The Hiroshima High Court made the decision on Wednesday for a person diagnosed with gender identity disorder, who is legally male but lives as a woman.
Under current Japanese law, a person’s gender recorded on their family registry can only be changed if certain conditions are met.
The law effectively requires those wishing to change their legal gender to undergo surgery so that they no longer have reproductive function and their genital organs resemble those of the opposite gender.
In a landmark ruling last October, the Supreme Court said that requiring people to undergo surgery to remove their reproductive function when they wish to officially change gender is unconstitutional. But the court did not make a decision on whether it should be required for a person’s genital organs to resemble those of the gender they identify with.
