Kathmandu, Nepal—This fall, the world should have its first official, national head-count of people in a single country who identify as “third gender.” That’s because Nepal, the small nation crammed between India and China, has included the designation on its 2011 census, the country’s first since the fall of a Hindu monarchy and the end of an armed conflict with Maoist rebels. In counting third-gender citizens, Nepal’s government seems to be sending a strong message about the country’s commitment to inclusiveness.

But it’s clear already that the data will be flawed—so much so that they could lack meaning for many of the Nepali people who identify as third gender. Notably, logistical problems, discrimination on the part of census-takers, and fear among some third genders are marring the historic process. These problems reveal that, although the census might be a a progressive gesture, Nepal still has a long way to go before it truly embraces equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. And, because the census’s effects will be felt around the world, as sexual and gender rights activists advocate for recognition from their own governments, the lessons from Nepal’s success and failures should be heeded.

ALTHOUGH NEPAL RECENTLY made headlines for its push to attract gay tourists, it remains a conservative country. In 2007, Sunil Babu Pant, a gay activist, won a Supreme Court case that forced the government to guarantee full, fundamental equality for all sexual and gender minorities. But, even after the ruling, the pace of implementing fair policies for the LGBTI community has been glacial, and government discrimination is still noted by activists. For instance, there has been a handful of same-sex weddings, but the “licenses” for them are issued by Pant’s NGO, the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), not the government. What’s more, although the ruling decreed that the government had to issue citizenship ID cards that indicate people’s choice of gender identity, it has yet to do so for all but a few people. (Among other things, these cards allow people to open bank accounts and own property.) I accompanied a LGBTI community member on her sixteenth attempt to have her gender changed on her card, where she was rejected—again—for a supposedly technical reason. “See, it’s mine, but it’s not me,” she said, showing me the card. “They won’t let me register as a citizen and get services or a new passport.”

So, last year, when Pant—now a member of Nepal’s parliament—marched into the offices of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and demanded that, in light of the court decision, a category for third-gender citizens be created on the upcoming census, it was a welcome victory that the bureau approved the measure. (Pant threatened to take the agency to court if it didn’t.) Third genders, an often misunderstood minority, include those people who identify as neither male nor female regardless of their biological sex at birth. Many of them are transgender or intersex, but the group is not limited to those identities. Pant has described third genders as those who “do not necessarily have a fixed gender identity or sexual orientation.”

But securing the category in the census wasn’t the end of the battle. This became clear in May and June, when the forms for the two-phase process were published. (The data gathered will be published in October.) The first form, a household registry, was designed to record basic data about every home in the country. “How many males, females, and third genders live here?” it asks, in accordance with what LGBTI activists had hoped for. The second form, which is being used to document every eighth residence in the country (so, a sampling), asks a series of 50 questions about topics ranging from refrigerator ownership to religious views. But it is missing one key box: It allows citizens to identify only as male or female.