Belonging to the proud LGBTIQ+ community, in today’s day and age, is mostly met with cheers and appreciation rather than jeers and hate compared to a couple of decades ago. The world is more sensitized and empathetic of the struggles the LGBTIQ+ community have to face on a daily basis. However the unspoken yet perennial presence of homophobia seems to be passed on from generation to generation within families. Especially in a conservative, heteronormative society such as the one we live in, homophobia despite awareness against it and the changing times, is normalized and passed down in Nepalese households in more blatant crude manners along with subtle, subliminal mannerisms.

May that be the use of homophobic slurs such as “chakka”, “hijada” openly used by children in schools making fun of any behavior they find outside of the heterosexual norm or simply as a derogatory term to their friend or sending ones sons and daughter’s to “correctional ashrams” to cure their gayness.