Sunil Pant

Sunil Babu Pant
Born	Gorkha District, Nepal
Occupation	Politician, activist

Sunil Babu Pant (Nepali: सुनीलबाबु पन्त) is a Nepalese activist and former politician. He was the first openly gay national-level legislator in Asia.

Pant was born to a Brahmin family in Gorkha District of Nepal. He has a master's degree in computer science from Minsk. He enrolled at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology but dropped out after six months to volunteer for the victims of the 1999 Odisha cyclone. In 2001, he formed the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's first LGBT organisation, which as of 2008 had 120,000 members.

Pant hosted a television talk show on LGBT rights called Pahichaan for two years. He was among the 29 Human Rights leaders who were signatories of the Yogyakarta Principles formulated in November 2006. The Supreme Court of Nepal, in Sunil Babu Pant and Others v. Government of Nepal and Others, decriminalized homosexuality and allowed same-sex marriage in Nepal in 2008.

Impressed with the support that Pant canvassed from LGBT voters, the CPN(U) offered him one of the five proportional support seats it had secured in the constituent assembly in 2008. Pant was a member of the Fundamental Rights committee in the new constituent assembly, and was instrumental in securing full protection for the LGBT community in the new draft constitution. He resigned as the director of Blue Diamond Society in June 2013 after he was accused of drawing two salaries, one as a parliamentarian and one as the director. Pant and his supporters joined the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) in 2013, though he was not given one of the 175 seats won by them, as they had ruled out all leaders who had served in the previous assembly.

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