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Trans News in Japan - May 1998
Asahi Evening News May 19 May
13
The Japan Times May 15 May 13
Planet Out (News Planet) May 14
Mainichi Daily News May
15
The Daily Yomiuri May
13
(Asahi Evening News Tuesday, May 19, 1998, page 8)
Edward Hyde, a colonial governor of New York in the
early 18th century, frequently dressed up like a woman.
A portrait shows him wearing a gorgeous dress and a hair
ornament.
Roman Emperor Caligula and British King James I also liked
wearing women's clothes.
According to researchers, those people behaved as men when they
were wearing men's clothes.
This is because they considered themselves to be men and did not
want to be women.
Unlike them, there are a small number of people who wish to
permanently and completely become part of the opposite sex.
For them, their gender is the opposite of what they think
themselves to be.
The ethics committee of Saitama
Medical College approved a
sex-change operation for a female patient in her 30s.
The woman applied to the school for the operation about six years
ago.
First, the ethics committee asked academic societies to draft
guidelines and sought the formation of a medical team comprising
specialists of various fields.
It gave the green light for this patient this time because it
thought these conditions have been met.
The committee squarely responded to a request of a single patient
and went ahead with preparations while disclosing information.
The case is expected to be a good precedent for future endeavors
in advanced medicine.
At the same time, the entire process must have jolted the
preconceptions on gender held by many people.
People who do not fit into the conventional molds of men and
women are often made targets of ridicule and persecution.
Even in modern times, when people are taking more flexible views
on what is considered manly or womanly, such a tendency is still
very strong.
All over the world, the idea that only sex
for reproduction is natural and just is predominant.
But what is natural and what is not?
There is no easy answer.
Some species of fish and amphibian change sexes according to
environmental changes.
It became known that homosexuality is commonly observed among
gorillas and chimpanzees, which are the closest animals to
humans.
The borderline between men and women is not as clear as many
people think. It is unclear not only in terms of cultural gender
roles but also biologically.
In the United States and Europe, studies on gender roles and
sexual behavior have been vigorously pursued in various branches
of science, genetics and endocrinology.
As a result, it became clear that human sex is not determined by
sex chromosomes alone, but that hormones in the fetal stage also
play an important role and so do the ways children are raised.
Still, it remains a mystery why there are people who have a
woman's body and a men's mind or the other way around.
To treat such cases, various psychological therapies have been
tried to conform the psychological sex to the biological sex.
However, no successful attempts have been
reported.
No matter how few, we wish to respect the right of those people
to want to live like themselves.
For that, it is not enough that sex-change
operations become possible.
More than anything else, it is important that families, friends,
colleagues and many people around those persons understand and
accept them.
It is also necessary to build a system so
that they can obtain proper support from experts on medicine and
psychology.
A study on legal measures, such as officially changing a person's
gender on census registration, should also be launched.
Isn't our society too obsessed with the distinction of sex?
This operation also seems to be addressing such a question.
(Asahi Shimbun, May 14)
copyright ©1998 Asahi Shimbun
(Asahi Evening News, May 13, 1998)
Asahi
Shimbun
URAWA - The nation's first ethics-committee-approved sex-change
operation is expected to take place at the
Saitama Medical School before the
end of next month, medical school officials said Tuesday.
The officials said the operation was approved by the school's
ethics committee after a lengthy debate about whether the surgery
was appropriate in the case of a woman suffering from
"gender identity disorder."
The woman in her 30s complained that she has considered herself
to be a man in a woman's body since she was a child and hated
wearing skirts in school.
She said she wanted the surgery "to return to my original
(male) gender."
In Europe and the United States, gender identity disorder is a
medically recognized disorder and is treated as such.
People suffering from it recognize their biological gender but
feel trapped by it.
In Japan, professional debate concerning sex-change surgery has
been silent since 1969, when a Tokyo surgeon was convicted on
charges that he performed the surgery on three men in violation
of the Eugenic Protection Law.
The medical school officials said the ethics committee began
discussing the implications of the operation soon after the woman
visited the school hospital six years ago, requesting the
surgery.
However, Takao Harashina, a professor of with the school's gender
clinic committee, says surgery is not the ultimate answer for
gender identity disorder.
Harashina said he has treated more than 200 patients suffering
from the symptoms, but found that less than 10 required surgery.
Another complicating factor is that the current Census
Registration Law does not allow for changes in a person's gender.
Officials with the Ministry of Justice
on Tuesday said it is socially understood that a person's
biological gender cannot change.
Michi Nakajima, a writer and expert in medical ethics, said she
was not against sex-change surgery for showing respect for a
person's wishes and values.
