Japan's top court strikes down gender change surgery law
October 25, 2023
Japan's Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a law requiring transgender people to undergo surgery to have their gender officially recognized was in violation of the constitution.
The 2003 law states that for people to have their gender recognized on family registries and other official documents must have their reproductive organs removed, thus rendering them sterile.
The 15 judges of the top court reportedly were unanimous in their decision that the law was unconstitutional, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo news.
What does Japan's gender reassignment law require?
The case came before the Supreme Court after a transgender woman who wanted to have her gender changed in her family registry was rejected by a lower court.
More than 10,000 people have changed their officially recognized genders since the law requiring surgery came into effect.
The law states that transgender people must be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder before having their testes or ovaries removed and given surgery so that their body "appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs" of the new gender they want to register with.
Japan has fallen behind other advanced economies in terms of LGBTQ rights. It is the only member of the Group of Seven industrialized nations that does not permit same-sex marriage or legal protections and is lacking an effective anti-discrimination law.
Japan's slow rate of progress
LGBTQ rights activists have increased their efforts to introduce an anti-discrimination law after a former aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in February that he would not want to live next door to LGBTQ people and that Japanese citizens would flee the country if same-sex marriage was legalized.
Hundreds of municipalities throughout Japan have also already introduced non-legally binding partnership certificates for same-sex couples that, while not amounting to marriage, make it easier for them to rent apartments, among other things.
The LGBTQ community also received a boost earlier this month when a lower court accepted a request for a transgender man to legally change his gender without undergoing surgery, stating that the law was unconstitutional.
A previous Supreme Court ruling in 2019, in the case of a transgender man seeking a gender registration change, the judges had ruled the surgery law constitutional but said that it should be reviewed later as social values change.
ab/lo (AP, Reuters)