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Lawyers for one of the plaintiffs, Kazuyuki Minami, left, and Masafumi Yoshida, right, speak to the media after Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling in Tokyo. Japan’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law requiring other transgender people to undergo sterilization surgery in order to officially replace their sex is unconstitutional.
TOKYO – Japan’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law requiring other transgender people to undergo sterilization surgery to officially replace their sex is unconstitutional, a landmark verdict hailed by its proponents as a sign of growing acceptance of LGBTQ rights.
The decision of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, composed of 15 judges, applies only to the sterilization part of the 2003 law. It does not comply with the constitutionality of requiring gender transition surgery in general to state-sanctioned gender reassignment, a requirement also criticized through foreign human rights teams and medical teams.
The law forces these people to substitute their sex for a “cruel choice between accepting sterilization surgery that causes intense physical invasion and forgoing the vital legal benefits of being treated based on their gender identity,” the Supreme Court said.
The decision, which requires the government to review the law, is a first step toward allowing other transgender people to replace their identities on official documents without being sterilized. But it wasn’t an overall victory for the plaintiff, as the Supreme Court sent her case forward. Go back to the High Court to increase the requirement for gender-affirming surgery.
In 2020, the plaintiff applied for a sex replacement in her family registry, from female to male assigned at birth, but her request was denied by the lower courts.
The move comes at a time of heightened awareness of the issues surrounding LGBTQ people in Japan and is a partial victory for the community.
The justices unanimously ruled that the component of the law requiring sterilization in the event of sex be replaced as unconstitutional, according to the court document. The plaintiff’s attorney claimed that the resolution that did not consider the requirement of a gender-affirming operation unconstitutional was unfortunate because it delays the resolution of this problem.
The plaintiff, known only as a transgender woman in her 40s who lives in western Japan, said in a reading through one of her lawyers, Kazuyuki Minami, that she was “surprised” by the resolution and “disappointed” that a resolution on gender confirmation was passed. The surgery is being delayed.
This causes even more difficulties and court hearings for “a more thorough examination of her underwear,” Minami said.
Under the law, transgender people who need to have their sex assigned at birth replaced in family records and other official documents will need to be diagnosed with gender dysmorphia and will have to undergo surgery to remove their sex organs.
Other situations include being married and having children under the age of 18.
Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch, said it was “great news” that the highest court unanimously declared sterilization unconstitutional and that the government will now have to comply. “The government is forced to replace the law to eliminate needs for sterilization and gender-affirming surgery,” she said. “Any invasion of the framework contrary to a person’s will is a violation of human rights. “
LGBTQ activists in Japan have recently stepped up their efforts to pass an anti-discrimination law since a former aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in February that he would not need to live alongside other LGBTQ people and that citizens would flee Japan if they did. of the same sex. Marriage is permitted.
But adjustments have been slow and Japan remains the only member of the Group of Seven that does not allow same-sex marriage or legal protections, adding an effective anti-discrimination law.
The plaintiff filed the petition in 2020, arguing that the surgical requirement imposes a physical and super-economic burden and violates constitutionally provided equivalent rights protections.
Human rights groups and the LGBTQ network in Japan had hoped for an update to the law after a local family court, in an unprecedented ruling earlier this month, granted an applicant’s request for sexual surrogacy without mandatory surgery, saying the rule is unconstitutional. .
The special law that went into effect in 2004 stipulates that people who wish to undergo sexual replacement must remove their original sex organs, including testicles or ovaries, and have a structure that “appears to have parts that resemble the genitals” of the new one. The gender they want to log in with.
Since then, more than 10,000 Japanese have officially replaced their gender, according to court documents from the Oct. 11 ruling that granted General Suzuki’s request to replace their sex through the required surgery.
Surgery to remove sex organs is not necessary in a maximum of the 50 or so countries in Europe and Central Asia that have laws allowing other people to replace their sex on official documents, according to Shizuoka’s ruling. The practice of changing gender in this way is not unusual in many places around the world, the report notes.
In a country of conformity where the conservative government sticks to classic paternalistic family values and is reluctant to accept sexual and family diversity, many LGBTQ people still hide their sexuality for fear of discrimination at work and at school.
Some groups opposed to greater inclusion of transgender people, those who go from male at birth to female, filed 20,000 petitions with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking it to uphold the surgical requirement to protect “women-only spaces. “”
Hundreds of municipalities now include certificates of union for same-sex couples to facilitate the rental of apartments and other areas, but these certificates are legally binding.
In 2019, the Supreme Court, in some other case brought through a transgender man to replace his sex without resorting to sexual organ harvesting or sterilization surgery, ruled on the constitutional law.
In that decision, the highest court said the law was constitutional because it aimed to lessen confusion within families and society, while acknowledging that it limited freedom and might not be in tune with the conversion of social values and merit review at a later date. .
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