However, the decision by the ethics committee may have been
premature, because the person receiving the operation is not
likely to receive legal or social support, she said.
The school officials said the woman has received psychiatric
therapy and hormone injections.
The school concluded that the surgery is the next logical step in
her medical treatment, the officials said.
The woman now works as a construction worker after changing her
job more than a dozen times to hide the fact that she is
biologically female, the officials said.
The woman wants to improve social understanding for those
suffering from similar symptoms.
copyright ©1998 Asahi Shimbun
(The
Japan Times, May 15, 1998)
The ethics committee of Saitama
Medical School approved a
multistage sex change for a 30-year-old woman who claims her
mental identity is male.
Since sex-change surgery is recognized as a medical treatment by the Health and
Welfare Ministry, such surgery may
be permitted if it is the only effective treatment left for
patients who feel conflicted over their gender.
However, approval of the procedure leaves many issues to be
considered.
The criteria for choosing which candidates should be allowed to
undergo sex-change operations must remain strict in order to
prevent frivolous operations that could threaten sexual dignity
in society.
While the medical and psychological problems of sex-change
patients can be treated with hormones and psychoanalysis,
discrimination and other problems they may face in society cannot
be so easily solved.
Family registration is one example.
The sex-change procedure differs from other forms of medical
treatment such as organ transplants or artificial insemination,
in that the goal is not to regain healthy biological functions.
The issues raised by gender changes are too complicated for a
single university to manage.
The government should form a committee and examine the issues
from a broad perspective to determine what criteria should govern
such procedures.
The Health and Welfare Ministry has hesitated to act on the
family-registration matter because it concerns other ministries,
such as the Justice and Foreign ministries.
But this issue presents an opportunity for overcoming territorial
borders between ministries.
Sankei
Shimbun (May 13)
copyright ©1998 The
Japan Times
(The Japan Times, May 13, 1998)
URAWA (Kyodo) The ethics committee of the
Saitama Medical School approved a
multistage sex change for a woman who claims to be mentally a
man, committee members said, paving the way for the nation's
first legally approved sex change operation.
The ethics committee of the school approved the process Tuesday
for the 30-year-old woman, who lives in north-eastern Japan, on
condition that complete mental support measures be provided
following the procedure.
The multistage sex change process is expected to begin as early
as this summer, the members said, adding that the operations
should take about six months to complete.
Professor and plastic surgeon Takao Harashina of the school and
others will oversee the procedure.
At least two operations are necessary, one to remove the ovaries
and another to form the male sex organ, the committee members
said.
The ethics committee rejected a request in 1996 for sex changes
for the woman and another woman, saying that not all the criteria
for conducting such operations had been set.
But the Japanese Society of
Psychiatry and Neurology said last
year that a sex change operation should be permitted on certain
conditions, including that a patient undergo psychoanalysis and
hormone therapy following the procedure.
Last July, in line with the society's policy, a team of
specialized doctors at the school reassessed the women's cases.
Late last month the team recommended that one of the women be
allowed to go ahead with the sex change.
According to one estimate, between 2,200 and 7,000 people in
Japan are suffering from a desire to live and be accepted as a
member of the opposite sex.
In the United States and Europe, efforts to deal with
transsexualism, or gender identity disorder, progressed in the
1970s, although the matter has yet to be addressed for the most
part in Japan.
A major reason for delayed progress in Japan stems from a 1969
case in which a doctor was found guilty of violating the Eugenic
Protection Law by performing a sex change operation on a man
without following proper legal steps and procedures.
THE ETHICS COMMITTEE of Saitama Medical School holds a meeting
Tuesday to decide on multistage sex change procedures for a woman
who wishes to be a man. (KYODO PHOTO)
copyright ©1998 The
Japan Times
(PlanetOut
May 14, 1998)
http://www.planetout.com/pno/news/article.html?1998/05/14/1
NewsPlanet Staff
Thursday, May 14, 1998 / 02:49 PM
SUMMARY: After more than 10 years of wishing and waiting,
a Japanese transsexual will get treatment at last-- the first of
hundreds who have made requests.
Japanese physician Dr. Takao Harashina has been given the
go-ahead to perform the nation's first legal sex reassignment.
The biological female who will begin the six-month process within
the next few weeks has been waiting six years for the medical
procedure and has wished for it for more than a decade.
Estimates of Japanese citizens desiring sex reassignment range
from 2,200 to 7,000.
Previously, those wishing gender reassignment were forced to go
to other countries, although it's suspected that "back
alley" reassignments have taken place.
