Tokyo, 25 October, /AJMEDIA/
Japan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, in a historic ruling, declared that a law requiring surgery to officially register a gender change is unconstitutional in a case brought by a transgender woman.
While considering the constitutionality of a legal requirement mandating the removal of a person’s reproductive organs for a gender change on a family registry, the top court has requested a lower court to reevaluate a requirement related to the physical appearance of genitals that mandates they closely match the gender the individual seeks to change to.
The landmark ruling is a turnaround from 2019 when the court said the sterilization requirement was “currently constitutional.”
The applicant in the latest case was born as a man but identifies as a woman. She has hoped to change her legal gender without surgery, asserting that her reproductive capabilities have declined following years of hormone therapy.
The surgery requirement “causes an extreme physical and economic burden” and therefore violates the Constitution, which guarantees respect for individuals and equality under the law, she has argued.
The woman’s request for a gender change has been denied by family court and high courts due to her not undergoing surgery.
The Japanese law for people with gender dysphoria, which came into effect in 2004, lists a set of conditions for those wishing to register as a member of the opposite sex, including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from at least two physicians, being unmarried, having no underage children, and being a person having “no reproductive glands or whose reproductive glands have permanently lost function.”
Discussions over the necessity of surgery have been increasing in Japan as more countries abolish such requirements.
In 2019, the top court’s Second Petty Bench found the surgery requirement constitutional in a case involving a transgender man but also called for a “continuous” examination of the issue in accordance with societal changes.
It also said the legal provision is based on “considerations,” such as the need to prevent “any confusion” that may occur in the parent and child relationship when a child is born using the reproductive function of the original gender of the person.
Earlier this month, the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court ruled the surgical requirement unconstitutional, allowing a transgender man who brought the case to court to be listed as male without surgery. It was the first such judicial judgment in Japan, according to lawyers.
According to the Supreme Court, 11,919 people successfully switched their gender on the family registry between 2004 and 2022.
