A district in Tokyo has become the first municipality in Japan to issue certificates recognising same-sex unions as equivalent to marriage, in the latest move to counter discrimination against the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Shibuya ward on Thursday began issuing same-sex partnerships to couples aged 20 or over, who are required to sign a notary document confirming they were in a loving relationship based on trust, according to Kyodo News.
While Japan does not place the partnerships on a legal par with heterosexual marriages, officials said the move was designed to support same-sex couples, who say they are routinely discriminated against when looking for accommodation or visiting partners in hospital.
Hiroko Masuhara, 37, and Koyuki Higashi, 30, were the first couple to register their partnership with the ward, a busy entertainment and business district, where almost 10,000 of its 217,000 residents are non-Japanese people.
“I want many people to know that same-sex couples are around you,” Higashi, an actor, said outside the ward office, where she and Masuhara, an entrepreneur, were congratulated by the mayor, Ken Hasebe. “As a first step, I hope this will spread across Japan.”
Shibuya has been at the forefront of promoting LGBT rights in Japan, where same-sex unions are not legally binding. In March, it became the first municipality in the country to recognise same-sex partnerships – a move was greeted with cheers but drew a cautious response from conservative politicians.
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is among those who have pointed out that Japan’s constitution describes marriage as “based only on the mutual consent of both sexes”.
Setagaya, another Tokyo ward, started issuing similar certificates later on Thursday, however, in another reflection of changing attitudes among governments and businesses.
Earlier this week, Lifenet Insurance said it now recognised same-sex partners as beneficiaries of life insurance contracts, while mobile phone carriers NTT DoCoMo and KDDI reportedly plan to expand family discount services to include gay partners.
Public support for LGBT rights is also growing. In a poll by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper this year, 44% of respondents approved of same-sex marriage, while 39% opposed it.
Same-sex couples who live in Shibuya are now allowed to rent apartments together, and have gained hospital visitation rights as family members, although those rights still have no legal protection in Japan. As a deterrent against discrimination, hospitals and businesses that violate the ordinance and ignore requests to comply will have their names made public.
“Heterosexual couples and same-sex couples are really very much the same,” Higashi said. “It is unfortunate that there are many things that cannot be done and cannot be recognised because the number [of gay couples] is small. “I hope the day when we have equality in society comes soon.”
Sexual orientation arouses little controversy in Japan, where gay celebrities appear regularly on mainstream TV. But campaigners say official recognition of LGBT rights lags far behind the US, where the supreme court legalised gay marriage across the country in June.
