Japan’s Prime Minister Election and LGBT Rights

I want to focus very briefly today on Japan’s Prime Minister election and LGBT rights–mostly same-sex marriage.

Japan is the only G7 country with no same-sex marriage. It’s the only one where spouses can’t have separate surnames, for whatever reason. It’s as far as I know the only one that has no anti-discrimination laws for gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status, but that’s a different story.

But things could improve depending on the prime minister election in the LDP. (Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s conservative party that has ruled the country for about 75 of the last 80 years)

Today, September 27th, the currently-running nine candidates will be narrowed down to two. Then the winner will be chosen and will immediately lead the country. But there’s NINE candidates and it seems like five or six of them actually have some semblance of a chance… At least from my very clueless position.

The system for intraparty prime minister elections is really complicated to me, and probably to everyone else, too…

But anyway, before that vote is actally announced extremely soon, I want to share my thoughts on the Prime Minister election and LGBT rights.

Which of these dudes is actually going to make same-sex marrige legal? The courts have dramatically improved transgender rights in the last two years, but same-sex marriage still has not occured. Taiwan, Thailand, and Nepal have already beaten Japan to the punch despite being poorer countries with more tumultuous political histories. But I do think Japan could easily be the next country in Asia to finally reach marriage equality.

Depending, of course, on a leader who will actually push for it to happen…

The organization Marriage For All Japan released a survey sent to all nine candidates, and three actually responded. There’s six questions, but my translation skills definitely aren’t up to the task on that one, so I’ll just summarize in a basic way.

One of these three respondents, Koizumi, seems to have just sorta not answered any questions. Like a “no comment” type thing… I don’t get why he did that. He’s a really young candidate and would be the first Millennial Prime Minister, but he just flat out didn’t answer, yet responded? What a politician.

One respondent, Kono Taro, is the more pro-LGBT one, with direct answers of approving same-sex marriage and transgender rights. But he’s pretty low in the opinion polls right now, and I have no idea how public opinion translates into intraparty votes.

The third respondent, and polling frontrunner, is Ishiba Shigeru, whose replies are generally pro-LGBT but he hedges in a lot of his answers. He’s “open to it” but probably not going to push super hard for it, is what I’m sensing here. He seems most likely to win, although he also seems like he will be yet another Abe or Suga or Kishida, just a generic center-right conservative.

Nobody else responded, and my quick googling only found that third-place polling Takaichi Sanae, who would be Japan’s first female prime minister, is staunchly against same-sex marriage and I hate her forever, while Hayashi Yoshimasa, who is similarly low in the polls like Kono, just released some vague nothingburger statement. I can go ahead and assume the others will all be pretty crap and keep punting same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues despite overwhelming public support.

The Prime Minister election and LGBT Rights aren’t 100% linked. The courts have already ruled that same-sex marriage needs to happen, and it might be forced within the next few years. But Japan is slow to change its bureaucracy and we really need to keep pushing for leaders who will actually make an effort. I hope one of those two guys win, although only Kono seems like he’ll actually really make a difference.

We’ll see!

Edit: I did finally find a little helpful chart that explains the differences in candidates. Use Google Translate if you can’t read Japanese lol:

Basically, Kano is flat-out good by LDP standards. Ishida and Koizumi are mostly in-favor (even if Koizumi didn’t answer the survey…). Most of the others dodge most of these topics, while Takaichi is one of the worst people ever–she’s literally against LGBT anti-discrimination laws and against spouses having separate surnames.

Please, please, please don’t let Takaichi become the next Prime Minister…