Japan: Supreme Court issues landmark ruling in favour of transgender woman

2023-07-12T14:07:56.791Z

Highlights: Japan's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a transgender employee who was denied access to the nearest toilet at her workplace. The judges considered that this ban "was sorely invalid" This is the first time that Japan's highest court has ruled on the working conditions of LGBT+ people. Japanese law requires transgender people to undergo surgery if they want to obtain legal recognition of their identity. This decision is enough to embarrass the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, already forced to dismiss one of his executive secretaries for making homophobic remarks.

Japan's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a transgender employee who was denied access to the nearest toilet at her workplace, forcing her to use other...

Japan: Supreme Court issues landmark ruling in favour of transgender woman

Japan's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a transgender employee who was denied access to the nearest toilet at her workplace, forcing her to use other toilets on other floors of her office. The judges considered that this ban "was sorely invalid". This is the first time that Japan's highest court has ruled on the working conditions of LGBT+ people.

Japanese law requires transgender people to undergo surgery if they want to obtain legal recognition of their identity. (Illustrative image) AP - Kelsey Kremer

Text by: RFI Follow

Advertising

With our correspondent in Tokyo, Frédéric Charles

This decision of the Supreme Court of Japan is enough to embarrass the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, already forced to dismiss one of his executive secretaries for making homophobic remarks. The transgender employee's employer is the Ministry of Economy and Trade, which ignored her complaint when she pointed out that being excluded from the nearest toilet violated her dignity and violated a law that protects state employees in the workplace.

The public servant suffers from dysphoria, a medical term used to describe the distress of a transgender person in the face of a mismatch between their assigned sex and gender identity.

See alsoTransgenders: their fight for a re-birth

Japanese law requires transgender people to undergo surgery if they want to obtain legal recognition of their identity. The complainant has not changed her sex, but lives as a woman. Japan has just adopted a very soothing first law to better protect the LGBT community. But, according to activists, this law only opposes unfair discrimination.

Japan: Supreme Court issues landmark ruling in favour of transgender woman

Japan: Supreme Court issues landmark ruling in favour of transgender woman

Trends 24h

Latest