A Japanese Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a transgender woman should be able to change the sex assigned to her at birth in the family registry without undergoing surgery, as is currently required by law. The development is likely to put more pressure on the government to revise the law.
The Gender Dysphoria Act of 2003 establishes two controversial requirements that require surgery to change a person’s legal gender status:
In October of last year, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the first of the two requirements was unconstitutional. However, it did not rule on the second clause and sent the case back to the high court.
