Re: Letter from a Japanese Fencer Request of your support to LGBTQ Equality Act in the lead-up to Tokyo2020

October 6, 2020

Dear President Bach,

I am so honored to have you receive this letter.

I am Fumino Sugiyama, 39 year-old transgender man and a former member of Japan women’s national fencing team. I am writing this letter to ask you to support introducing LGBTQ Equality Act in Japan in order to advance Japanese sporting world and beyond, as a historical legacy of Tokyo 2020.

As you know, Fencing is a truly transformative sport. Along with my journey as an athlete, I nourished precious friendships and happiness. Having said that, I have to confess that fencing brought me more pain than joy in my life. To tell you the truth, I felt uncomfortable living in the Japanese sporting world as a transgender athlete.
 
Japanese society is extremely conservative because our male-dominated society remains entrenched, as can be seen from the latest data that Japan ranks the 121st in the World Economic Form Global Gender Gap index. Not only that, the prejudice against LGBTQ is also deeply rooted in Japanese society. According to a survey published by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in March 2020, only about 10% of the LGBTQ respondents answered that they had come out at work (at least to one person). That is a very small percentage, isn’t it? Especially in the sports world, where toxic masculinity is prevalent, homophobic and transphobic slur is popping up everywhere, which is not an exception in the fencing world. At school gyms, dressing rooms, and competition venues, I was always scared and frightened, thinking, “what if someone finds out my gender identity and sexuality?”

No longer did I want to hide myself from my teammates and coaches. After a long time keeping my gender identity to myself, I made up my mind to come out to my coach.

He said, “you are bullshitting. You’ve just never had sex with a real man. I can (*do a sexual act) for you.” The words that my coach said reflect how insidiously heterosexual culture is naturalized in the sporting world and Japanese society, which despaired me so much. His verbal abuse and response led me to retire from fencing.

I loved fencing so much. But I had to quit it to save myself. I could not stand it anymore. I retired in 2005, when I was 24 years old.

Fifteen years since my retirement, I am currently a representative of Tokyo Rainbow Pride, where hundreds of millions of people congregate and celebrate gender and sexual diversity every year. Yet, I am still facing the struggle. That is, I cannot change my legal gender to male. Under Japan’s Gender Identity Disorder Act, all transgender people who wish to change their legal gender must have sterilization surgery. While having encountered these difficulties, I have been blessed with my great friends and family members – I am now a father of a one year old. Those wonderful people empowered me so much to regain my own identity and pride after coming out.

In Japan, we have only one known openly out active athlete. Many Japanese LGBTQ athletes remain in the closet from fear and stigma, unable to live their lives openly and safely in society. Even after retirement, there are only a few known out athletes due to the heavy social pressure. After I publicly came out, many athletes, including Olympics medalists, secretly reached out to me and said, “I cannot come out before I retire.”

On top of that, we do not have any legal protections for LGBTQ people. Same-sex marriage is not allowed. While the Tokyo metropolitan government took a gold step to introduce anti-discrimination law in 2018, thanks to the Tokyo 2020 expectations, there is no anti-discrimination law at the national level. Very little is taught on LGBTQ rights in classrooms. So there is no safe place for athletes or young people. Since social pressure remains so strong, athletes have to live with mental stress, unrest and fear.

Being an athlete and your authentic LGBTQ self is not currently an option in Japan. You cannot be yourself if you keep playing sports. You cannot keep playing sports if you want to be yourself. Athletes in Japan have to choose. The consequence is we are in the sheer darkness, where new generation of LGBTQ athletes cannot even dream about the future.

Nevertheless, I do see lights, signs of change and hope. A courageous young openly LGBTQ athlete ignited these fires. Shiho Shimoyamada, a professional soccer player, spent two years playing for her team in Germany and decided to come out as gay. She recalls, “in Germany, LGBTQ rights are legally protected. Same-sex marriage is also legal. I felt comfortable and safe to live in such an inclusive society.” Shiho decided to come out on Twitter in February 2019, while playing at SV Meppen. She returned to Japan last year and became the first role model of LGBTQ athletes in Japan. She is such an inspirational athlete for many of us. The country you fenced for, Germany, is therefore also an inspiration to us.

I am also proud to report to you that in the Japanese sporting world, fencing is leading this movement. Yuki Ota, whom I practiced with since elementary school, won the medals at the Olympics. As the president of the Japan Fencing Federation, he is now a frontrunner of LGBTQ equality not only in the fencing world but also in the whole sporting world in Japan.

With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as an opportunity, I would like to advance the Japanese sporting world at once, so that LGBTQ athletes thrive and can always be themselves. As mentioned, the sporting world already has that momentum.

The LGBTQ community, both inside and outside of Japan, has started to speak up. In April this year, some 100 LGBT groups signed a joint letter to request the Japanese government to introduce an anti-discrimination law before the Tokyo Olympics.
Almost 100 Japanese LGBT community groups, Human Rights Watch, and Athlete Ally launched the #EqualityAct Japan Campaign on July 21st, calling for the LGBTQ Equality Act before the Tokyo Olympics. My interview fully covers the Japanese LGBTQ community’s hope for the Olympics, which can be found at:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/01/interview-sports-equality-and-power-olympics.

Finally, in Japan, we now have our new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and an opening for political changes for the first time since 2012. Public opinion polls in our country show strong support for LGBTQ people and reforms. The Olympics could be the tipping point to pass #EqualityActJapan legislation, a lasting legacy for the Tokyo Olympics.

Here, we respectfully request your help. Tokyo 2020 is the most meaningful and significant opportunity to introduce the groundbreaking LGBTQ anti-discrimination law and have a tremendous impact on Japanese society once and for all.

We hope you could communicate to our new Prime Minister Suga how Germany’s reforms for LGBTQ rights helped athletes, and how the Olympic system has many LGBTQ athletes, teammates, coaches and family members who would welcome historic national “Olympic” LGBTQ reforms before the Games next summer.

We know we will succeed eventually, because we are on the side of history. If the Olympics has high expectations, it can raise the bar, and help us bring these necessary protections to my country possibly years sooner, protecting the next generation of athletes from what I experienced.

Now that there are so much negative coverage of Tokyo 2020 due to COVID-19, we, the Japanese LGBTQ leaders, would like to devote all our efforts to send many hopes and positive mood from the Japanese sporting world to the Japanese society and beyond.

Thank you so much for reading this letter. I would be pleased to meet you some day and discuss further these important matters.

Best regards,

Fumino Sugiyama