Nepal’s transgender activist Bhumika Shrestha receives international recognition
towleroad.comreceived the 2022 International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award from the US government. The award is given to women around the world who promote women’s rights and have shown leadership, courage, and willingness to sacrifice for others.
For the last fifteen years, Shrestha has been working to address the challenges of the transgender community of Nepal. Whether it’s leading a conversation about queer citizenship rights with the government or fighting for dignity and rights, Bhumika Shrestha has been stepping forward as a change agent since 2007.Born as a boyShrestha was born as a boy in a middle-class family in Nepal.
Despite being assigned male at birth, she always felt like a girl since childhood. Trapped between her body and soul, she faced a lot of criticism for her feminine characteristics.
In 2019 she talked about these early challenges in a video for the Storytellers community:She was [1] (excerpt translated from Nepali) “told to cut her hair short, sit with the boys, talk in a hoarse voice and tease the girls, which often confused her.
