The Supreme Court of Japan has overturned strict laws preventing people from legally changing gender unless they have followed through on transition surgery.
Under laws dating from 2004, Japan had required anyone who wished to change their gender to be at least 18, diagnosed with gender dysphoria by two doctors, and to have gone far enough down the path of “transition” that they had “no reproductive glands” or only reproductive glands that had “permanently” lost their natural function.
In addition, people asking to change their gender are required to be unmarried and to have either no children or only children who have reached adulthood, to protect the interests of their families.
Now, however, unelected judges have ruled the laws requiring people to be sterilized before legally changing gender “[restrict] a person’s free rights not to have their bodies invaded against their will” and “[cause] an extreme physical and economic burden,” and are therefore unconstitutional.
The ruling is opposed by a group of legislators known as the League of Diet Members to Protect the Safety and Security of Women and Women’s Sports, who believe the previous system kept natural-born women relatively safe from biological males accessing women’s spaces.
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