Queen Mother Tshering Pem Wangchuck

Ashi Tshering Pem Wangchuck (born 22 December 1957) is one of the four queens of Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth Druk Gyalpo, and since his abdication in 2006 has carried the title Gyalyum Kude, conventionally translated as Queen Mother. She is the eldest of the four sister-queens of the fourth king, all of whom are daughters of the same parents and were married to him in a private ceremony in 1979 with a public coronation in 1988.

Her public profile is built around social-development work. She is co-chair of the Bhutan Foundation, the principal United States non-profit supporting development partnership with Bhutan, and president of the Youth Development Fund. She has three children with the fourth king: two daughters and one son.

Family and marriage

Tshering Pem was born on 22 December 1957 at Nobgang in Punakha. Her father was Yab Dasho Ugyen Dorji (1925-2019), a member of the Dorji family of Haa that traces descent from Sonam Tobgye Dorji, longtime gongzim (chamberlain) of the kingdom. Her mother was Yum Thuiji Zam. She and her three sisters - Ashi Dorji Wangmo, Ashi Tshering Yangdon and Ashi Sangay Choden - all became queens of the fourth king.^[1]

Tshering Pem married the fourth king in 1979 in a private religious ceremony. The four marriages were not made public until the formal coronation of the queens at Punakha Dzong on 31 October 1988, performed in conjunction with the silver jubilee of the Wangchuck dynasty. Each queen was given a title in the same form: Druk Gyaltsuen.

Children

Tshering Pem has three children with the fourth king:

• Ashi Chimi Yangzom Wangchuck (born 1980), married to Dasho Sangay Wangchuck.
• Ashi Kesang Choden Wangchuck (born 1982), married to Dasho Palden Yoser Thinley. Not to be confused with her great-grandmother of the same name.
• Dasho Jigme Dorji Wangchuck (born 1986), occasionally rendered Jigme Ugyen Wangchuck in some accounts; sources differ on his given name.

The Wikipedia article gives a different birth year (1994) and name for the son, and accounts in Bhutanese press are inconsistent. The fourth king's male children are deliberately kept out of public profile, and reliable secondary sources are thin.^[1]

Public roles

Tshering Pem has served since the late 1990s as co-chair of the Bhutan Foundation, the Washington-DC-based 501(c)(3) that supports development partnerships with Bhutan in conservation, education, healthcare and civil society. The Bhutan Foundation is distinct from the Tarayana Foundation, which is the social-welfare body of her elder sister Queen Mother Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck; press accounts occasionally confuse the two.^[2]

She is also president of the Youth Development Fund (YDF), a Bhutanese NGO founded in 1999 by the fourth king to address youth-related social issues including unemployment, substance abuse and at-risk children. YDF runs the Drug Information Centre at Babesa, vocational training programmes and counselling services.^[3]

In 2023 she received the Champion of Rising Leaders Award. In 2025 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Murdoch University in Western Australia, in recognition of her work with young people and the Bhutanese diaspora in Perth.^[1]

Public profile and the four queens

The four queens have distinct portfolios but share the title of Queen Mother and continue to live partly at Lingkana Palace and partly at separate residences in Thimphu. The current Queen Mother of Bhutan in the strict succession sense - the mother of the reigning fifth king Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck - is Ashi Tshering Yangdon, Tshering Pem's younger sister. Press treatments of the four queens are a chronic source of confusion in international accounts of the royal family, and care should be taken to distinguish them.^[4]

References

1. Tshering Pem Wangchuck — Wikipedia
2. About — The Bhutan Foundation
3. Youth Development Fund — official site
4. Tshering Yangdon — Wikipedia
5. Coverage of Queen Mother Tshering Pem Wangchuck — Kuensel
6. Coverage of Tshering Pem Wangchuck — BBS