On November 3rd, the award ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival took place and ‘Die Beautiful’ won Audience Award and Paolo Ballesteros won Best Actor. The film is about a life of Trisha, a Filipino transgender woman who dies after winning a beauty pageant. Audience Award goes to the best film that receives the most ‘like‘ votes from the audience. There were 16 films, in competition, chosen from 98 countries and regions this year. The film’s director, Jun Robles Lana, and its executive producer, Perci Intalan came up on the stage at the award ceremony. (Both of them are
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Bunkyo ward issued and handed out this card for residents’ education. On April 5th, Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo established the guidelines for school teachers and the city officials on how to deal with LGBTs to stop discrimination and harassment. It is such a rare case for a local municipality to establish the specific guidelines for dealing with LGBTs, according to Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation(J-ALL) I will introduce some of what is written in the guidelines. The guidelines start from explaining the basic knowledge of LGBTs, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Chapter 2 : Dealing with residents.  “When it comes to
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On 24th October, a love hotel in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture denied a gay couple the use of its facility and the public health center for Osaka issued administrative guidance to the love hotel. The gay couple said that they had visited the love hotel in early October but the hotel denied them entry because they were both men. The couple decided to consult with the public health center and administrative guidance was issued to the love hotel. The hotel said they would carry out discussions on future measures for same-sex couples. “It’s illegal for a hotel to deny someone
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“Sapporo TV Tower”, the symbol of Sapporo City, is illuminated as rainbow in pride season On March 30th, Sapporo City announced the city will issue certificates that officially recognize same-sex partnership from this June. “Sapporo Partnership” was planned to be brought into effect this April, but it was postponed so that the city could have some time to make everyone in the city informed about it. The partnership system could have been mistaken for a system equivalent as marriage, so the city decided to explain the same-sex partnership certificate on its official website and PR magazine. For the recipients’ privacy,
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　SoftBank, one of the biggest telecommunications and internet corporations that has a number of well known corporations under the umbrella of affiliations, such as Yahoo!, BOOKOFF, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and ASKUL, has revised its in-house policies to recognize same-sex partners as family members and extend employee benefits to them. 　SoftBank had already started treating same-sex partners of its customers equally as ‘spouse’ and they were eligible for “Family Discount.” The company was considering revising its in-house policies that affected its 18,000 employees. Under the new in- house policies, same-sex partners of its employees are equally treated as ‘spouse’ and eligible
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　Japanese LGBT community has seen a series of social changes for the last few years such as official recognition of same-sex partners in multiple local municipalities. With these situations as a background, Kyoto Gender Equality Promotion Association conducted its first survey on LGBTs among youth and released the result. The 640 respondents aged 15-25 were randomly chosen from six universities and one college, and City Activity Center in Kyoto City. 　According to the result, 2.8% of the respondents identified themselves as sexual minority. All the respondents are young so many heterosexual respondents answered that they were supportive or acceptive of
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On March 23rd, DIAMOND,Inc, one of the biggest business book publishers, has released its new magazine ,”Oriijin.” The new magazine was named after the Japanese word; “Nijiiro,” which means “rainbow.” “Oriijin” is the reverse reading of “Nijiiro.” “Oriijin” aims at providing an easily readable information on “diversity & inclusion” systems that have been introduced to many companies and issues facing LGBTQ community in Japan and in the world. The magazine repeatedly uses its newly coined word, “Kokoro Style,” which means a state of mind that respects, with responsibility, different values of others. If we have “Kokoro Style,” we can respects
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“We would like to embrace sexual diversity by offering a grave to a same-sex couple.” ‘Shodaiji’ Temple, a temple of ‘Jodo Shinshu’ at Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, has announced a new service for same-sex couples who hope to share a grave together. In Japan, most people are buried at their family grave when they die. However, it has been difficult for same-sex couples to share a grave because same-sex couples are not legally treated as married. There is no laws that prohibit unmarried unions from getting buried in the same grave in Japan. However, according to Yokota Mutsumi, a senior research
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Mr. Hosoda speaking at Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2017(photo by Kakejiku) On March 12th, Tomoya Hosoda, 25, became the first openly transgender man to be elected in Iruma City, in the central region around Tokyo. Mr. Hosoda is the second transgender councilor in Japan. In 2003, Aya Kamikawa, a councilor at Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, became the first transgender councillor in Japan. There are four councillors from the LGBTQ community. Aya Kamikawa at Setagaya Ward(a transgender woman), Wataru Ishizaka at Nakano Ward(a gay man), Taiga Ishikawa at Toshima Ward(a gay man), and Mr.Hosoda in Iruma City. (An openly lesbian councillor, Kanako Otsuji,
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On December 1st, 2016, The National Personnel Authority (NPA), one of the government agencies that manages personnel administration for national public employees in Japan, announced that regulations that aim to prevent sexual harassment will be revised and “behavior or an act based on prejudices toward sexual orientation or gender identity” will be included to the regulations. Discriminatory speech and behavior based on sexual orientation or gender identity will be subject to punishment. This will prevent LGBT discrimination by national public employees. Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation(J-ALL) sees this revision as a great chance for NPA to improve current issues surrounding
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