Forced sterilisation of transgender people in Japan must end: Human Rights Watch

A report by Human Rights Watch has called for a change to Japanese law that restricts recognition of transgender people.

Watch Above: Fumino Sugiyama is one of many transgender people in Japan whose gender is not recognised.

Fumino Sugiyama has been with his girlfriend for over eight years. Together, they live in Japan with their baby. Their relationship is what he describes as a normal one between a man and woman.

Yet, despite their de facto status and history together, under Japanese law, their connection is not recognised.

Fumino was assigned female at birth and now identifies as a transgender man. While he has undergone a mastectomy procedure and hormone therapy, he has not had his ovaries removed therefore he is not officially recognised as male.

"Legally my partner is considered a single mother and I am just a roommate,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter how many times I have changed diapers or fed our child I have no legal connection and that’s the reality.”

Fumino’s case is one of many detailed in A Really High Hurdle: Japan’s Abusive Transgender Legal Recognition Process released by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The organisation is calling on Japan to stop forcing transgender people to be surgically sterilised if they seek legal recognition of their gender identity and their identity as a spouse and parent.

In Japan, transgender people seeking to legally change their gender must appeal to a family court. The procedure requires applicants to be single and without children under 20 and to then undergo a psychiatric evaluation and receive a diagnosis of “gender identity disorder”. Finally, they have to have an operation to sterilise.

The ongoing legal process for recognition has been criticised for contravening international human rights law.

“Japan should uphold the rights of transgender people and stop forcing them to undergo surgery to be legally recognised,” said Kanae Doi, director of Human Rights Watch Japan. “The law is based on an outdated premise that treats gender identity as a so-called ‘mental illness’”

In 2013, a United Nations special rapporteur on torture noted the obligation for transgender people to be “required to undergo often unwanted sterilisation surgeries as a prerequisite to enjoy legal recognition of their preferred gender” was a human rights violation.

One transgender man in the HRW report added, “I don’t want to [have surgery], to be honest. However, I have to just because it is a requirement… I feel pressured to be operated on—so terrible.”