Japan's slow progress in this area has been attributed to the
1969 conviction under the Eugenic Protection Law of a physician
who performed a sex reassignment without the required legal
actions.
Harashina had applied in 1995 on behalf of the current subject
and another female only to be rejected by the ethics committee of
the
Saitama Medical School in 1996 on
the grounds that society would not approve.
But later the school went on to set up a gender clinic which
developed a set of guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of
transsexuals, and last year the Ministry of Health and Welfare agreed to a set of conditions developed by the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology under which sex reassignment could be approved.
Those conditions include arrangements for psychotherapy and
hormone treatment following the surgery.
In July 1997, a medical team at Saitama reassessed Harashina's
two patients.
One was recommended last month for treatment, and on May 12 the
school's ethics committee gave final approval.
Two hundred people have submitted requests at Saitama Medical
School, 70% of them female, although only about 10% of them are
expected to receive final approval under the strict assessment
guidelines.
Saitama deputy director Kazuo Horiuchi noted that, "Japan's
social and legal conditions do not recognize the change of
gender.
Although we can help our patients feel at home with their true
sexuality, we can do little in helping them fight against the
legal and social prejudice shown towards them."
The Ministry of Justice reaffirmed
May 13 that it is adamant in refusing to change birth records to
reflect sex reassignment.
copyright ©1998 PlanetOut
Corporation
(Mainichi Daily News, May 15, 1998)
A Tohoku woman who has been approved for Japan's first sex-change
operation may find medical relief for her emotional suffering,
but she still faces societal and legal hurdles.
The approval for her operation came Tuesday from the ethics
committee of the Saitama Medical School.
The woman in her 30s, whose name is being withheld in order to
protect her privacy, broke into a smile of relief upon learning
of the committee's decision.
"My body, which was mistakenly born [as a woman's] can
finally be restored to its true self," says the
165-centimeter-tall, muscular woman, who sports a mustache and a
hairstyle reminiscent of that of the young Elvis Presley.
The woman, who is now employed by a construction company, says
that she started to feel strange about her female body when she
was 2 or 3 years old.
She recalls her reaction when she saw the genitalia of he male
peers when they undressed at the daycare center she attended.
"I wondered why I didn't have the same thing," she
says.
"I was certain [a penis] would grow [on me] at any
time."
Around the time she was a junior high school student, she was
disgusted by the fact the her voice was not changing like those
of her male classmates to the point that she damaged her vocal
chords with a metal bar.
When she started menstruating as a high school student, she
panicked.
"I wondered exactly what kind of person I was," she
recalled. She says she was never able to feel comfortable, not
even once, in her female body.
Although she got a job after graduating from high school, she
soon quit because she hated the skirt she had to wear as part of
the company uniform.
Since then, she stuck to traditionally male fields of work such
as plumbing and electrical wiring.
She is in her sixth year at her current construction job.
"I have always worked at companies that don't have benefits
like social security because it would cause problems if my sex
were discovered from my family register," the woman
confesses.
"My current boss doesn't even know that I am a woman."
She uses a decidedly macho form of the Japanese first person
pronoun to refer to herself.
But situations like using a public or workplace toilet or bathing
facilities inevitably present problems.
The woman's mother was vehemently opposed to the sex-change
operation.
It took the woman three years of explaining her reasons to
finally bring her mother around to her point of view.
With the sex-change operation having been approved, she now
dreams of getting married.
Nevertheless, the road ahead of her is bumpy.
So far, there has been no case in which a sex-change has been
legally recognized in documents like family registers, which are
permanent records that note whether a person is born male or
female.
Unless she is registered as a male on her family register, she
will be unable to legally marry a woman even after the series of
sex-change operations she must undergo is complete.
copyright ©1998 Mainichi
Shimbun
(The Daily Yomiuri, May 13, 1998)
URAWA (Kyodo) - Saitama Medical College's ethics committee on Tuesday, approved a
multistage sex change for a woman who claims mentally to be a
man, committee members said.
The decision paves the way for the nation's first legally
approved sex change operation.
The ethics committee of the college approved the sex change for
the 30-year-old woman on the condition that full psychological
support be provided following the procedure.
The multistage sex change process is expected to take place as
early as this summer, the committee members said, adding that the
operations should take about six months to complete.
Takao Harashina, a professor at the college, will oversee the
procedure.
At least two operations are necessary, one to remove the ovaries
and another to form the male sex organ, the committee members
said.
The ethics committee rejected a request for the woman and another
woman in 1996 for sex changes, saying that not all the criteria
for conducting such operations had been set.
copyright ©1998 Yomiuri
Shimbun