The Supreme Court of Japan has upheld a law which forces transgender people to get sterilised before they can legally change their gender.
The panel of four justices ruled unanimously on Thursday (January 24) to reject an appeal filed by Takakito Usui, a trans man who wants to change the gender on his official documents, Australian outlet SBS News has reported.
Usui was trying to overturn Law 111, which requires any person seeking to change their legal gender to have “no reproductive glands or reproductive glands that have permanently lost function.”
Trans people also have to possess “a body which appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs of those of the opposite gender,” according to the 2003 law, which was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court judges.
Usui, whose legal campaign is now over, responded to the ruling by saying: “The essential thing should not be whether you have had an operation or not, but how you want to live as an individual.”
by Josh Jackman
Source – PinkNews
