Japan’s top court strikes down required sterilization surgery to officially change gender

Lawyers of a claimant, Kazuyuki Minami, left, and Masafumi Yoshida, right, speak to media after the ruling of the Supreme Court Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in Tokyo. Japans Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a law requiring transgender people to have sterilization surgery in order to officially change their gender is unconstitutional.

The case was filed in 2020 by a claimant whose request for a gender change in her family registry — to female from assigned male at birth — was turned down by lower courts. Under the law, transgender people who want to have their gender assigned at birth changed on family registries and other official documents must be diagnosed as having gender dysmorphia and undergo an operation to remove their sex organs.

Rights groups and the LGBTQ+ community in Japan have been hopeful for a change in the law after a local family court, in an, accepted a request by a claimant for a gender change without the compulsory surgery, saying the rule is unconstitutional. Surgery to remove sex organs is not required in most of some 50 European and central Asian countries that have laws allowing people to change their gender on official documents, the Shizuoka ruling said. The practice of changing one's gender in such a way has become mainstream in many places around the world, it noted.

Hundreds of municipalities now issue partnership certificates for same-sex couples to ease hurdles in renting apartments and other areas, but they are not legally binding.

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