Trans News in Japan 2001

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Trans News in Japan - 2001

The Japan Times Wednesday, June 20, 2001

Sex change no cure for torment
Surgery an option but transsexuals still face legal walls

By HIROSHI MATSUBARA
Staff writer

In 1987, Masae Torai caught a flight to the United States with 4 million yen in savings to undergo a sex-reassignment operation and fulfill a long-held wish to become male.

His wish came true. After being diagnosed as a person with gender identity disorder at a U.S. hospital, Torai, the pen name he has used for several books on transsexualism he has written, underwent surgery at age 23 to remove breasts and lacteal glands.

He returned to Japan and started taking male hormones in a bid to have a body more like that of a man. Two years later, Torai's ovaries were removed in the U.S.
Although Torai, 37, still needs to periodically inject male hormones to maintain his male features, he said his anguish over his physical state has been surgically cured. His social suffering, however, continues. He still faces difficulties in many aspects of daily life because legally he remains a woman.

"When I renewed my passport a few years ago, I had to explain my situation for 30 minutes in front of other applicants," he said. "I feel embarrassed, bothered to explain, and often even sorry to confuse other people in every situation I need to show my ID."

The Family Registration Law stipulates that registrations can be corrected only when "mistakes" are found. Judicial authorities have repeatedly rejected petitions by transsexuals to change their gender registration, saying sexual identity is determined only by sex organs and chromatids. Only one amendment has thus far been approved for a gender identity disorder patient, in 1980, according to Torai.

Last month, Torai and five other transsexuals separately petitioned four family courts in eastern Japan to change their registered genders.

On Monday, Torai and three other transsexuals also petitioned the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to allow them to change their registered sex on health and employment insurance documents and public pension papers.

They also requested that the cost of sex-reassignment operations be covered by health insurance and called for administrative measures to prevent employment and other social discrimination toward such people.

Prior to Monday's petition, Torai told The Japan Times that Japan, where sex-reassignment surgery has already been authorized for people with gender identity disorder, should now move ahead to allow them to legally change their sex.

"Our constitutional right to pursue happiness is being violated," he said. "Currently, I cannot even marry my girlfriend."

For him, adolescence was simply a nightmare. "Everyday, I felt that I was growing into an undesired body," he said. "I hated every aspect of my life, ranging from wearing a girl's uniform at school to having a high-pitched voice and menstruation."

In 1996, Saitama Medical School authorized sex-reassignment surgery as a legitimate medical treatment for patients diagnosed with gender identity disorder. Two years later, the first patient underwent female-to-male surgery, and to date, seven patients have undergone sex-reassignment surgery there.

In addition, another received a male-to-female operation at Okayama University Hospital in January.

Many sufferers of the disorder previously underwent such surgery abroad, mainly in the United States -- where about 1,000 people had had sex-reassignment operations by 1980 -- and Thailand.

According to Toshio Yamauchi, a psychiatrist at Saitama Medical School and head of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology's special committee on gender identity disorder, such surgery is necessary for serious cases.

"Previously, psychiatrists tried to help patients accept their physical sexuality through counseling, but it rarely worked," he said. "Sex-change operations may still appear extreme or even immoral, but it is often the only solution for patients."

According to the latest studies, gender identity is probably established in the fetal stage, often regardless of physical or genetic characteristics.

Gender is genetically established at the time of fertilization, but a "hormone shower" must follow to establish gender in a physical and probably psychological sense, during the brain's development, in accordance with the genetically determined sex, Yamauchi explained.

But fetuses are often supplied with fewer hormones than required or in some cases the hormones of the opposite sex, spawning gender identity disorder, or in extreme cases, birth as a hermaphrodite, he said.

Torai said he believes his disorder was caused by his mother taking steroid hormones to prevent a miscarriage.

A report released by a prominent U.S. psychiatrist in 1985 said that in the U.S., one out of 24,000 to 37,000 men and one out of 103,000 to 150,000 women have gender identity disorder. Saitama Medical School, where about 350 people have so far received counseling and other treatment, estimates there are between 2,200 and 7,000 cases in Japan.

