Paper short abstract:

The push for same-sex marriage in Japan continues to gather steady speed and public support. Although equal marriage is presented as a broad ‘LGBTQ+’ community goal, transgender people face unique challenges and forms of discrimination when seeking legal recognition of their families and marriages.

Paper long abstract:

The push for same-sex marriage in Japan continues to gather steady speed and public support. Many municipalities across the country now offer some form of same-sex partnership certification, which are not legally binding but provide important symbolic recognition and some limited benefits. A number of high-profile court cases, including the recent lawsuit by the pressure group Marriage For All Japan, keep the issue of equal marriage in the public eye.

Although equal marriage is presented as an ‘LGBTQ’ community goal, transgender people face unique challenges and forms of discrimination when seeking legal recognition of their marriages and the families they build. Their ability to marry or register partnerships depends on the status of their koseki [family registry], and thus on medical transition: heterosexual trans people who have changed gender on their koseki enjoy full legal marriage rights, for example, while heterosexual trans people without an updated koseki are forced to register as a ‘same-sex domestic partnership’. Gay and bisexual trans people with same-sex partners do not have any access to legal marriage after transition; trans people who are in opposite-sex marriages before transition are required to divorce in order to change gender, even if their spouse is supportive, as their marriage would otherwise become a same-gender partnership after a legal gender change. This ban on same-sex marriage also has grave implications for international couples and long-term residents in Japan, whose various forms of documentation may be contradictory and leave them vulnerable to legal difficulties.

Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with LGBTQ communities in Kansai, along with a wealth of legal proceedings and newspaper reportage over the last five years, this paper begins with an overview of the many challenges – legal, medical, and administrative – faced by heterosexual and gay or bisexual transgender people who wish to get married in Japan. I will then analyse three legal challenges brought against the Japanese government by transgender plaintiffs on the topic of equal marriage, 2018-2022. I conclude with analysis of the November 2022 Marriage For All ruling and its implications for the next stage of LGBTQ marriage rights in Japan.