Thanks to the prominence of a 38-year-old transgender politician in Tokyo, Japan is becoming more acceptable of transgender people in general, even passing a law allowing them to change their birth sex to their new sex on birth certificates. Ten years ago there was no word for “transgender” in Japanese and Aya Kamikawa was considering leaving the country, but she is now optimistic, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
“I thought that Japan was never going to change,” Kamikawa told the German news agency, “but now I want other transgender people to feel that their country is not just a place of despair.”
Three years ago, Kamikawa was elected to the municipal post of ward assemblywoman in Tokyo, after standing in front of city train stations with a loudspeaker and telling commuters she was transgender. The resulting attention?she appeared in magazines, newspapers, and television shows?made her one of the most famous people in Japan.