Unstoppable: The March for LGBTIQ Equality in Japan

Saturday was the Tokyo Liberation March, an intersectional march whose message was the need for society to embrace all minority groups on their own terms as different from the dominant majority culture. The march included diverse Japanese minority groups, such as Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan, and emphasized how minority groups should not have to prove their resemblance to the majority in order to be respected and be free from discrimination. This message of liberation is especially meaningful and powerful in Japanese culture, where pressure to adhere to perceived public norms is immense and constrains not only LGBTIQ people, women, and other visible minority groups, but indeed also any Japanese person who does not want to conform to apparent societal expectations.

Sunday was the Pride Parade, featuring numerous contingents and floats. Marriage For All Japan, was one of the largest contingents, composed not only of queer couples and LGBTIQ activists, but also of members of the Japanese parliament, known as the Diet. Numerous community groups participated in the march along with multiple domestic and international companies, who also had booths at the festival.

Corporate support for LGBTIQ equality is crucial in this nation, in which business plays an outsized role in political life. But we were very pleased to see that community groups marched first in the parade with business groups following later.

Perhaps most politically significant about this year’s pride events was the outspoken presence of numerous ambassadors from G7 countries and other pro-LGBTIQ countries who spoke forcefully about the need for equality in Japan as well as elsewhere in the world. The eyes of the world are on Japan this week as the annual G7 conference opens on May 19 in Hiroshima. As readers of this column may know, Japan is the only G7 country without either marriage equality or civil unions, with five of the seven nations having full marriage equality. A 2020 OECD report found that Japan was next to last, just above Turkey, of the 35 OECD counties when it came to LGBTIQ legal rights.

British Ambassador Julia Longbottom, whose daughter recently married her wife in the U.K., gave a powerful and personal appeal for equality. Dutch Ambassador Peter van der Vliet took a not-so-subtle jab at the ruling Jimintō (LDP) party, which is now scrambling before the

G7 conference begins to try to pass an LGBT “understanding” bill that still provides no substantive legal protections for queer people. The ambassador proclaimed that “better understanding is the starting point not the goal. Discrimination in any form is not part of free society.”

Argentinian Ambassador Guillermo Hunt gave inspirational remarks about his nation’s leadership on marriage equality, recognition of gender identity, and non-binary people’s rights. Many ambassadors invited festival attendees to visit their nations’ booths at the festival.

U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel’s turn to speak came last, and he took full advantage of it. He thanked the crowd for their patience in staying attentive for all the speeches, a virtue for which Japanese people are famous. But he immediately entreated queer people not to be patient when it comes to equality.

Emanuel explained that the U.S. also had a booth at the festival, but he boldly implored the crowd not to stop at the booth, but instead to march right on by and into the streets to make their voices demanding equality heard. Two days later he followed up with a tweet: “The equality countdown begins now. As I said at Tokyo Rainbow Pride and will say again: no one should have patience when it comes to equal rights for all. This is the time; this is the moment to have your voices heard and our values adhered to ... .”

In addition to his impassioned rhetoric, Emanuel also sounded a softer tone both at Pride and on Twitter. At Pride, he praised Japan as a beautiful home with people with beautiful hearts, urging the government to open that welcoming home to all people. And on Twitter he echoed: “It’s time for a new era where members of the LGBTQI+ community feel at home in” both countries, recognizing that the full equality had not yet been achieved on either side of the Pacific.

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