Japan’s top court strikes down required sterilisation surgery to officially change gender

Japan's Supreme Court rules law requiring transgender people to undergo sterilisation surgery to change gender unconstitutional. Partial victory for LGBTQ+ community as court orders government to reconsider law.

Japan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a law requiring transgender people to undergo sterilisation surgery in order to officially change their gender is unconstitutional.

The decision by the top court’s 15-judge Grand Bench was its first on the constitutionality of Japan’s 2003 law requiring the removal of sex organs for a state-recognised gender change, a practice long criticised by international rights and medical groups.

The decision, which requires the government to reconsider the law, is a first step toward allowing transgender people to change their identity in official documents without getting sterilised. But it was not a full victory because the Supreme Court sent the case back to the high court to further examine the requirement for gender-affirmation surgery.

The case was filed in 2020 by a claimant whose request for a gender change in her family registry — to female from assigned male at birth — was turned down by lower courts.

The decision comes at a time of heightened awareness of issues surrounding LGBTQ+ people in Japan and is a partial victory for that community.

The judges unanimously ruled that the part of the law requiring sterilisation for a gender change is unconstitutional, according to the court document and the claimant's lawyers. But the top court ordered the case to be sent back to the high court for further review of the requirement for gender-affirmation surgery — a decision the claimant's lawyers said was regrettable because it delays the settlement of the issue.

Under the law, transgender people who want to have their gender assigned at birth changed on family registries and other official documents must be diagnosed as having gender dysmorphia and undergo an operation to remove their sex organs.