eople’s goodwill … it’s not right,” Kousaka told the 

Observer. Other countries were

leaving Japan behind, she added.
Pressure is building on Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to recognise LGBTQ+
rights as
the international spotlight will take the country closer to allowing equal marriage.

He recently created a new government post responsible for LGBTQ+ rights and met
equality campaigners. But he also provoked anger by claiming that Japan’s ban on
same-sex marriage was “not discriminatory”, and that legalising it would
“fundamentally change society” and challenge so-called traditional family values.

In response, Takako Uesugi, co-leader of a group of lawyers representing plaintiffs in

Tokyo court cases seeking marriage equality, said Kishida’s ambiguity on sexual
minority rights was tantamount to “approving of discrimination”.

Makiko Terahara, an equal marriage campaigner, speaks at a press conference in Tokyo in

February. Photograph: Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/REX/Shutterstock
Activists are ramping up the pressure as the clock ticks down to the G7 leaders’ summit
in

requirement for [LGBTQ+] people to be able to be who they are, but also a symbolic step
toward eliminating underlying discrimination and prejudice against them,” Makiko
Terahara, of the equal rights group Marriage for All Japan, s