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The current case before the grand chamber of the Supreme Court asks the justices to eliminate the outdated and abusive sterilization requirement.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
IIRC most trans folks don’t have bottom surgery
For some it’s a choice, for others it’s just down to money. I can’t even begin to guess what the percentage split would be on that.
Wouldn’t it be pretty triggering of dysphoria to have the wrong genitals staring at you all the time?
Depends what your gender means to you. no such thing as wrong in that sense.
Literally being transgender means you feel like you’re actually the opposite gender. If you don’t feel that you’re something else.
I don’t think it’s that black and white… Not every transgender person feels the same way (the same as everyone on earth has different feelings). I think the end goal is more for them to feel comfortable in their own skin. To whatever degree of transitioning that is.
That’s not correct. It just means you’re not the gender assigned to you at birth. You’re not the “opposite gender” because there are ranges in gender identity and expression. Non-binary, for example, is trans and that is identifying as neither male nor female.
But, surpising to no one, everyone is different. Some want surgical reassignment. Some don’t.
Nonbinary is another new fad that doesn’t mean anything. There is only Male and Female. Anything else is just made up to be different. Theres probably more transtrenders than actually trans people these days seeing how rare it actually is.
The problem with your statement is that it is incorrect in every possible way: Historically, culturally, psychologically, biologically, just to name the easy ones.
Let’s do a thought experiment: Are left-handed people a fad because there was a period of time (up to, and including, now) where parents, teachers, guardians, priests, etc. would force children to use their right hand instead of their left hand when they picked things up? Left-handed people increased in large numbers when we stopped discriminating against them (as much), and let them use the hand that they wanted to use. What possibly caused that dramatic increase???
Kids like the attention they get for being different. It’s always been that way. I can guarantee there’s a lot of kids out there claiming to be transgender who are doing it for the attention.
No you can’t because you’re lying and science, doctors, and reality disagrees with you.
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No, they’re not just asking questions. They’re also making statements and seemingly implying that only people who fully transition are transgender and every trans person must also identify as male or female because non-binary is a “fad” that people made up and doesn’t really exist.
Just asking questions, huh
He’s not “just asking questions.” He’s regurgitating anti-trans rhetoric and making dishonest arguments. Someone who was “just asking questions” would accept the answers given to them, and make an honest effort to learn, instead of arguing against them by slinging right-wing propaganda.
They’re not “just asking questions”, they’re JAQing off
Some trans people don’t feel the need for bottom surgery, some do. Dysphoria is different for everyone.
Maybe. That’s up to the individual. Surgery is also a pretty big deal and comes with risks.