Surgery Requirement Held to be Unconstitutional


A Japanese family court has ruled that the country’s requirement that transgender people be surgically sterilized to change their legal gender is unconstitutional. The ruling is the first of its kind in Japan, and comes as the Supreme Court considers a separate case about the same issue.

In 2021, Gen Suzuki, a transgender man, filed a court request to have his legal gender recognized as male without undergoing sterilization surgery as prescribed by national law. This week the Shizuoka Family Court ruled in his favor, with the judge writing: “Surgery to remove the gonads has the serious and irreversible result of loss of reproductive function. I cannot help but question whether being forced to undergo such treatment lacks necessity or rationality, considering the level of social chaos it may cause and from a medical perspective.”

In Japan, transgender people who want to legally change their gender must appeal to a family court. Under the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) Special Cases Act, applicants must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and be surgically sterilized. They also must be single and without children younger than 18.

Momentum is growing in Japan to change the law, as legal, medical, and academic professionals are speaking out against it. United Nations experts and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have both urged Japan to eliminate the law’s discriminatory elements and to treat trans people, as well as their families, the same as other citizens.

In 2019, Japan’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that stated the law did not violate Japan’s constitution. However, two of the justices recognized the need for reform. “The suffering that [transgender people] face in terms of gender is also of concern to society that is supposed to embrace diversity in gender identity,” they wrote. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a trans government employee using the restrooms in accordance with her gender identity. Her employer had barred her from using the women’s restrooms on her office floor because she had not undergone the surgical procedures and therefore had not changed her legal gender.

The current case before the grand chamber of the Supreme Court asks the justices to eliminate the outdated and abusive sterilization requirement.

link: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/16/japan-court-rules-against-mandatory-transgender-sterilization

archive link: https://archive.ph/4IRKj

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    131
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Rationality wins out in the end. People are who they are. The less the government is involved, the better. What right does the state have to tell you who you are or who you should love?

    Consenting adults should be allowed to live out their lives. Why is this even an issue? How does it hurt anyone to have someone live as the person they truly are so they can be happy?

        • Adi2121@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          The subscribers list shows only subscribers from your instance I believe. Like for me, the lemmy.world meta community has less than a thousand subscribers, but that’s only because I’m on lemmy.ml. Can’t imagine those nutjobs have too many subscribers anyway, though.

  • Badland9085@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    Wow, wtf is wrong with this comment section? People don’t realize how laws made in the past just stay around until someone steps up to change it? Or y’all don’t have the capacity to look at the world through a different mindset, even if you disagree with the mindset? As much as we all hope that people around the world are accepting, it doesn’t just happen, and you can’t just hope people who don’t understand your PoV will just realize something’s wrong waking up one day.

    Either those, or y’all have either grown too cynical or are trying to be cynical just for the sake of it.

    Can’t y’all just celebrate the fact that this is happening in Japan, an infamous nation that usually tries fervently to preserve their tradition and status quo?

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Wow, wtf is wrong with this comment section? People don’t realize how laws made in the past just stay around until someone steps up to change it?

      Exactly.

      One example is a 2006 constitutional amendment in Colorado that enshrined marriage as between one man and one woman. Colorado has since then become vastly more progressive, but the law is still there and same-sex marriage would become illegal in Colorado if SCOTUS overturns Obergefell one day.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      32
      ·
      1 year ago

      Why do you care so much? People are reacting to a wrong being righted.

      Or y’all don’t have the capacity to look at the world through a different mindset, even if you disagree with the mindset?

      No u

      • Badland9085@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m probably replying to a troll, but I will do so anyways for the sake of those who need to read this.

