Nepal holds its first Pride since Trump cut foreign aid funding
LGBTQ+ supporters and allies attended Nepal’s Pride parade 2025. (PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP) (Photo by PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP via Getty Images)
LGBTQ+ supporters and allies attended Nepal's Pride parade 2025. (PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP) (Photo by PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP via Getty Images)
Nepal has held its first Pride since President Donald Trump cut foreign aid funding. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ people and allies rallied in support of the queer community at Nepal’s Pride parade 2025.
During the annual Gai Jatra festival in the capital of Kathmandu, which honours relatives passed away throughout the year, the LGBTQ+ community and allies came together as part of Nepal Pride 2025 to advocate for queer rights.
Hundreds of people attended the event on Sunday (10 August), holding Pride, Trans Pride, Lesbian Pride and Asexual Pride flags, while signs proclaimed, “Pride for all intersectional queer identities”, “Transgender men are men”, and “Transgender women are women”. A large Progress Pride flag was also carried down the street by a group of people attending the event.
The country’s LGBTQ+ community has, in particular, been hit by Trump’s cuts to foreign aid, which saw over 80 per cent of USAID programs being cancelled as of March this year.
Many help centres for Nepal’s LGBTQ+ community have remained closed since USAID was dismantled, leaving thousands without support, as per the Independent. The organisation partnered with local help centres to roll out HIV prevention and care and safe sex counselling.
Funds from USAID were said to be “vital” for the day-to-day operation of the centres and clinics, which helped distribute free condoms, sexual health screenings, and follow-up treatment for people living with HIV. The USAID office in Nepal is currently closed.
Cuts also affected LGBTQ+-inclusive programs in India and the UK.
In 2023, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage could be legally registered. Last year, a lesbian couple made history as the first sapphic pair to have their marriage recognised in Nepal.
Nepal is the second Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, following Taiwan, whose parliament passed a law to legalise equality in 2019.
Thailand became the third country in Asia to honour marriage equality this year, and the first in Southeast Asia.
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