TRANSEXUAL IN TOKYO

Text by Chie Matsumoto

chiez2001@yahoo.com

Aya Kamikawa's tears have finally paid off. She stood in front of Tokyo train stations last year rain or shine and belted out her innermost secret to the bustling commuters: She was born a he.

She stood up last year to help eliminate discrimination against fellow transgender people so that they can gain status in society. Kamikawa ran for a seat in a Tokyo municipal assembly last year.

Kamikawa herself had not been inside a voting booth since she began living as a woman. But last April, she proudly cast her vote for the first time in about five years, only to add another vote to her victory.

It was a long struggle for many transgender people like the 36-year-old politician. But they have finally seen the light at the end of a tunnel.

In July, Japanese government established a law to grant transgender citizens change of their birth sex on the official family registry. Some 29 out of 40 who applied have been able to officially change their sex since then. Though Kamikawa herself has not applied for sex change on the official document, her boyfriend, female-to-male transgender who has completed his surgery, also received an official approval of changing his birth sex this summer.

They no longer have to bear the critical stares whenever they present their passports at the airport, health insurance cards at hospitals or residency papers to prospective landlords. They even had difficulty obtaining memberships at movie rental shops. In case of Actress Caroussel Maki, who broke ground 30 years ago by undergoing a sex change operation in Morocco, she was detained in a male ward for 41 days on suspicion of drug possession last September because she was still a he on the official document. The 62-year-old star, too, celebrated her complete reincarnation in September.

The transgender community had been almost invisible, except for those who market their queerness as "new-half" and work in Tokyo's famous red light district. Others quietly spent their days in fear of being spotted as "freaks."

To change the system and the society from within, sacrifice was needed. Someone had to prove that transgender people are your next door neighbor.

That's when Kamikawa decided to work the Japanese government.

""Society should provide a safe and favorable place for every citizen," she said. ""But people who suffer from gender identity disorder have been subjected to discrimination that leaves them out of the system."

Kamikawa was the first known case of someone running for election in a gender different from the one they were born with, according to the government.

People living as the opposite sex often have trouble finding full-time employment because the documents they must provide employers usually specify their birth sex.

Before Kamikawa gave up her birth sex and began living as a woman in 1998, she was just like any other businessman in a suit, working in the public relations office of a nonprofit company.

As she grew up in Tokyo, she recalls, she felt confused about her gender. She wondered if she might be gay, but meeting homosexual men at a gay hiking club did nothing to clear her mind. It wasn't until she found a transgender group that she finally realized she was a woman trapped in a man's body.

The newly established law stipulates that those who wish to alter their birth sex to receive diagnosis of gender identity disorder from multiple doctors and sex change operation that resulted in their inability to reproduce. They must be single adult, older than 20 years of age, and have no children under their custody.

Some argue that the people with gender identity disorder may feel forced to undergo the physical transformation because the law requires it for changing birth sex and that the law also ignores the quality of life for those who have children from their previous marriage

The first sex change operation in Japan was conducted in 1998, a year after the Saitama Medical School ethics committee established guidelines for sex change operation. While no statistics have been collected in Japan on people with gender identity dysphoria, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology estimates there are anywhere from 2,200 to 7,000 such individuals, based on percentages in the U.S.

It's not necessarily that all the transgender people seek anatomical change. Shijimi (stage name) is satisfied with only her breast implant. The 32-year-old transgender hostess and exotic dancer in a Tokyo's entertainment district has been able to find boyfriends who don't mind her not undergoing a complete surgery. She remains a he on the official document, but she says she enjoys her two sides.

She, too, suffered the queerness early on. But as she worked at the transgender night club "La Saison," she managed to overcome embarrassment and agony by words of encouragement from her patrons, she says.

Although she never wishes to change her birth sex on the official certificate, she will not be able to tie the knot with a man as long as Japanese government remains firm on not legalizing same-sex marriage.

Kamikawa and her boyfriend could have been married without a problem because they were members of opposite sex. However, when Kamikawa receives an approval of offical change of her birth sex, it will be the true marriage.

TRANSEXUAL IN TOKYO - JAPAN