is a

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

municipal official. With her election in April 2003, she became the first openly

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

person to seek or win elected office in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Life

Aya Kamikawa was born on January 25, 1968, in Tokyo's Taitō Ward. She is the second child of three. She attended Hosei University Second Senior High School, an all-boys school. In 1990, Kamikawa graduated from

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of law ...

with a degree in Business Administration. She began to work in the field of

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

whilst presenting masculine. In 1995, she resigned from her post, citing stress associated with

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...

, and began

hormone replacement therapy Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal ...

. In 1998, she was diagnosed with

gender identity disorder Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...

by a psychiatrist. In 1999, she started working at a private company whilst presenting feminine. She also changed her name to Aya that same year. In 2003, Kamikawa, then a 35-year-old writer, submitted her election application papers with a blank space for "sex".. She won a four-year term as an independent under huge media attention, placing sixth of 72 candidates running for 52 seats in the

Setagaya ward is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood and administrative district within the ward. The ward calls itself Setagaya City in English. Its official bird is the azure-winged magpie, its flower is the fringed orch ...

assembly, the most populous district in Tokyo. Despite the government counting her win as part of the number of men elected to public office, she stated that she would work as a woman. Her platform was to improve rights for women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

, and transgender (

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

) people. In 2005, subsequent to the passage of Japan's GID law, Kamikawa was finally able to change the sex designator on her

koseki A or family register is a Japanese family registry. Japanese law requires all Japanese households (basically defined as married couples and their unmarried children) to make notifications of their vital records (such as births, adoptions, death ...

to female. Kamikawa was the only openly transgender official in Japan until the 2017 election of

Tomoya Hosoda is a Japanese politician who, on 17 March 2017, became the first transgender male politician to be elected to office when he was elected to the city council of Iruma, Saitama. He underwent gender confirmation surgery in 2015 at the age of 23. Aft ...

Bibliography

* ', Inawami Shoten, 2007,

References

External links

*
Text of the GID Act
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamikawa, Aya 1968 births Living people People from Taitō 21st-century Japanese women politicians Transgender women politicians Japanese transgender people Japanese LGBT politicians 21st-century Japanese women writers Politicians from Tokyo 21st-century Japanese LGBT people

Life

Bibliography

See also

References

External links