I'm starting a new project on transgender rights in Nepal. I'm very interested in the decisions in Nepal that have led to an official "third gender" category on Nepali IDs, and the resulting legal protections.
In doing some quick searches on the UNDP's website about transgender rights, I'm struck by the fact that nearly every document I've found refers to transgender people and HIV/AIDS. This surprises me a little, since my experience looking at transgender "hijra" in India suggests that UNDP and other agencies are interested in far more than HIV/AIDS issues when discussing these groups. They also feel that there is a basic human rights and inclusivity issue; these are people who are historically discriminated against and excluded from regular society, and protecting their rights is an element of development in an HRBA system.
On the other hand, this is consistent with a lot of my other research on rights, where I see the reluctance of UN agencies to admit that they want to promote rights for rights' sake. Thus women's rights are important because women make up so much human capital; indigenous peoples' rights are important because of their knowledge of sustainable land use policies; etc. So I assume that the promoting of LGBT rights with the justification that this helps prevent the spread of AIDS, is a similar smokescreen at least in some situations; a way of making a "practical" justification for a larger rights issue. I hope that's the case, anyway, as it would suggest a real commitment to LGBT rights for their own sake, like the one I saw in India, is spreading to other countries as well.
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