        If we aren’t in any way bothered to see such narrow-minded reactions to a wrong being righted, then humankind is definitely headed for a few horrible decades ahead, filled with unnecessary strife and conflict out of pure indifference to each other’s backgrounds and current understanding of the world. And I’d even imagine it’d be worse than what we’re already seeing this decade. I suggest you go back and rethink what really matters as humans, instead of focusing on just some narrow definition of what a win is.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have a transwoman friend who I’ve been friends with long before she transitioned (we were friends in high school in the 90s). She has two kids with her wife and those kids couldn’t be more loved or well-cared for.

    • HardlightCereal@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      FYI, trans woman and woman are the same noun. Transwoman isn’t a word, and the reason people don’t want it to be a word is that making “trans woman” a different noun from “woman” implies they’re not the same thing. Trans women are women, and that’s why the noun is the same. Trans is an adjective.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I realize that, but sometimes you need to specify. Also, I think I’ll go with how she identifies herself and not how you tell me she should be identified.

        • HardlightCereal@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yes, you specify that someone is a trans woman by saying “trans woman”. You don’t say “transwoman”, because it’s not a word.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Again, I think I’ll go with how they identify themselves rather than how you say they should be identified.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    Well fuck me that’s good news but still somehow feels like bad news that this was even a question.

  • Pixlbabble@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    They have ton of old people and not enough young people. They need babies, it makes sense to not have sterilizations from that point of view.

  • Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Isn’t that kind of the end goal? You’re usually sterilized if you remove your penis and testicles or womb and ovaries to replace with a vagina or penis.

    • Dentzy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      First, even if you were right about the medical part, “getting sterilized” is not the end goal of anyone transitioning, the end goal is feeling more comfortable on their own bodies, some of them might accept losing reproductive capabilities as a trade of, but not necessarily all.

      Second, “trans” is applied to anyone that is not comfortable with their assigned gender at birth -not only to people that have gone through the full transition-, transgender people can fell comfortable enough at any point of the transition and many stop before the reassignment surgery (if you ever see a video of how it works, you might understand why). That means that many transgender people have full reproductive capabilities, and many want to have them, as reproducing is part of their goals/desires/dreams; same a many cisgender people, you see?

      Last but not least, it is their fucking body, the government should not in any way be allowed to decide that one group of people should not reproduce, and force them to undergo medical treatment just due to pure bigotry, period.

      • Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Wouldn’t somebody suffering from dysphoria not want to bring somebody into the world who is more genetically predisposed to suffering the same fate? There’s apparently data suggesting it’s genetic.

        And as far as the government telling you what you can and can’t do with your body I kind of prefer that people like that girl with a genetic abnormality who had a child with the same condition despite warnings against it had been stopped.

        This one.

        • Dentzy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Then what? Do we sterilize autistic people? Blind people?little people? Asmathics? People with ADHD? Alergies? Other races? Less than average IQ?

          I am not even discussing the outraging comment you made, even if you accept that, where do you stop then? Where you think it is acceptable enough? “Wait a second! Not people with allergies, I have allergies!”

          We don’t have to prevent people with dysphoria from being born, we need to create a society in which people born with dysphoria can feel comfortable at every moment (not just when they “don’t look like trans”) and can have easy and free access to anything they need (therapy , hormones, surgery…).

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Transgender man” … “Surgery to remove the gonads”… surely if they have gonads and are transgender, they are a transgender woman, right?

    • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Nope, everybody has gonads. Removing overies can have some nasty life shortening effects, not doing so also keeps the option of temporary detransition to have kids later so trans men often elect to keep them.

      • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        temporary detransition

        That’s a very strange way to phrase it. I wish we could just recognize that sex and gender can be orthogonal properties of an organism.

        • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s the technical term at present but the whole thing is compounded by the whole medical transition and social transition are two separate things. Medical temporary detransition often just means suspending the use of horomone medications to achieve a temporary aim like pregnancy. It doesn’t really take into consideration that in social matters the person in these circumstances does not socially detransition.

    • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Surely sounds like unnecessary surgery is needed for reasons haha because you’re so right haha because reasons haha

      Seriously, learn to be less hateful.