Japan’s top court has ruled that a legal clause requiring people to undergo sterilisation surgery if they want to legally change their gender is unconstitutional.
Several international organisations including the European court of human rights, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and UN had said the requirement was discriminatory and infringed on human rights.
While rights group welcomed the verdict, a decision by the judges to ask a lower court to deliberate on a separate clause, requiring that the genital organs of people who want to change their gender resemble those of the opposite gender, was met with disappointment.
“This decision was very unexpected and I’m very surprised,” the plaintiff, identified only as a transgender woman under the age of 50, said in a statement read out by her lawyers. She added, however, that she was “disappointed” that a decision on the other clause had been postponed.
Some lawmakers and women’s groups in socially conservative Japan had said a ruling that challenged the existing law would sow confusion and undermine women’s rights. The supreme court threw out a similar attempt to scrap the sterilisation requirement in 2019.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday’s ruling meant the government must follow up. “The government is under the obligation to make any laws constitutional so the government now needs to act quickly to remove the clause,” Kanae Doi, its Japan director, said. “It’s late, but never too late.”
Japanese law states that people who want to change gender must present a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and meet five requirements. These are: being at least 18 years old; not being married; not having underage children; having genital organs that resemble those of the opposite gender; and having no reproductive glands or ones that have permanently lost their function.
The plaintiff’s lawyers had said the last two requirements violated their client’s constitutional right to pursue happiness and live without discrimination, and posed significant physical pain and financial burden to trans people, media reported.
While many countries have repealed laws requiring surgery to legally change gender, trans rights remain controversial in Japan.
The decision comes at a time of heightened awareness of issues surrounding LGBTQ+ people in Japan. Activists have increased efforts to pass an anti-discrimination law since a former aide to the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said in February that he would not want to live next to LGBTQ+ people and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriage were allowed.
