Unisex school uniforms and pro-trans laws, LGBT lobby wins in Japan

On January 24 this year, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” by journalist Abigail Shrier, had hitherto been poised to be released by another publisher Kadokawa Corp. However, owing to protests by LGBTQ+ activists in front of Kadokawa’s Tokyo offices and accusations of “bigotry” by online netizens, Kadokawa nixed the publication of the aforementioned book, as per an Al Jazeera report.

Just last month, a new publisher, Sankei Shimbun Publications Inc.,part of the conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper owned by the Sankei Shimbun Co., declared that it opted to release the book as it “contains content that we hope many people will read”, Kyodo News reported.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Shrier, a previous opinion columnist for the Wall Street Journal, slammed Kadokawa’s decision as an instance of ideological-led censorship.
“Kadokawa, my Japanese publisher, are very nice people. But by caving to an activist-led campaign against Irreversible Damage, they embolden the forces of censorship,” she lamented. “America has much to learn from Japan, but we can teach them how to deal with censorious cry-bullies.”
The pro LGBTQ+ outcry over “ Irreversible Damage” is just  one instance of the rise of LGBTQ+ ideologies in traditionally conservative Japan.

Recent years have seen an increasing number of Japanese high schools loosening  or abandoning gender rules for uniforms to cater to students who think they are transgender, with around a third of prefectural high schools introducing “gender-less” uniforms following an Education Ministry request in 2015.
On December 1 last year, Okayama Minami Senior High School in Okayama’s Kita Ward revealed its new uniforms to the media, according to the left-wing Asahi news outlet. Some of the new clothing items unveiled included gender-free blazers and slacks in navy blue.
The same Asahi news report stated that key changes in school uniforms have been made since the 1980s to pander to the “the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.”

Based on a 2021 survey on 1,194 public junior high schools organized by a school uniform supplier known as Kanko Gakuseifuku, around 40% of the respondents replied that they had unveiled genderless uniforms, while 55.8% of respondents had changed or planned to alter  their uniform design.
A 2020 report by SoraNews24 found that Yokota Prefectural High School in Japan’s Shimane Prefecture scrapped the notion of boys’ and girls’ uniforms from spring 2021 onwards. sInstread, the school decided to rename boys’ and girls’ uniforms as “Type I” and “Type II”  as part of its plan to cater to “gender identity diversity”.

Furthermore, school swimwear and bags, especially “randoseru,” which is a backpack for Japanese elementary school students, have also been differently colored for each gender.
In 2022, Footmark Corp., a manufacturer and seller of swimming equipment and other products, released genderless swimsuits with the same design for men and women for use in school swimming lessons.
As per a 2022 report by The Mainichi at that time, the company said that one of its aims was to permit students “to participate in swimming classes without being conscious of their gender.”
On April 19 last year, Footmark Corp. began selling these genderless swimsuits to the general public via its online store.
These aforementioned instances of “gender-less” uniforms, swimsuits and similar clothing come in wake of efforts by leftists to push for LGBTQ+ ideologies in Japan.

On the domestic front, Japanese LGBTQ+ advocates in March 2023 started a new G7 engagement group, known as Pride7. The group was meant to promote gender ideology in the country and to call for G7 member states like Japan  “ to “make LBGTQ+ issues a key agenda item at the G7 Summit.”

Established by three prominent LGBTQ+ groups in Japan, namely Marriage for All Japan, the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation and Human Rights Watch, Pride7 held its first summit, the “Pride 7 Summit 2023”, on March 30 at the Japanese House of Representatives First Members’ Office. The summit took place before last year's G7 Summit in Hiroshima.
“We hope that Pride7 can promote and advance the rights of the LGBTQ community not only in Japan, but throughout the world,” Gon Matsunaka, director of Marriage for All Japan,posited. “Going forward, we want to pass the baton on to our allies in future G-7 host countries.”

On May 12 2023, 15 diplomatic missions in Japan, led by Joe Biden-appointed US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, published a video message urging Tokyo to pass a law to protect LGBTQ interests. “With all the challenges that we all face, from the implications of climate change, wars, civil strife, hunger — the last thing that should occupy our energy is two people who love each other and want to build a life together,” Emanuel asserted on X (formerly Twitter).

On October 25 last year, the 15-judge Japanese Supreme Court overturned a 2003 law mandating that trans-identifying people must get a formal diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder” and undergo “sex change” surgeries prior to being able to officially change their sex on government documents like family registries. The law obliged those wishing to have official acknowledgement of a “sex change” to have had their “original reproductive organs” removed.

These aforementioned developments are a somber reminder that Japan, in imitation of its leftist Western counterparts, is possibly heading towards the leftist ideology of “self-identification,” in which people can simply alter their gender by saying so. Consequently, Japan may head down the slippery slope of countries like the US, where men who insist that they are women based on “feelings of gender dysphoria” can enter female bathrooms or changing rooms. Members of the transgender cult may even lobby harder to promote “gender medicine”, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and further undermine the already declining population growth of this East Asian country, despite numerous medical studies insisting that such “gender medicine” is “built on shaky foundations”.