Landmark marriage brings joy for same-sex couples

The dancing continued until the early hours. Family and friends and Suru the dog gathered in western Nepal to mark the joyful end to what had been a historic day for Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey.

- Rojita Adhikari

Last Wednesday, they became the first same-sex couple in South Asia to have their marriage legally recognized.

"Finally we are completely together, finally we are completely each other's, finally we can perform each other's funeral if we die tomorrow," Gurung, 37, a transgender woman, said as the couple sat in the register office in rural Dordi municipality, where she was born.

"Yes, we won it, we did it. We can have a beautiful future now," said Pandey, 27, a cis-man.

Six months ago, Nepal's supreme court issued an interim order directing the government to create a separate register for marriage between same-sex and transgender people until marriage legislation could be amended. In 2007, the court ordered the government to look into law changes to allow samesex marriages, which are allowed in the constitution. However, successive governments failed to bring legislation before parliament.

The supreme court ruling in June prompted huge celebrations among the LGBTQ+ community in Nepal.

However, for Gurung and Pandey, who had a Hindu wedding ceremony in 2017, it proved short-lived: they faced significant legal hurdles and opposition to get their marriage recognised.