It was a decision eagerly awaited by the LGBT+ community. The Japanese Supreme Court ruled “unconstitutional” the legal obligation for transgender people to undergo sterilization in order to change their sex in civil registers on Wednesday. The sterilization requirement imposes “serious restrictions” on a person’s life and “limits the free right of people not to suffer harm to their bodies against their will”, Japan’s highest court ruled on Wednesday in a much-anticipated stop.
In Japan, a transgender person who wants civil records to reflect their gender transition must apply to a family court after undergoing gender reassignment surgery, under a law passed in 2003. They must also prove lack of reproductive capacity, which usually requires sterilization, and her genitals must have a “similar appearance” to those of the gender with which she identifies.
A “serious violation of human rights”
Anyone seeking this change in marital status must also be single, have no minor children, and be officially diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is distress caused by gender mismatch. assigned at birth and the gender a person identifies with.
The Japanese Supreme Court was seized following a legal action launched by a transgender woman seeking to be legally registered as a woman without undergoing surgery, on the grounds that compulsory sterilization constitutes a “serious violation of human rights and is unconstitutional. His request was rejected by a family court and then by a higher court.
A different decision in 2019
This is the second time that the highest court in the country has been called upon to rule on this question. In 2019, she upheld the law, ruling that it aimed to prevent “problems” in parent-child relationships that could lead to “confusion” and “abrupt changes” within society. The Supreme Court, however, recognized the invasive nature of this law, adding that the legislation should be reviewed regularly as social and family values evolve.
Only a handful of countries, such as Spain this year, have recently made it easier for trans people to change their marital status. But defenders of LGBT+ rights are outraged by the long, invasive and potentially risky medical procedures forced on Japan – also the only G7 country not to recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions at the national level.
Steps towards acceptance of diversity
In a report published in 2019, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) ruled that this obligation was based on a “pejorative” notion according to which transidentity is a “mental illness”. “The legal gender reassignment procedure, which requires sterilization surgery and an outdated psychiatric diagnosis, is anachronistic, harmful and discriminatory,” condemned HRW.
The debate is evolving, however, in the archipelago, where a local court for family matters issued an unprecedented judgment in the country earlier this month, deeming the 2003 law unconstitutional and invalid. Japan, traditionally conservative, also made these recent years of small steps towards acceptance of diversity.