Same-Sex Partnership Certificate in Japan: A Sociopolitical Analysis of Key Factors Behind its Regional Approval and the Main Impediments to its Implementation at a National Level
Abstract
Same-sex partnership certificates, established for the first time in 2015 in the districts of Shibuya and Setagaya (Tokyo), are the first legal recognition of the rights of the LGBT community in Japan. This article carries out an analysis of the main sociopolitical factors behind the establishment of the certificates in several regions of the country as well as of the existing impediments to their establishment on a national level. The local granting of the certificates is largely due to economic and political interests of certain sectors of the Japanese population. Therefore, it has not been prompted by a social demand as the development of an ideologically motivated LGBT activism in the country has hardly developed. The establishment of the certificates at a national level is thus an unlikely outcome in the near future. Nevertheless, these certificates represent an important step in the recognition of the rights of sexual minorities in Japan.
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