A Japanese court this week approved a transgender man’s legal gender change without first requiring sterilization, marking a major step forward for trans rights in the country.
Takakito Usui, 50, won recognition of his gender before the Okayama Family Court’s Tsuyama branch on Wednesday. “I want to thank my family. I feel a new life is beginning,” Usui, a farmer living in the rural Yamagata Prefecture, said at a press conference on Wednesday following the ruling.
Usui previously petitioned to change his legal gender in 2016, the paper noted, but was rejected because he had not been medically sterilized, as was then required under Japanese law. In October, Japan’s Supreme Court struck down the 2003 statute requiring trans people to be sterilized before obtaining legal recognition.
