GLR November-December 2025

GUEST OPINION

Reclaiming Nepal’s Six-Gender Heritage S UNIL B ABU P ANT I N THE BUSTLING Kathmandu Valley, nestled among an cient shrines and crumbling stupas, lie quiet but potent tes taments to a forgotten truth. Long before the rise of Western gender vocabularies or activist hashtags, Nepal recognized not two, but six—or even seven—distinct gender identities. This legacy, now largely eclipsed by patriarchy and colonial moder nity, is at the heart of my 2024 documentary Ajima and 6 Gen ders . The film explores Nepal’s matriarchal and Tantric past through the figures of Ajimas, grandmother goddesses still revered in many Newar households. An Ajima is not only a symbol of protection, wisdom, and fertility; she is also the spir itual gatekeeper to a worldview in which gender diversity was not just accepted—it was sacred.

a deeper tension in Nepal’s evolving gender discourse. The slo gan “trans women are women,” seeks to affirm trans dignity, but it also underscores the straitjacket of binary thinking. Why must someone become a man or a woman to be valid? In Indigenous and Asian cultures, including Nepal’s Tantric tradition, there was no compulsion to “transition” into a binary category. A person with third-nature qualities was considered whole, not in need of fixing, correction, or reclassification. So when we chant, “Trans women are women,” are we protecting dignity—or prescribing conformity? Nepal doesn’t need more inclusion in Western frameworks. We need to dismantle those frameworks and rebuild from our own ancestral blueprints. That means: funding Ropain Jatra as a form of gender liberation and diversity; recognizing Ajima temples and third-gender shrines as sacred sites of gender mul tiplicity; and highlighting rituals, oral histories, and sacred ar chitecture that affirm six or more genders—not just two. Pride is not a product. It is a practice. When I see young people dancing barefoot in the rice paddies during Ropain Jatra—some wearing fariya (a calf-length sari worn by hill women), others in kachchhad (a traditional male wrap), and some in both—I don’t see borrowed queerness. I see ancestral courage. I see Ajima smiling from her shrine. Sunil Babu Pant is the founder of The Blue Diamond Society and ex ecutive director of MayaKo Pahichan Nepal. A POWERFUL STORY OF LOVE, LOSS, AND SURVIVAL STONEWALL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE

Rooted in Tantric philosophy, the Ajima tradition celebrates feminine creative power and reveres the vulva as a divine life giving force. Tantric temple architecture often features sym bolic triangular doorways or yonic (vulva-shaped) imagery, explicitly honoring the divine feminine. More crucially, Tantra recognized multiple distinct gender expressions, including those of woman-nature, man-nature, and multiple third-nature forms—people embodying fluid or composite expressions of gender. Gender was not assigned at birth. It was acknowl edged—through ritual, communal recognition, and spiritual alignment—during adolescence or early adulthood. To honor this lineage, for the past two years the non-gov ernmental organization MayaKo Pahichan Nepal, where I am executive director, has reimagined Ropain Jatra, Nepal’s mon soon rice-planting festival, as a joyfully indigenous celebra tion of gender diversity. This year’s celebration brought together more than 100 gender and sexual minority commu nity members and allies. Yet as we reclaim this heritage, we confront a troubling contradiction. International donor agencies, Western em bassies, and international NGO’s overwhelmingly promote Western LGBT frameworks—drag shows, hormone clinics, pride parades, rainbow branding—while largely ignoring in digenous gender expressions and spiritual cosmologies. Today, Nepal’s legal recognition of gender identities is in disarray—partly because of these tensions between local con cepts and Western expectations. Looking only at people as signed male at birth, the contradictions are stark: • Many who haven’t medically transitioned are legally recog nized as men. • About 2,000 have acquired legal identification marked “other” (our third-gender category), most without gender-af firming surgery. while fewer than 100 have undergone medical transition and hold ID as “other.” • Some are legally recognized as women post-transition, while others—without medically transitioning—hold female IDs. This legal mosaic reflects both the cultural recognition of third-gender identities and the Western trans model—applied simultaneously and inconsistently to similar populations. The result is administrative confusion. These contradictions reflect

Before Pride, there was pain. Jack Cooper’s Pain Before the Rainbow reveals the haunting realities faced by gay men in the 1970s—and the courage that shaped queer survival. Beautiful, raw, and unforgettable, these stories remind us why visibility and freedom matter today.

“Courageous and insightful.”

— ELIZABETH ANN ATKINS

“Uplifting and unforgettable.”

— GLENN E. KAKELY

November–December 2025

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