While Yamauchi said he believes the registration law should be amended to allow transsexuals to change their registered gender, he said it would help just a small segment of patients.

"Those who want to completely transform their bodies through surgery account for less than 10 percent of all the patients we have treated, and many others choose to live between the two sexes," he said.

"Some are still confused over which sex they belong to and face persistent prejudice from the general public, which tends to regard such patients only as sexual perverts."

Rumiko Miyazaki, a biological male who asked that his real name be withheld, may be a good example. Identifying himself as having gender identity disorder, Miyazaki lives as a woman on Saturdays and teaches politics and economics at a Tokyo high school as a man on weekdays.

Having had no surgery or hormone treatment and having never consulted a psychiatrist, Miyazaki also has a wife and son at home, to whom he plays the role of father on Sundays.

"I feel so much more comfortable living as a woman and can't wait for Saturday to come around," said Miyazaki, who is in his 40s. "But even other transsexuals call me a phony GID or just a pervert."

Yamauchi of Saitama Medical School said it is crucial for society to break through the prevailing "dualism of sexuality," which tends to ignore the presence of sexual minorities and often dismisses their rights.

"Dualism in sex draws a strict line between two genders and defines those in between only as perverts," he said. "Such an idea is obsolete from the perspective of medical science, and a society that adheres to that ideal is simply immature and inhumane."

(PHOTO Caption) Masae Torai, 37, (left) who underwent a female-to-male sex-change operation in the United States, shows a petition to Chieko Nono, senior health and welfare vice minister, at the health ministry in Tokyo. (JT / Yoshiaki Miura Photo)

The Japan Times: June 20, 2001
(C) All rights reserved

PlanetOut May 29, 2001

Trans Japanese Seek Recognition
Barbara Dozetos, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Tuesday, May 29, 2001 / 04:02 PM

A group of transgendered Japanese citizens are asking their country to recognize their gender and name changes, Reuters has reported.

Writer Masae Torai went to court on behalf of a group of six people on May 24 to request the right to change their names on the official family registers, or koseki, kept by town halls.

"I don't want a drastic change in any law. I just want to see the reference to my sex changed in the register," Torai told Reuters.

Sex-change operations for people identified with gender identity disorder have been legal in Japan since 1998. But conservative registrars at local government offices largely have refused to record name and gender changes in the koseki, citing laws that say they are only supposed to correct mistakes in the original entries.

Without an accurate listing in the register, transgendered Japanese are unable to obtain appropriate identification documents and say they are therefore subject to discrimination in housing, employment, civic participation, marriage and daily business transactions.

"Frankly, I don't think we'll get what we want," Torai told Reuters. "The usual argument against us is that our views are not widely accepted socially. But I hope that by our continual demands for change, society will take notice of us and change their views too."

c 1995-2001 PlanetOut Corporation. All copyright & trademark rights reserved.

Gay.com UK May 29, 2001

Japanese Transsexuals Battle In Court

For Gay.com UK
29 May 2001

A 37-year old transsexual man is going to court in Tokyo on behalf of himself and five other transsexuals demanding to have their names on the official koseki, or family register, at their local government office, Reuters reports.

Sex change operations became legal in Japan in 1998, but local government has the power to decide if a person can change their sex on the original family documents.

"It's not just a matter of public embarrassment when we have to show proof of identity, it's also a matter of our livelihood and sometimes life and death," Torai told Reuters.

Transgendered persons cannot marry in Japan as on paper they would be a same-sex union, which is not recognised under Japanese law.

copyright 2001 ONLINE PARTNERS.COM, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Advocate.com, May 26-29, 2001

Japanese transsexuals sue for recognition

A group of six Japanese transsexuals went to court Thursday to demand the right to change their names and gender on official government registries, saying authorities have refused to update their identification documents since they underwent sex-change operations, Reuters reports.

“I don’t want a drastic change in any law. I just want to see the reference to my sex changed in the register,’’ said Masae Torai, a 37-year-old female-to-male transsexual writer.

Official identity documents are crucial to daily life in Japan. Since Torai is now a male, he faces harassment and prejudice when he presents documents that state he is female.

