Japan Transgenders must be Sterilized before changing Gender Officially

The Supreme Court in Japan has upheld a law effectively requiring transgenders in Japan seeking to legally change their gender to be sterilized, the media reported on Friday.

Takahiro Usui, a transgender man wanted to change his gender in his official documents, he filed a petition in supreme court about the law that asks the transgender to change their physical body which wants the applicant to Permanently lack functioning reproductive parts of their bodies to qualify gender affirmation.

The Court rejected Usui s case on Thursday, ruling the 2003 constitutional law. The law was put into existence 15 years back which refers to LGBT(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people who want to change their gender officially. They need to take a bitter decision of operation to fully change the gender physically. "It is unthinkable in this day and time that the law requires a sex-change operation to change gender," Usui s lawyer Tomoyasu Oyama informed media on Friday.



More than 7,000 people have changed their gender registration since the law was passed. According to court, the law was intended to reduce problems in parent-child relations which may lead to social confusion in society. Suki Chung, Asia Pacific campaign manager at Amnesty International, informed media that the ruling was "a blow for the recognition of transgender people in Japan. It is a missed opportunity to address the discrimination transgender people face".
“The essential thing should not be whether you have had an operation or not, but how you want to live as an individual.”