Japan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling in favor of a transgender worker who had sued the government to secure women’s access to toilets at their workplace.
The Supreme Court ruled that barring this woman in her 50s from entering the nearest restroom and forcing her to use other restrooms on other floors of her office was “very untenable”.
This restriction was “unduly favorable to other workers and disregarded possible disadvantage to the plaintiff,” the court added.
This is the first ruling by Japan’s highest court on working conditions for LGBTQ people.
Experts say the move could transform the way the public and private sectors deal with sensitive issues around women-only spaces.
Asked about the court decision, the prime minister’s office said the government would “take appropriate action” after considering the verdict.
“The government will work hard to create a society that respects diversity,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said without giving further details.
The case began with a complaint from a transgender woman who was told by her employer, the Department of Economy and Trade, that she could use a women’s restroom just two floors up from her office.
She argued that banning access to the nearest women’s restroom “profoundly undermines her dignity” and violates a law protecting government employees in the workplace.
The woman was diagnosed with gender dysphoria around 1999, when she was already a civil servant, and in 2009 told her manager that she wanted to dress and work like a woman.
The department had approved some of her requests but insisted she could only use the women’s restrooms a few floors above her office, citing a lack of “public understanding” of the situation. transgender people.
The decision had been approved by a neutral decision-making body involving officials.
However, at a hearing last month, the complainant argued that no member of staff in the department had specifically expressed her unease about the shared use of the toilet.
Currently, under Japanese law, transgender people must undergo surgery if they want to legally recognize their identity.
The plaintiff in this case has not changed gender but lives as a woman.
In 2019, a Tokyo court ruled in his favor, finding that the ministry’s treatment “restricted important statutory rights.”
But a higher court overturned the ruling in 2021, siding with the state, acknowledging that it had a responsibility to consider the “embarrassment and fear” others felt when this woman used the women’s restroom .
Earlier this year, Japan passed its first law, ostensibly aimed at protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination. However, activists criticize the weakened wording of the bill, which only addresses “unfair discrimination”.