Torai said he and other transsexuals have been evicted by landlords, refused employment, and harassed when they show identification at banks and libraries.

On Thursday Torai sued on behalf of himself and five other transsexuals to demand that they be allowed to change their name on the official koseki, or family register.

Sex-change operations have been legal in Japan since 1998.

But local town halls have prevented Japanese transsexuals--estimated at some 2,000--from gaining what they see as their true identity.

Under current law, local registrars decide whether changes can be made to original entries and do so only if a mistake regarding gender designation has been made.

Torai is not very optimistic about his chances for success.

“Frankly, I don’t think we’ll get what we want,” Torai said.

“The usual argument against us is that our views are not widely accepted socially. But I hope that by our continual demands for change, society will take notice of us and change their views too. Only then will we have a fighting chance.’’

advocate.com Copyright 2001 Liberation Publications Inc. All rights reserved.

(International Herald Tribune / ) Asahi Shimbun May 25, 2001

Transsexuals try registry change

The Asahi Shimbun

By TARO KARASAKI

May 25, 2001

Six transsexuals, citing daily hassles and hardships, filed requests with four family courts Thursday to record their current sex in their family registries.

The six, five men born as women and one man who became a woman, claim the registry discrepancies create conflicts in their daily lives.

They said surgery to treat gender identity disorder, a condition in which a person believes he or she belongs to the opposite sex, has gained acceptance in this country. But they said legal barriers continue to infringe on their rights as individuals.

``I want the court to see that this is a serious and urgent matter,'' said Masae Torai, a 37-year-old writer who submitted his request to the Tokyo Family Court. Torai was born a woman, but had a sex-change operation in the United States in 1989.

Torai said he was prompted to take action when he heard about two transsexual cancer-sufferers who put off treatment for fear of having to reveal their sex changes.

``Many transsexuals still live in fear of discrimination and face life-and-death situations because they cannot come out,'' Torai said.

The identities of the five other transsexuals have been withheld.

While there are no official statistics, a law professor studying the issue said about 1,000 Japanese have had sex-change operations, mostly overseas.

The first approved sex-change operation in Japan took place at Saitama Medical College in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, in October 1998.

Of 10 known cases in which transsexuals sought to change their registered sex, only one was successful.

``It is unclear why the court granted this one case,'' said Toshiyuki Oshima, a law professor at Kobe Gakuin University.

Oshima said courts have rejected past requests on the grounds that ``consensus has yet to be gained in society'' and that to grant a change in the registry ``could trigger serious legal problems.''

But the professor said, ``There is no consensus in society that such changes should not be granted.''

He added that no such legal problems have occurred in countries that allow sex changes.

Oshima said many industrialized countries, such as Sweden, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada, and many U.S. states have enacted or revised laws to allow for sex redesignation.

``The medical world has given the go-ahead, but the law hasn't caught on yet,'' said Oshima, adding that he hoped transsexuals, working as a group to raise public awareness, can get a necessary law enacted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2001 Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

Daily Yomiuri May 25, 2001

Doctor group plans to lobby govt on transsexuals' rights

Yomiuri Shimbun

The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology will soon urge the Justice Ministry and the Supreme Court to grant patients who have undergone sex-change operations the right to rewrite their sex distinctions in their family registers, it was learned Thursday.

The move is part of an effort to support petitions filed with family courts for similar goals by those patients whose sexual identities conflict with their biological sexes.

They have received sex-change surgeries at Saitama Medical College and other hospitals.

Transsexuals are people who switch from one sex to the other because they are overwhelmed by a feeling that they are being trapped in bodies of the wrong sex.

Since the society mapped out guidelines for sex-change operations for people suffering from gender-identity crises four years ago, such operations have been conducted on eight occasions in the country.

However, the Family Registration Law stipulates that people can change the gender on their registrations only if there were mistakes in recording their genders after they were born.

Since transsexuals cannot change their genders on their residence certificates, health insurance cards and passports after sex-change operations, they have difficulties finding jobs, going to hospitals and getting married, resulting in discrimination and prejudice against them.

