KATHMANDU, NEPAL – In a residential area of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, neighbors are unaware of what goes on inside this three-story building. Neighbors stare at the men, often dressed in women’s clothing and makeup, as they disappear inside.
The building is a hospice center for HIV-infected men who have sex with men, MSM, and “meti,” the term for transgender or “third gender” people here. Blue Diamond Society, BDS, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex Nepalis, runs the center to provide services for the most critical cases.
“Third gender people are often disliked by the society,” says Dibya Gurung, one of the residents at the facility. “Due to the fear of discrimination, we often don’t come out as HIV-infected.”
Gurung, who is infected with HIV, comes from Tanahu, a district about 150 kilometers west of Kathmandu.
He wears a green vest and a sarong-like cloth called a “lungi.” With pink bangles around his wrists, red beads around his neck, his nose pierced, his ears decked with gold earrings and his eyebrows neatly threaded, the 32-year-old looks like a woman. His mannerisms and the way he talks are also feminine.
Although he has a man’s body, Gurung says he leads a feminine life. Because of this, he says he often has had to face social ridicule.
Growing up, he says that he liked sitting with the girls in school. But teachers disapproved, as girls and boys do not sit next to each other in most of Nepal’s schools. Because of this lack of acceptance, Gurung dropped out of school after the fifth grade.
Gurung says that he faced opposition at home, too. Unlike boys his age, he preferred to do household chores and wanted to wear his mother’s and sister’s clothes. Gurung’s family started to resent him, eventually forcing him to move to Pokhara, a tourist town in central Nepal, and work as a dishwasher.
“Though I’m born as a man, I’m trying to live as a woman,” a tearful Gurung says. “It’s actually a very tough job.”
Born as Nandu Lal Gurung, he changed his first name when he got older to Dibya, a unisex name that is popular mostly among women here. In Pokhara, he says he met a man named Manoj Thapa and soon fell in love with him.
After their relationship developed, Gurung says that Thapa told him that Nepali society didn’t respect people from the third gender and asked him to elope in India. He lured Gurung with the prospects of a good job and a better life in Mumbai, India’s largest city, which is notorious for human trafficking and prostitution.
With a dream of getting married and meeting other transgender people, Gurung traveled to Mumbai via the border town of Sunauli. Upon arrival, Thapa introduced him to the “aunties” in the brothel area for transgender people in Kamatipur, Mumbai’s infamous red-light district.
Gurung says he was happy to see people like him in the area. But in no time, he realized that the man of his dreams had sold him into the sex market.
“Manoj had actually duped me and sold me [to the brothel],” Gurung says.
Initially, Gurung worked in the hotel that the brothel owners operated. But two months later, they forced him into sex slavery. When he resisted, they forcefully restrained him, physically tormented him, and allowed four or five men to rape him.
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