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The current case before the grand chamber of the Supreme Court asks the justices to eliminate the outdated and abusive sterilization requirement.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
Assuming you’re asking in good faith, the short answer is no.
The long answer is nooooooo.
And the full answer is “No. What the fuck is wrong with you that you think forced sterilization is ever a good idea, ever, for any reason, ever?” That isn’t even an issue limited to trans people. It’s something that’s been forced on indigenous populations, “lesser” peoples (like… you know… Jews and Blacks and Mexicans and Malagasy and literally everyone but “us” and the mentally challenged and also ‘hysterical’ women, among many others), and anyone else that a particular group wants to genocide without wanting to deal directly with corpse disposal.
Beyond that, this speaks to bodily autonomy. No one person or group of people should fucking EVER have the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own body. End of story.
It’s not forced sterilization btw. It’s requiring gender reassignment surgery in order to change your legal standing to the opposite gender.
Oh, I see, that’s totally fucking different in LITERALLY NO FUCKING WAY FOR FUCK’S SAKE ARE YOU REALLY THAT DENSE
EDIT Ah, it’s an Elon-slurping right-wing shithead. No wonder.