Toyoshi Nakashima, chairman of the society's special committee on gender-identity crises, said that the society decided to make the request because it has the duty to say what is right from a medical viewpoint.

Copyright The Yomiuri Shimbun

Japan Times May 25, 2001

Six sex-change recipients file for official recognition

Six people who underwent sex-change operations have separately filed petitions at four family courts in eastern Japan to change their gender as recorded in family registrations, it was learned Thursday.

According to sources familiar with the cases, the six claim they experience difficulties in daily life as their legal gender remains unchanged despite their operations.

The court's handling of the petitions may test the extent to which Japanese society accepts sex changes.

The six, aged between 20 and 50, filed the petitions with the Tokyo Family Court and other family courts in the Kanto and Tohoku areas.

They include four people who were legally transformed from women to men at Saitama Medical School.

The remaining two, now a man and a woman, had their operations overseas.

The six have had trouble getting jobs and traveling overseas due to differences between their appearances and their registered sex on official documents, the sources said.

They cannot marry and their constitutional right to "pursue happiness" has been violated, the sources added.

The Family Registration Act stipulates that registrations can be corrected when "mistakes" are found.

Courts, however, have repeatedly rejected such petitions recently, saying sexual identity in registrations is determined by sexual organs and chromatids.

An amendment to the register has been approved in at least one case.

There are no court statistics on such cases because court procedures are closed to the public.

Courts tend to approve corrections in cases where it is difficult to determine whether sexual organs are male or female.

The six claim that courts should acknowledge their disorders because, as far as they are concerned, their real sexual identities were not known at the time of registration.

One of the six, 37-year-old Masae Torai, told a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday that, "some people cannot even go to hospitals because they hate showing their health insurance card. It is a problem concerning our lives."

The Japan Times: May 25, 2001 (C) All rights reserved

Kyodo News May 24, 2001

6 transsexuals demand court orders to register new genders

TOKYO, May 24 Kyodo - Six people who have undergone sex change operations have demanded courts allow them to register their new genders on their family registers and thus official documents, one of them said Thursday.

Masae Torai, 37, told reporters that some transsexuals refuse to see doctors because of the embarrassment of handing over health insurance cards carrying their previous genders.

Copyright 2001 Kyodo News. All Rights Reserved

Yahoo! Singapore News May 24, 2001

Japanese transsexuals fight in court for recognition
By Olivier Fabre

TOKYO (Reuters) - Freedom has not come easy for 37-year-old Japanese writer Masae Torai.

Twelve years ago, he thought he had won it with a sex-change operation abroad that released him from the female body he had never wanted.

But he didn't reckon on the wall of conservatism and prejudice that awaited him back in his native country, where the law still stubbornly lists him as his family's eldest daughter.

"I don't want a drastic change in any law. I just want to see the reference to my sex changed in the register," Torai said, speaking in a quiet cafe near his home in a working class suburb of Tokyo and preferring not to reveal his real name.

The refusal of the authorities to allow gender changes except in the case of "mistakes" would not matter so much if official identity documents weren't so crucial to daily life in Japan and didn't immediately expose people like Torai to prejudice.

As a result, transsexuals are evicted by landlords, refused employment and often harassed when they show identification from banks to libraries.

Without the telltale female name on his official documents, few would guess at Torai's unusual background.

With his boyish looks and mannerisms, he appears little different from the thousands of tired businessmen flocking back to this Tokyo suburb after another day at the office.

To try to prove he's no different, on Thursday Torai went to court on behalf of himself and five other transsexuals to demand the right to change his name on the official koseki, or family register, that are filed on all Japanese at their local government office.

"The entire issue depends on the courage of the judge to meet the challenge of something new," he said.

OUTCASTS

Sex-change operations have been legal in Japan since 1998, but local town halls, reflecting a conservative society, have prevented Japanese transsexuals -- estimated at some 2,000 -- from gaining what they see as their true identity.

Under current laws, local registrars are left to decide whether changes can be made to original entries and are only meant to do so if a mistake in the gender has been made.

