• Japanese transgender man loses appeal against enforced sterilisation
    22 replies, posted
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/japanese-transgender-man-loses-appeal-against-enforced-sterilisation Japan's supreme court has upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilised before their gender can be changed on official documents. The court acknowledged "doubts" were emerging over whether the rule reflects changing social values, but said the law was constitutional. The decision, published on Thursday, upholds a law that requires any individual wishing to change their documents have "no reproductive glands or reproductive glands that have permanently lost function," referring to testes or ovaries. It also requires the person to have "a body which appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs of those of the opposite gender."
The judges said they recognised the invasive nature of the law, adding that legislation should be regularly reviewed as social and family values change. It won't happen for a long time
A timely reminder that for all of their progress among the social mindshare, especially thanks to the power of the Internet to break down borders, Japan is still a fucked-up backwards place in some ways and they've got a long road ahead of them to catch up. However, it sounds like the judge is saying, indirectly, that the law should be changed by the legislative arm of the government, not by the courts.
To prompt a review of a law, it is the duty of the courts to strike it down if they find it unjust.
Japan has to be the culture that polarizes my opinion the hardest. They have amazing history, beautiful cities, loads of genius ideas in the arts, and a focus on respect and honor I only wish America adapted. Then there's all the shit of people regularly working themselves to death, normalization of sexual violence and discrimination towards women, suppression of darker periods of history, and whatever the fuck this is.
There's simply no justifying this law; it's oppression against transgender people to try and make them reconsider being themselves
On hbomberguy's stream there was a trans historian that explained why this happens, it's because Swededn had eugenics, Sweden did one of the first transgender laws and then when everyone realized that trans people are valid they scrambled around to find / make laws about them and remembered: "Hey! Sweden is super progressive let's just copy them!" Other sources: Why transgender people are being sterilised in some European cou..
So the line of reasoning seems to be 'you're mentally ill, so you are not allowed to have children if you insist on acting on your illness'.
It's important to recognize that the judge here isn't at all saying that the law is good or justified, just that it isn't against the Japanese constitution. This isn't how courts work everywhere, whether you think it should be or not.
I'm not so ambivalent. A nation that treats people like shit deserves no admiration from me.
I'm kinda wary on some aspects of japans honour culture, it does leave a lot of room for domestic abuse. That being said, abuse justified by honour isn't exclusive to Japan by any stretch but there's something about the term "honour culture" that seems... I dunno how to put it, like it seems all nice and good and then you pull back the curtain and find that it's hiding some mouldy patches.
Honestly believe Japan's massive influence in geek and internet culture in general allowed a lot of people to forgive the country's major set-backs. Even the right-wing guys who drool over Japan being so "redpilled" wouldn't care as much.
The courts' check of whether a law is "just" or not is whether it violates the constitution, and according to them this law doesn't. Our Supreme Court declared that bestiality is legal as long as you don't penetrate the animal, despite likewise decrying the fact that it wasn't illegal.
I don't think you'll find any country admirable. You can admire the best parts of any given one and envision adapting them into your own, though.
Admire individuals, people, and groups, not states or corporations.
In Japan you need SRS for legal gender change? Well, obviously it sterilises you in the process. Finland is kind of more funny in that regard because finland doesn't require srs but still is like "you gotta be sterilised lol get these notes from doctors and mail them to us that YOU CANT REPRODUCE" yeah trans men and shit give birth and its funny its gonna change soon tho so its whatever japan will fix its shit too
when a country puts the rule of law over the moral questions of the law everybody looses. Our SCOTUS just let the military return to segrigation based on no evidence whatsoever with actual transgendered persons serving too. This though forces the state upon a person and inflicts permanent injury upon them in an arbitrary and capricious manor.
If the old men actually care enough, you have to remeber they're currently under conservative control right now.
Japan is weird because the good parts are super fucking cool and go above western standards in some cases and the appearance of a shy, very friendly people often seems true but they are really far up the radical far right tree in some awful cases. Hyper capitalism, Koreans and other east Asian minorities are virtually 2nd class citizens in some places in the country, repulsive views on sexual assault and barely any or no LGBT support are all things the far right in the west would pop their boners for. I have a feeling that the only reason Japan hasn't fallen into some hard right dictatorship in the making like Turkey, Brazil, Poland or Hungary is because other than a very small handful of years, the current nationalist party has dominated and ruled the country since 1956. The left wing presence in Japanese politics is laughably shit and offers no real boogeyman to point at nor is there enough immigrants/immigration or foreign "influence" to give the extremists enough ammo. But even with this in mind, you still have radical right wing groups in Japan making all sorts of noise and they are on the rise. Just a bit of their bubble being burst and you'll see Japanese Jair or Erdogan explode in the polls instantly.
Japan have a lot of backward rules but they've been changing over the years. Iirc they've passed a couple laws protecting LGBT last year and I hope more will come in the future
Drafting up the laws is up to the politicians, in this case the judges might have found the law abhorrent but their job is to interpret laws according to precedents and the constitution. It's definitely the fault of the Japanese legislative and executive branches for being so ass-backward about it, not the judiciary.
I'm not at all familiar with the japanese constitution but the judiciary is there to determine if in this case the state has a compelling interest to inflict harm on the person, and the judge found it didn't, so the law should be thrown out just as other forced sterilization laws were in britain or europe.
I don't know, what's the difference between a person with all their strengths and flaws, and a whole country with its own set of strengths and flaws? Can't make a simple, all-encompassing judgment, regardless of scale.
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