Bhutan’s lower house of the parliament will reconsider its earlier resolution that sought to decriminalize homosexuality in 2019, Kuensel news reported. 

The lower house move that was hailed the last year among the LGBT community failed to garner enough support in its National Council ( Upper House ). The Upper House didn’t support the wholesale scrapping of Section 213 and 214 of Penal Code - the act that criminalizes unnatural sex - as was earlier recommended by the Lower House. 

Instead, the National Council sent the 2019 amendment bill with certain changes for reconsiderations to the National Assembly. The suggested changes will likely be taken up for discussion in the upcoming winter session of the house. 

However, Dramdtse Ngatsang, a member of the lower house, and Ugyen Wangdi, the vice-chairman of the joint committee made it clear that changes suggested by the upper house are not acceptable in totality. 

They said the National Assembly would also propose further changes in order to protect the rights of the LGBT community.  “We will have that particular section but with liberal interpretations that will give rights to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community,” Ugyen Wangdi quoted by the Kuensel as saying.