Japan to roll out nationwide LGBTQIA+ education for the first time

Japan is set to roll out nationwide LGBTQIA+ education for the first time in schools, workplaces, universities and homes.

Japanese media reports that the plan is designed to promote public understanding and awareness of gender and sexual diversity in the country, which has not legalised same-sex marriage.

The draft program reportedly notes that LGBTQIA+ people can "experience confusion, anxiety and difficulties in daily life due to insufficient public understanding."

The scheme has been years in the making, with the Act on the Promotion of Public Understanding of the Diversity of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity passed in 2023, requiring the creation of a plan.

The final plan is yet to be made public, with experts also awaiting more detail.

Reports suggest schools are set to provide information to students about sexually and gender-diverse people, while also ensuring that pupils have adequate access to social workers and counsellors.

Universities would revise curricula to ensure that people training to become healthcare professionals and teachers have in-depth knowledge of sexual diversity.

Videos, leaflets and training videos promoting awareness, diversity and academic research will be combined with stronger consultation schemes to measure the public's understanding of sexual diversity.

Yearly reports on the program, public understanding and related policies will be introduced, with the overall scheme to be reviewed once every three years.

The plan was presented to and approved by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) earlier this month, and is expected to be signed off by Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's cabinet soon.

'Great initial step'

Alisha Khojanazar is a molecular neuroscience research technician at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology and identifies as a woman of transgender origin.

She welcomed the education plan as a "great initial step".

"I think it will help a lot, especially young adults and queer adolescents who are just discovering their identities or genders,"

she said.

"If it would lead to some kind of broader protection by law, that would be great. But with the current political climate in Japan, I would love it to be more inclusive."

She told the ABC her university was very welcoming to the LGBTQIA+ community, with gender-neutral bathrooms and pride celebrations held regularly, but said the country had a long way to go.

"It's very hard to meet someone who is open and queer and Japanese," she said, adding many people in the country were reluctant to speak freely about their sexuality or gender.

Yui Oizumi, a student at Sophia University in Tokyo, identifies as queer.

She described the education plan as a "baby step" that would have some positive effects.

"Training teachers and employers to be mindful is good. But at the same time, I think it's not really going to do much to change the perception of regular everyday people and how they think about queer people," she said.

"I think that's going to take more time and more conscious effort through media as well."

She said outright homophobia was rare in Japan, but she constantly ran into people who did not understand that she was queer.

"That is such an alien concept that people are like, 'What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense.' And that's kind of where the struggle lies the most for me," she said.

She added that friends of hers in a lesbian relationship had been denied rental properties because they were in a same-sex relationship, and believed an anti-discrimination law would better protect the community.

Gay rights in Japan

There are no national laws outlawing discrimination against gay people in Japan, but some local government areas and labour laws offer some protections.

Japan is the only member of the G7 to not legalise gay marriage.

The Japanese government also does not recognise the marriages of same-sex couples if they were legally married in other countries.

Kazuyoshi Kawasaka, an expert in LGBTQIA+ rights in Japan at The University of Tokyo, said the government had decided against anti-discrimination laws to appease conservative factions of the LDP.

Ms Takaichi opposes same-sex marriage, despite previously saying that "there should be no prejudice against sexual orientation or gender identity".

"The LDP is very conservative, especially for promoting traditional family values. So that is very tricky for the LGBTQ activists in Japan," Dr Kawasaka said.

"I think that a bigger [anti-discrimination law] protection is much more effective, actually," he said.

Political scientist at Monash University Charles Crabtree said education was a good starting point.

"Misinformation or a cloudy sense of 'the other', whatever that 'other' is, impedes individuals' ability to empathise with those who are different from them," Dr Crabtree said.

"Education can have an effect, but it depends on what that content is and how much it foregrounds lived experiences, and potentially even highlights the experiences of discrimination that people within this community have felt."

He described the issue of same-sex marriage in Japan as "rather dire" but said opposition to legalising it was possibly not as strong as it seemed.

In 2024, Dr Crabtree published a public opinion survey of people in Japan as part of the Stanford Japan Barometer, which is believed to be the largest semi-regular opinion poll published of the Japanese public.

Of the 8,000 respondents, 47 per cent were in favour of legalising gay marriage, with 16 per cent opposed and 37 per cent neutral on it.

"It's hard to characterise exactly what that 37 per cent means, but it suggests to us that there are people who may be potentially malleable in terms of their views," Dr Crabtree said.

"On the whole, we found this to be a much more rosy picture than what we had seen from other survey data.

"Education efforts might help nudge neutrals to more positive levels of support, which all might matter because higher levels of public support might encourage more dramatic and meaningful government action."

He said the data found younger people were much more in favour of same-sex marriage than older people in Japan.

Ms Takaichi also received a lot of support from young people, he added, something that could have spurred on the draft education plan.

In November last year Tokyo High Court ruled in favour of Japan's same-sex marriage ban, saying it did not violate key elements of the country's constitution.

However the judge noted that "it is inevitable that constitutional violations will arise" and that "the issue should first be thoroughly deliberated in the Diet [Japan's national parliament]."

It was the final ruling of six court cases across the country, with the issue now awaiting a Supreme Court ruling.

Some 36,000 signatures were submitted to Japan's top court last week in support of legalising same-sex marriage.

About 15,000 people also braved the rain to march through Tokyo's streets as part of annual pride celebrations.