As a result, many transsexuals have realised that the operation was easy in comparison with the obstacles they face in society.

Few bother to vote as the electoral lists have them down as women -- a sure-fire recipe for embarrassment, or worse, at the local polling station.

They are also banned from marrying people of the opposite sex as on paper it would be a same-sex union -- a matrimonial state not recognised in Japan.

"It's not just a matter of public embarrassment when we have to show proof of identity, it's also a matter of our livelihood and sometimes life and death," the soft-spoken Torai said.

Torai recalled an incident when a transsexual friend, too embarrassed to go to hospital with a medical insurance card showing the owner's previous gender, failed to detect a malignant cancer tumour in time.

GENDER, NOT SEX

Torai said that much of the prejudice stems from a perception that transsexuals are sexual deviants or perverts, or are part of the equally misunderstood homosexual minority.

"It has nothing to do with sex. I would have been happy in a monastery if that had been the condition for my sex-change," Torai explained, adding that sexual orientation and gender identity were separate issues.

Medical guidelines introduced by the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1997 recognise certain transsexuals as affected by GID, or gender identity disorder, and eligible for the once illegal sex-change operations.

A GID patient feels he or she is trapped in the wrong gender's body, while a gay man or woman is generally happy with their gender and prefers partners of the same sex.

As a young child, Torai, like many other female-to-male transsexuals, firmly believed he would grow up to be like his father in every way.

When puberty kicked in, he was shocked to find out that his body was developing as a woman's.

"I wouldn't have been able to get over that shock if I hadn't seen on television at the time news of a famous Japanese woman returning to Tokyo as a man after a sex change in the United States," he said.

Vowing to do the same, Torai had to go furtively through with the full operation in 1989 at Stanford University in the United States when he was 25.

"I felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders after the operation," he said. "I burnt all photographs of my previous self."

BUREAUCRATIC BLOCKADE

But the past came back to haunt him when he, like many others who have had the operation, sought to go through the ostensibly simple procedure of amending the family register.

He was defeated by a wall of bureaucracy a year later, but is now back with an army of respected lawyers, medical experts and co-complainants.

Though he is not very optimistic of breaching the authorities' closed minds, he hopes to open a chink in the wall of indifference.

"Frankly I don't think we'll get what we want," he said. "The usual argument against us is that our views are not widely accepted socially.

"But I hope that by our continual demands for change, society will take notice of us and change their views too.

"Only then will we have a fighting chance."

Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Reuters Limited

Copyright 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) News May 22, 2001

Request to Record New Genders on Family Registers to be Made

The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology is to submit an urgent request to the Ministry of Justice, seeking to record new genders of patients with gender identity disorder on their family registers, the sources said.

The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology four years ago announced guidelines that allow patients suffering from sexual identity disorder to undergo sex-change operations. In accordance with the guidelines, the first such operations in Japan were conducted.

Eight people have undergone the operations so far while over 1,000 people have received medical treatment for gender identity disorder.

However, there are hardly any cases in which the nation's family courts allowed patients to change their genders in their family registrations.

Under such a situation, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology has decided to submit an urgent request to the Justice Ministry, seeking to have new genders of transsexuals recorded on their family registers.

[END] [10:54 JST 05/22/01]

Gay.com UK May 9, 2001

Japan: Transsexuals Fight To Make Their Genders Legal

For Gay.com
9 May 2001

Six Japanese transsexuals have filed a historic lawsuit in a bid to have their genders legally recognised on the country's family register.

Japanese citizens are required by law to enter their names and sex on a family register.

Transsexuals hope that the lawsuit will finally give transgendered people rights in the country.

Gender reassignment surgery was only introduced into Japan in 1998 and many transsexuals are still afraid to reveal their 'real' sexes to employers, government bodies etc.

Copyright 2001 ONLINE PARTNERS.COM, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Japan Times May 6, 2001

Transsexuals set to file civil lawsuits
Battleground moves as six aim to record new genders on family registers

A group of six people who have undergone sex-change operations will file civil suits May 24 seeking to have their new genders recorded on their family registrations, an activist supporting transsexuals said Saturday.

