In this Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, photo, Takakito Usui, a transgender man, cries while speaking during a press conference after Japan's Supreme Court handed down in Okayama, western Japan. Japan’s top court has upheld a law requiring sterilization for transgender people to get their gender changed on official documents but acknowledged the law is increasingly becoming out of step with the international standard. (Kyodo News via AP)

Japan court upholds sterilization to register gender change

January 25, 2019 - 1:43 pm

TOKYO (AP) — Human rights and LGBT activists on Friday denounced a ruling by Japan's Supreme Court upholding a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents.


The 2004 law states that people wishing to register a gender change must have their original reproductive organs, including testes or ovaries, removed and have a body that "appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs" of the gender they want to register.




Despite the unanimous decision, presiding justice Mamoru Miura joined another justice in saying that while the law may not violate the constitution, "doubts are undeniably emerging," according to Usui's lawyer, Tomoyasu Oyama.

The two judges proposed regular reviews of the law and appropriate measures "from the viewpoint of respect for personality and individuality," according to Japanese media reports.


Maria Sjodin, deputy executive director of OutRight Action International, which monitors LGBT rights issues worldwide, said she was unsure if all 22 of those countries have fully implemented the court's order. She noted that Sweden, which did away with the requirement in 2013, later became the first country to pay damages to anyone forced to undergo sterilization as a requirement for gender change.

The Japanese Supreme Court decision ends Usui's legal battle, but he and his lawyer said the opinions in the ruling left them with hope.

"I think the ruling could lead to a next step," Usui told a news conference.

Human Rights Watch said the Supreme Court ruling was "incompatible with international human rights standards, goes against the times and deviates far from best global practices." The New York-based group said the ruling tolerates grave human rights violations against transgender people.

The ruling was also criticized by Japan's LGBT community.

A transgender activist and writer, Tomato Hatakeno, tweeted that the decision shows that society's interests still come before an individual's right to freedom regarding one's body.

"The ruling suggests that reproductive health is not recognized as a basic human right," she said.



Lawmakers in the conservative ruling party have repeatedly come under fire for making discriminatory remarks about LGBT people. Earlier this year, Katsuei Hirasawa, a veteran lawmaker, was widely criticized for saying that "a nation would collapse" if everyone became LGBT. Last year, another ruling party lawmaker, Mio Sugita, was condemned after saying in a magazine that the government shouldn't use tax money for LGBT rights because same-sex couples aren't "productive."

Separately, more than a dozen people with disabilities have filed lawsuits against Japan's government for having been sterilized against their will under a 1948 Eugenics Protection Law that was in effect until 1996. 

At least 16,500 people were sterilized without consent under the law, which allowed doctors to sterilize people with disabilities and was designed to "prevent the birth of poor-quality descendants." Some orphans were also sterilized.  

The government has maintained the sterilizations were legal.




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