A Japanese court has said that a law requiring surgery to switch genders on a family registry is unconstitutional in a ruling on a case involving a transgender man in central Japan, his lawyers said Thursday.
The Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court delivered the country's first judgment on a challenge to the rule after the man, Gen Suzuki, filed a request in 2021 seeking to change his gender without sex reassignment surgery, according to the lawyers.
The decision Wednesday by the central Japan court allows Suzuki, 48, to be listed as a man in his family registry without undergoing an operation to remove reproductive capacity.
Japanese law on gender identity disorder requires sex reassignment surgery as a condition for changing one's gender.
"(The ruling) could give hope to children who have also been denied their gender identities," Suzuki told Kyodo News.
Presiding Judge Takehiro Sekiguchi said that the impact of problems that might arise if a gender change is allowed without surgery would be "limited."
Ruling that the law violates Article 13 of the Constitution that stipulates all people shall be respected as individuals, he also said restricting the freedom of people with gender identity disorder to choose not to undergo physically invasive procedures against their will is "not rational."
Suzuki has undergone hormone therapy and surgically removed his breast tissue but believes a sex reassignment operation would have a serious impact on his physical and mental health.
He says he felt uncomfortable being treated as female from a young age and was diagnosed with gender identity disorder at age 40.
Family courts must give permission to make corrections to a family register, which records information about the identity of citizens such as gender as well as family relationships.
The Supreme Court is expected to deliver a ruling on the constitutionality of the law in a separate case involving another transgender individual seeking to switch gender without surgery.
In 2019, the top court ruled that the law was constitutional, but that it should be reviewed in accordance with changes in society.
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