TOKYO — Japan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a law requiring transgender people to have their reproductive organs removed in order to officially change their gender is unconstitutional.
The decision by the top court’s 15-judge Grand Bench was its first on the constitutionality of Japan’s 2003 law requiring the removal of reproductive organs for a state-recognized gender change, a practice long criticized by international rights and medical groups.
The decision now requires the government to revise the law, which paves the way for transgender people to have their gender changed in official documents without surgery.
The case was filed by a plaintiff whose request for a gender change in her family registry — to female from her biologically assigned male — was turned down by lower courts.
The decision comes at a time of heightened awareness of issues surrounding LGBTQ+ people in Japan and is a major victory for that community.
Kyodo News said the judges unanimously ruled that the part of the law requiring the loss of reproductive functions for a gender change is unconstitutional. Other details of the decision were not immediately available.
Under the law that was struck down, transgender people who want to have their biologically assigned gender changed on family registries and other official documents must be diagnosed as having Gender Identity Disorder and undergo an operation to remove their reproductive organs.
LGBTQ+ activists in Japan have recently stepped up efforts to pass an anti-discrimination law since a former aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in February that he wouldn’t want to live next to LGBTQ+ people and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriage were allowed.
But changes have come slowly and Japan remains the only Group of Seven member that does not allow same-sex marriage or legal protections, including an effective anti-discrimination law.
The plaintiff, who is only identified as a resident in western Japan,…
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