The scant academic work on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community of Nepal concentrates on the LGBT movement, their legal status after the recognition of Transgender people as the ‘third gender’ by the Supreme Court and considerations to recognise same-sex marriage. This acknowledgement is considered historic for the community, ideally paving the way for greater social acceptance. Research in many parts of the world have shown that the LGBTs are still excluded and hidden from the social sphere, and ‘coming out’ can be a decision fraught with lasting emotional, physical, social challenges for the LGBT persons and their families.
The exclusion starts within the most intimate aspect of people’s lives: their families. Past studies have disclosed that parents tend to react in a negative fashion upon the disclosure about the child’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Theorists state that talking about sex and sexuality are taken as a taboo in many societies; when societies accept only the sexual relations between two ‘legitimate’ heterosexuals, it is of a great affliction for the families to accept the fact that their ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ is not heterosexual. The paper digs deeper into these negative reactions and seek out the various nuances to these reactions within the context of homophobia and heterosexism.
With eleven in-depth interviews with the LGBTs, their families, and key informants, the paper focuses on identifying and analysing the drivers influencing the parents’ reaction and the impact it has on the LGBT child’s existence in the predominantly heterosexual milieu of society. Some LGBT people have been fortunate to be supported by their parents to identify themselves as a sexual minority; but majority of them have had a lonely existence or form their community for greater support. Among the parents, the reactions vary in a continuum of total disownment to considering the alternative sexuality as just a ‘phase’ to understanding. The paper argues thatfear and ignorance of the individuals, sexual stigma and disapproval at the societal level continues to brand LGBTs as an unnatural way to be, thereby hamperingthe process of acceptance in the family.
Keywords: LGBT, Nepal, parents, homosexuality, being-transgender, non-heterosexuality