Nepal’s newly elected government has created a new ministerial position which includes serving the LGBTQ+ community. The recently elected government has been restructuring, and Hon. Sita Badi was appointed as Minister for Women, Children, Gender and Sexual Minorities, and Social Security for Nepal. 

The role is the result of a merging of other roles, including the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens with Labour, Employment and Social Security. With the addition of representation for gender and sexual minorities, this is the first ministry in Nepal to explicitly recognise LGBTQ+ people.

LGBTQ+ rights organisation Blue Diamond Society welcomed the appointment in a statement, saying: “We celebrate this important achievement and are encouraged to see our issues formally recognised within a government ministry’s name and mandate. This marks an important step toward meaningful inclusion.”

Nepal has been a leader of civil rights on certain issues, legally recognising a third gender for trans and non-binary people since 2007 and allowing citizens to have this gender marker on their passports and citizenship certificates. However, while same-sex marriages have been legal in Nepal since 2023, same-sex married couples do not have the same rights as heterosexual married couples.

Furthermore, there have been issues around legal gender recognition for some trans people. Specifically, the law still requires invasive medical assessments and surgery for those wishing to change their gender marker from ‘M’ to ‘F’ and vice versa. This has led to a series of suits by a transgender woman, Rukshana Kapali, against the Nepalese government in 2024, and the Supreme Court ruled in her favour.

This newly elected government comes in the wake of anti-corruption protests last year, known as the 2025 Nepalese Gen Z protests, which led to the resignation of the former Prime Minister of Nepal, KP Sharma Oli.

The National Independent Party was elected in March, making Balendra Shah Nepal’s new Prime Minister and the youngest head of state in the world. Shah was previously mayor of Kathmandu and, similar to the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, was also previously a rapper.

Another first for Nepal was the election of a transgender lawmaker, Bhumika Shrestha. Shreshta advocated for the formation of the new ministry, specifically highlighting gender minorities.

Badi, the newly appointed minister for gender and sexual minorities in Nepal, celebrated International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia as one of her first acts as minister.

 

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