The G7 Address Human Rights and LGBTQI+ Inclusion in Japan

May 19, 2023 – This weekend, the annual G7 summit is being held in Hiroshima, Japan. To open the meeting of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful democracies, the leaders of the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States) paid a somber visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, ground zero for the first nuclear bomb ever dropped on a civilian population that left as many as 140,000 people dead. Also on the first day of the meeting, G7 leaders announced new sanctions on Russia in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, stating that the group “will not tire in our commitment to mitigate the impact of Russia’s illegal actions on the rest of the world.”

As the meeting opens with a focus on peace, security, and human rights, behind the scenes, there are efforts afoot to seek a similarly tireless G7 commitment to promoting human rights for LGBTQI+ persons within the G7 and beyond. 

In April, in preparation for the G7 meeting, a group of LGBTQI+ activists, diplomats, business leaders, and government officials from the G7 countries gathered in Tokyo. The inaugural Pride 7 Summit — the P7, for short — called on the powerful G7 to do more to support their own LGBTQI+ citizens as well as LGBTQI+ people around the world. The final Pride7 Communiqué calls on the members of the G7 and especially host governments to institute LGBTQI+ protections, “including in the forms of non-discrimination legislation, marriage equality, bodily autonomy and gender self-determination.” The P7 call was particularly targeted at Japan, which is the only G7 member without any national legal protection for LGBTQI+ persons and the only country in the group that does not recognize same-sex marriage equality.

Also earlier this year, a leaked private letter sent to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida by ambassadors from the six other G7 countries plus the European Union called on the Japanese government to enact nondiscrimination protects for sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. For a generally cautious diplomatic group to express such frustration with another member of the club is remarkable. And just last week, fifteen embassies in Japan, led by the United States, posted on social media to call on the Japanese government to promote LGBTQI+ equality ahead of the G7 Summit.

On Thursday, the day before today’s opening of the G7 Summit, the Japanese governing coalition in parliament submitted a bill promoting understanding of the LGBTQI+ community. This “understanding” bill is nonbinding and a far cry from the binding legal protections that local LGBTQI+ activists in the country are seeking, but it is at least a first step and a symbolic gesture from Prime Minister Kishida’s ruling party. Fortunately, after being shamed by the P7 and called to task by the other members of the G7, the Japanese government seems to understand that G7 leadership requires a commitment to LGBTQI+ equality.

To date, Japan has a mixed equality record. As recently as last year, courts in both Tokyoand Osaka upheld the constitutionality of Japan’s ban on same-sex marriage, but a court in Sapporo found the lack of marriage equality to be a constitutional violation, and more marriage cases are in the legal pipeline.

On the surface, Japan might not seem like a particularly oppressive country for LGBTQI+ people: after all, Tokyo hosts a vibrant Pride celebration, anti-LGBTQI+ violence is rare, and homosexuality is not criminalized. But as an Amnesty International report documented,discrimination against LGBTQI+ citizens in Japan is pervasive.

As Human Rights Watch also recently noted, “Japan lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, despite strong support for a national “Equality Act.” Japan also forces trans peoplewho want to legally change their gender to appeal to a family court, undergo a psychiatric evaluation, and be surgically sterilized.”

Japan also stands out among its G7 peers on the global stage. It is the only G7 member that hasn’t joined the Equal Rights Coalition, the intergovernmental coalition dedicated to promoting the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and strengthening LGBTQI+ civil society around the world. Moreover, Japan does not provide any dedicated development assistance funding to LGBTQI+ issues or civil society — in stark contrast to the $50 million that the United States Congress earmarked this year for support to global LGBTQI+ concerns through USAID and the State Department.

We know that Japan is hardly the only democracy failing to fully promote LGBTQI+ human rights. Few countries scored particularly well on the recent LGBTQI+ Report Cards released by the Council for Global Equality and F&M Global Barometers ahead of the Biden Administration’s Summit for Democracy earlier this year. Of the G7 members, Italy and the United States join Japan in receiving failing grades, while Canada was the only member to receive an A grade. Certainly, all G7 members can do far better by their LGBTQI+ citizens, but Japan in particular owes its LGBTQI+ citizens more.

Moving forward, as the G7 presidency rotates to Italy next year, we join the U.S. Embassy in calling for the P7 to become permanent. The U.S. embassy has tweeted its support and called for Pride 7 to become an “official engagement group” attached to the G7 process on a permanent basis. Hopefully all G7 countries now understand that leadership requires a commitment to LGBTQI+ equality both domestically and internationally.