Rukshana Kapali, a transgender woman and activist, who has filed a Supreme Court writ against the methodology, said the census was “problematic” and “cannot capture the real data of the LGBTQ community in Nepal”.
Rights groups say LGBTQ people have also been scared to identify themselves in the past but they are encouraging them to be more open this time.
“We are counting the population with the ‘others’ category as part of our commitments toward gender equality,” Dhundi Raj Lamichhane, director at the statistics bureau’s population section, told AFP.
“We have worked with members of LGBTQ organizations this time and hope for a more reflective output to publish.”
Discussion about this post