Japan’s Supreme Court has struck down a 20-year-old statute requiring transgender people to be surgically sterilized this week, a ruling human rights groups heralded as a major victory — even as the plaintiff says she’s “very disappointed” that the decision did not go far enough.
To change their legal gender markers, trans people in Japan were formerly required to meet a list of requirements, including medical sterilization treatments to remove their ovaries or testicles. The law required that trans people “have no reproductive glands” and should have “a body that resembles the genitals of those of the opposite gender” — i.e., obtained bottom surgery — before their status could be updated.
On Wednesday, the court overturned that portion of the 2003 law, “Act on Special Cases in Handling Gender Status for Persons with Gender Identity Disorder,” agreeing that it violates the Japanese constitution, as reported by The Japan Times. The judge ruled that the conditions were “highly invasive” and “too restrictive” to be supported.
The unanimous decision came in response to an appeal by an anonymous trans woman, who appealed a family court’s 2019 ruling in support of the law. The decision reverses another Supreme Court decision in the case of Takakito Usui, who was also told in 2019 that the sterilization requirements would remain in place.
“The government is obliged to amend the law to remove the sterilization and gender-affirmation surgery requirements,” said Kanae Doi, Japan Director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement to the Associated Press. “Any invasion of the body against one’s will is a human rights violation.”
But although the sterilization requirements are now defunct, the court did not address the rest of the 2003 law, in particular the requirement for trans people to have bottom surgery or otherwise have their genitals removed, as the Times reported, which is the main reason the anonymous plaintiff brought her case in the first place. The Supreme Court declined to rule on that argument, remanding that decision instead to a lower court. (Another portion requiring that trans people have no minor-aged children will also remain intact.)
“I’m very surprised because I didn’t expect this outcome,” the plaintiff told reporters following the court’s decision. “I started this appeal because I had personal problems. I’m very disappointed that the Grand Bench didn’t deliberate [my individual case for] legal gender change and postponed the decision.”
“I hope that this outcome will lead to a positive result [in future proceedings],” she added.
Kazuyuki Minami, one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, told the Times that the decision was a mixed message that will likely ease some legal pressure for trans men, but leave trans women in something of a legal limbo. Earlier this month, the lower Shizuoka Family Court ruled in favor of trans man Gen Suzuki, declaring all the law’s surgical requirements are unconstitutional and violate human rights.
Wednesday’s partial victory is the latest in a series of slow-but-steady LGBTQ+ legal reforms in Japan, which is still the only “Group of Seven” nation that does not officially recognize same-sex marriage. A district court decision in May found that marriage inequality was unconstitutional, but declined to award damages, and that decision has not yet been upheld by a higher court; similar decisions were handed down in other district courts last year. In June, the Japanese Diet, or legislature, passed a law to “promote understanding” towards LGBTQ+ people in a limited anti-discrimination law.
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