They will be the first lawsuits of their kind since sex-change operations officially began in Japan three years ago.

The suits are intended to secure better social conditions for the transsexuals, who cannot get married and have difficulties finding jobs.

Of the six transsexuals, four were converted to men at Saitama Medical College in Saitama Prefecture and two became women, one in the United States and the other in Singapore.

In Japan, eight people have undergone sex-change operations in accordance with guidelines introduced by the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology in May 1997, with two men becoming women and six women becoming men.

The guidelines say patients should receive psychiatric counseling and hormone therapy before undergoing the operation.

While the operations free transsexuals from feeling trapped in bodies of the wrong sex, they still face various problems including being officially identified by their former genders, said Masae Torai, a 37-year-old freelance writer in Tokyo who became a male in the United States in the late 1980s.

Torai, who heads a private organization of transsexuals called FTM (female to male) Nippon, said most transsexuals "struggle not to reveal their 'real' sexes."

"They hesitate to go to libraries as they have to show a registration card that shows a sex different from the one they appear to have, or many of them stay as part-timers as they do not want to submit to employers their residence certificates," he said.

It is also impossible for them to enjoy the social benefits given to ordinary married couples because their genders in official documents remain unchanged, he said.

Japanese citizens are required by law to be entered on a family register.

Torai is still registered as female in his family registration.

"We want to change such circumstances in order to improve our living standards through the litigating tactics," he told Kyodo News.

According to some medical studies, the incidence of transsexualism worldwide is estimated at about one case per 50,000-100,000 people, suggesting that more than 2,000 people in Japan believe they belong to the incorrect sex.

Other than the eight who underwent operations at the two medical facilities, Torai estimates an additional several hundred Japanese have had sex changes in operations conducted outside the medical society's guidelines, or abroad.

"I suppose many of these people have filed suits for legal sex changes, but there are virtually no statistics about the results of their legal battles," he said.

A person who underwent the operation in the U.S. was allowed to change gender to female from male in 1980 by the Tokyo Family Court, but no similar successes have been reported, according to Torai.

He said five to seven plaintiffs are planning to file suit at the Tokyo Family Court and three other family courts nationwide on May 24, but all of them, except Torai, declined to reveal their identities for fear of discrimination.

Torai said, "I hope that those who are struggling in the courts individually will be cheered up by seeing our moves."

Transsexuals are defined by the World Health Organization as those who have a desire "to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomical sex, and wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex."

The Japan Times: May 6, 2001 (C) All rights reserved

Japan Today April 13, 2001

Book Review: Born in the wrong body

"Search - Kimi ga ita"
By Yuuki and Megumi Heianna

Review by Mami Fukae

Ever since the Japanese government legalised sex change operations in 1998, transsexuals have come forward to talk about the torment of feeling trapped in a body of the opposite sex, and the discrimination they have to go through to live the way they wish. But we never get to hear about their love lives.

In "Search - Kimi ga ita" (I've searched - now I've found you), newly wed couple Yuuki and Megumi Heianna talk about their relationship and how their love went beyond the conventional boundary of gender.

Yuuki, 29, and Megumi, 28, are legally husband and wife on paper and in real life. However, they are both transsexuals and their social roles are opposite from those written on the marriage certificate. Yuuki, a biological female, is the husband, and Megumi, a biological male, is the wife.

Like many who believe they were meant to belong to the opposite sex, Yuuki and Megumi had to go through a lot of misery and prejudice before they found each other before they married in 1998.

"I thought of myself as a man even when I was very young," recalls Yuuki.

Born in 1971 in Osaka Prefecture, he was named Yuko. As a girl, he played with local boys most of the time. He writes how he strongly believed a penis would eventually come out.

His childhood was a constant battle over whether to put on a skirt. He was always annoyed by school uniforms, which he was obliged to wear. "I felt weird in the school uniform skirt," he writes.

Even worse was his aversion to his physical development as a woman. "I was growing into something monstrous," he recalls. He swathed cotton cloth around his breasts. When he had his period, he thought to himself, "I'm perverted."

