“My parents put pressure on me to marry. They threw me out of house three months ago after I refused to get married,” Arati Shrestha, 19, said. She is currently staying with Basu Bhatta of Prashansa Conservation Group in Mahendranagar.Born a boy, Shrestha started behaving like a girl when she grew up and has been facing discrimination from family and neighbors. It took a turn for the worse when she celebrated last Teej clad in a sari and dancing with other women.
“When my parents came to know that I was a third gender, they thrashed me calling me a eunuch. Others also joined in. Some started pulling my hair. Others started to take off my sari. Even my kid brother called me a eunuch,” she recalled.
Shrestha still has bruises all over her body. “I can´t move my head. I never thought that my parents would turn so violent against me,” she said.
Shrestha, who received citizenship certificate as a boy two years back, is the second among six siblings. “I am the only third gender among the six,” she revealed. She said she sold ice-cream for some time and went to Dhangadi with Rs 300 saved from the business.
“Hotel operators in Dhangadhi also misbehaved with me,” she complained. Bhatta, who had been to Dhangadhi for the Far Western Festival, brought her to Mahendranagar after hearing her plight.
Program coordinator of Prashansa Conservation Group Ishwar Raj Panta said people in the west hills were far more hostile toward third gender than in the east and urged the government to make arrangements for the ostracized group.
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