Babu Pant, a former lawmaker and LGBTQ rights activist, said the couple has been in a relationship for over five years and received their certificate a few weeks after applying for marriage registration.

On November 30 last year, Nepal saw its first same-sex couple get married. LGBTQ couple Maya Gurung (41) and Surendra Pandey (27) registered their marriage and received a marriage certificate at the Dorje village office in the Lamjung area west of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. Gurung and Pandey had held a private wedding ceremony in 2017 and have lived together since. Gurung is a transgender woman, but her legal gender has not yet been changed, so she is registered as male. Pandey is also male, so both are legally the same gender. This means their marriage is legally recognized as a same-sex marriage.

Maya Gurung (right) and Surendra Pandey participating in the LGBTQ+ march held in Kathmandu on August 31 [Photo by AFP/Yonhap News]

Nepal passed a reform bill in 2007 prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. In 2013, a third gender category was introduced on citizenship documents, and two years later, passports with this category began to be issued. In 2015, a constitutional amendment was enacted to prohibit discrimination against sexual minorities.

However, since the Nepalese parliament has not amended marriage-related laws, the government repeatedly rejected same-sex marriage applications. When this couple registered their marriage, former lawmaker Sunil Babu Pant, who was present, described the event as "a historic achievement after 23 years of struggle for marriage equality." Pant also urged progressive measures, stating, "Despite Nepal authorities’ progressive actions, some local governments are still refusing to register the marriages of over 200 same-sex couples."

Currently, it is known that about 900,000 sexual minorities in Nepal face discrimination in employment, healthcare, education, and other areas.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.