JAPAN / Society

Calls grow to abolish Japan's surgery requirement for gender change

Surgery can be costly and risky amid lack of state support

Kanata Kimoto had his womb and ovaries removed in Thailand when he was 24, so he could have his legal gender status changed. Now he questions whether such an invasive and costly procedure was necessary. | TOMOKO OTAKE

By Tomoko Otake
staff writer

Oct 22, 2023

In 2015, at the age of 24, Kanata Kimoto had the uterus and ovaries he was born with removed at a Thai hospital.

Back then, the Osaka Prefecture native didn’t even question his move, despite the huge cost and potential health risks involved. Sterilization is one of several conditions that all transgender individuals are required to meet if they want to have their gender changed on official papers in Japan. Living with a gender that didn’t match his identity was unbearable for Kimoto.

“It was a choice between undergoing surgery so I could change my gender, and dying,” Kimoto, 31, recalled. “Even if the surgery failed and if I died as a result, I didn’t care. I was that desperate.”