Japan’s Supreme Court Rules Restroom Bans “Unacceptable”

metroweekly.com:

attempted to prosecute a transgender woman who had entered and used a women’s restroom despite not having officially transitioned.The ministry said in a statement that it would examine the ruling closely and “take appropriate measures after consulting with the relevant ministries and agencies.” It also said it would continue to make efforts to respect the diversity of its staff.The ruling comes after a series of mostly pro-LGBTQ court rulings regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage in the country, with courts finding, in the majority of the cases, that laws blocking same-sex nuptials are unconstitutional.Japan is currently the only G7 nation where same-sex marriage hasn’t been legalized.

Japanese law is vague about the ability of same-sex couples to adopt, and the country also lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, permits conversion therapy, and does not recognize nonbinary genders, reports Reuters.On June 16, Japan enacted a law declaring that “unjust” discrimination is unacceptable, but doesn’t explicitly provide specific rights for LGBTQ people — in part due to opposition from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a right-wing political party that controls both chambers of the country’s National Diet, or national legislature.Despite the law being overly vague and not promising any specific rights, it still sparked a backlash from conservatives, who began campaigning for moves to protect women in multi-user, publicly-shared facilities.The plaintiff, whose name remains anonymous, celebrated the ruling.“All people should have the right to live their lives in society based on their own sexual identities,” she said in a statement.