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Kamikawa Aya is a Tokyo municipal official, the first transgender person
to seek elected office in Japan. She was elected in April 2003.
Ms. Kamikawa, a 35-year-old writer, submitted her election papers with a
blank space for "sex." Her birth documents, wherein she is listed as male,
cannot be altered under Japanese law. However, she was permitted to run as a
woman. This was hailed as a victory for transgender rights in Japan.
Running as an independent, she won her seat, placing sixth of 72
candidates running for 52 seats in the Setagaya municipal assembly, a
district in Tokyo. Despite an announcement that the government would
continue to consider her male for other purposes, she declared that she
would sit as a woman. Her platform was to improve rights for women,
children, the elderly, the handicapped, and sexual minorities.
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