The Supreme Court of Japan declared this Wednesday that it is “unconstitutional” and “cruel” the legal obligation to sterilize transgender people to make your name change official in the civil identification records and considered that it imposes “serious restrictions” to the person’s life.
This was ruled by the highest Japanese court, which considered that forced sterilization “limits the right of people not to have their bodies interfered with against their will”.
In Japana two-decade-old law requires that people transgender who request a legal change of their identity must give up their reproductive capacitywhich is equivalent to a sterilization. Furthermore, the law requires that are not married or have minor children and who have received a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria”reported the AFP news agency.
In the framework of a case that was initiated by a trans woman who asked to be legally registered as a woman in the civil registry without undergoing an operation, the Supreme Court stated that the requirement for sterilization imposes a “cruel choice” to those who wish to change gender between “Surgery” which involves a “body invasion” and “give up important legal benefits of being treated according to their gender identity”.
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Reuters
Argentina integrates the limited list of countries that allow transgender people change your identity with a simple statement, along with Chile, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourgamong others.
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In Japanactivists claim that the conditions imposed by the law force people to undergo invasive, lengthy and risky medical procedures.
“The procedure to change the gender recognized by law requires a sterilization surgery and a outdated psychiatric diagnosis what is anachronistic, harmful and discriminatory“, indicated the NGO Human Rights Watch in a 2019 report.
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Pixabay
For its part, Kazuyuki Minamilawyer for the woman whose case led to the highest court’s ruling, said that “It is extremely rare for the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional”. His demand was rejected by a family court and was also denied in the appeal to a higher jurisdiction, before reaching the Supreme Court.
This sentence, which was highly anticipated by members of the group LGTBQ, “will lighten the burden” for those who faced sterilization as the only obstacle to their gender change, but “it maintains the obligation for many trans women to undergo a genital surgery or to wait in limbo lower court decision“explained the lawyer.
Source: Ambito
