Lower house of Japan’s parliament passes bill to promote LGBTQ+ awareness, but not guarantee rights

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — The powerful lower house of Japan’s parliament has passed a bill to promote awareness of LGBTQ+ issues amid protests by activists that last-minute revisions by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s conservative party favored opponents of sexual equality instead of guaranteeing equal rights. The passage followed only a few hours of debate in a lower house committee. The bill is expected to be approved quickly by parliament’s upper house, which is also controlled by Kishida’s governing bloc. The bill states that “unjust discrimination” is unacceptable but doesn’t clearly ban discrimination, apparently because some governing party lawmakers oppose transgender rights. Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations which does not have LGTBQ+ legal protections.