By the time he was in high school, a family crisis added to his secret suffering. His father started beating his mother, and she left home. Shortly after, his father and elder sister also moved out.

Yuuki, still a freshman at high school, was left alone. But he somehow managed by himself and graduated. He then got a job as a typist but again he had to put on a skirt, this time a corporate uniform.

"I felt ill by my appearance, thinking I was 'disguising myself as a woman,'" he writes. He quit three months later, and began working as a construction worker.

"In the world of construction labourers, there was no need for a resume. I didn't even have to prove my legal identity. Best of all, though, everybody believed I was a man."

For the next six years, Yuuki was careful not to reveal his biological gender by avoiding personal contact with other workers. "The only time I spoke was to say good morning, good evening and whenever I ordered a takeout lunch at a shop."

Then at the age of 26, he got a job at an Osaka bar where many transsexuals work, hoping to find out information on getting a sex change operation. There he encountered his future spouse to be Megumi.

Megumi was born in 1972, as the youngest son of three boys, in a relatively well off family. At a young age, she wanted to try on skirts and play with dolls, but couldn't say so, fearing other people's reactions. When she started playing with girls, her mother insisted she behave like a boy.

Soon, she became the target of bullying at school. She intentionally stopped playing with girls, and tried her best to mix only with boys. "But I really felt I wasn't normal," recalls Megumi.

Her family also experienced a downturn. Her father's trading business went bankrupt when Megumi was a fifth grader, and her parents got divorced. During the subsequent years, Megumi and her mother moved from one place to another, and she attended four junior high schools. She tried various part time jobs to help her mother overcome the financial strain.

Throughout those years, Megumi agonised over her sexual identity, especially after she fell in love with boys and had sex with them. Such experiences led her to think she was really a woman in the disguise of a man. Her hope of becoming a "normal woman" intensified.

Upon graduation from high school, she started working at bars known for hiring transsexuals, including the one where she met Yuuki. Finally she decided to have a sex change operation at the age of 20.

Recallling her encounter with Yuuki, Megumi writes, "I've always been attracted to men. I never thought I would fall in love someone who was a biological female, though."

Yuuki admits he used to be turned off by anyone who had a sex change operation. "But I'm a soft touch. Minutes after I entered Megumi's apartment, I was hooked on her," he says.

They got married in 1999.

"I think our differences are what makes us unique - whether it is our hair, skin colour or gender," Yuuki says. "Accepting the way we are and the way others are, makes life so much more exciting. Besides, how does the saying go? Don't judge the book by its cover."

April 13, 2001

Search - Kimi ga ita by Yuuki and Megumi Heianna
Published by Tokuma Shoten
Y1600

Japan Times January 31, 2001

Man undergoes sex-change operation

OKAYAMA (Kyodo) An eight-hour sex-change operation was performed Tuesday at Okayama University Hospital on a man who doctors said feels he has been trapped in the body of the wrong sex since childhood.

The hospital is the second medical institution to perform a sex-change operation in Japan after Saitama Medical College, which has conducted seven such procedures.

According to state-run Okayama University's medical school, a surgical team from the obstetrics and gynecology, urology and orthopedic surgery departments conducted the operation under Isao Koshima, an orthopedic surgery professor at the university.

The surgery, which lasted about eight hours, ended in the afternoon. It involved removing the patient's male sex organs and surgically constructing female sex organs in the patient.

Okayama University Hospital said the patient's identity and other personal details are being withheld at the patient's request.

Doctors at the hospital said the patient began feeling uncomfortable as a male when he was a child and had undergone hormone treatment for the past several years.

Last March, the university medical school ethics committee gave its approval for the university hospital to conduct gender reassignment surgeries.

The hospital decided in August to perform the operation on the transsexual patient.

Doctors at the hospital said the operation was originally scheduled for November but was put off because of the patient's poor health.

Saitama Medical College, a private medical school in the town of Moroyama, Saitama Prefecture, in October 1998 conducted Japan's first sex-change operation. So far, it has performed one male-to-female and six female-to-male operations.

The Japan Times: Jan. 31, 2001 (C) All rights reserved

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