While Japan fights for marriage equality, town halls are helping queer couples formally recognise their relationships

It was amid the jubilant spring atmosphere of Tokyo’s Pride March in 2018 that Canadian student Hillary matched with Yuko on Tinder. The two women bonded over a love for the outdoors, and soon moved in together.

The couple wanted to get married so they could stay together after Hillary moved back to Canada. There was only one problem: Japan prohibits same-sex marriage.

All seemed lost for the star-crossed lovers, but thanks to an introduction to their local councillor, Etsuko Sakai, they
discovered a solution: they were able to obtain a document known as a “partnership certificate” from the Koganei municipality, where they lived. Since 2015, individual municipalities and prefectures have issued these certificates to help queer couples get around the national same-sex marriage ban.

Sakai had made introducing the partnership system to Koganei part of her political platform. “She was vying for re-election; we volunteered to put up posters for her,” Hillary said.

Partnership certificates do not confer the same rights to inheritance, tax and other benefits as marriage,
but they do allow same-sex couples to access certain public services within the municipality where they are registered, including healthcare, welfare and housing. The partnership system also provides vital public recognition of queer relationships. LGBTQIA+ advocates describe the certificates as an important step towards marriage equality in Japan, the only G7 country not to allow same-sex couples to wed. 

Japan’s neighbour Taiwan is currently the only Asian country to have fully legalised same-sex marriage. It is technically possible for same-sex couples to wed in Nepal, though only a handful have managed to do so while full legislation lies in political limbo. Earlier this year, Thailand’s lower house passed a marriage equality bill that now awaits the approval of the senate and the King.

Japan’s Civil Code defines marriage as between a man and a woman, by using the phrase “husband and wife.” Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution states that marriage should be based on “mutual consent of both sexes.”

In recent times, various prefectural courts have ruled in favour of same-sex unions. Last month, the Tokyo District Court declared that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violates the dignity of the individual and fundamental equality of sexes. Meanwhile, Sapporo’s High Court became the first in the country to rule that the provisions of the Civil Code and the Family Register Act relating to marriage were unconstitutional.

The busy wards of Shibuya and Setagaya in Tokyo were the first to offer the certificates back in 2015. Since then, out of 47 prefectures, 27 have introduced the scheme, which covers 453 local municipalities like Koganei. As of May 2023, a total of 5,171 couples had registered themselves under the partnership system in Japan. Miyagi, Fukushima and Shimane are the only prefectures that have no partnership system at all.

To apply for the certificate, couples must submit 20 photos with detailed captions to show the evolution of their relationship, and bills to prove cohabitation. Hillary and Yuko had to book an appointment during official hours of Koganei City Hall, which meant skipping work. By contrast, heterosexual couples who wish to marry can apply online.

“Even though I had my koseki [the family register that contains important records], I was required to submit a different one, for which I had to travel to my birth town. I could not request my family to get it for me since they do not accept my queerness,” Yuko said. (This is why she prefers to not provide her surname, and by association, Hillary’s too.) For her part, Hillary had to get an affidavit from the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, with a lawyer signing and certifying that she was not already married.

When they showed up for their appointment, they got the certificate within minutes, becoming the first same-sex couple in Koganei to receive one. Yuko then applied for a spousal visa to Canada and followed Hillary to Winnipeg in September 2021.

Couples who were married outside Japan also often turn to the partnership system. Foreign partners are not granted residency in Japan in the same way as married couples. This is something South African couple Lisa Sanders and Adelaide Lae Sanders realised when they arrived in Tokyo in November 2021.

Lisa had been granted a scholarship to pursue her PhD at Aaoyama Gakuin University. At Narita airport, Adelaide was told that she could enter Japan only as a tourist, even though they had their marriage certificate from South Africa with them. Immigration officials politely told the couple they had 90 days to change Adelaide’s visa status.

“I was shown a single room at my university’s accommodation even though I had said that Adelaide is my wife. I had to show them our marriage certificate. A heterosexual couple would not have needed to show any document to get a better room,” Sanders said. Later, while house-hunting, they were turned away by multiple real estate agents.

The couple applied for a partnership certificate in September 2023 in Fuchu city, where they were residents, and received it promptly. “We call it our ‘lesbian card’,” Lae Sanders laughed.

The certificate came in handy when Lisa had to undergo surgery recently, and hospital authorities wanted to know why Adelaide had given her bank account information – partnership certificates give couples rights in medical facilities that they may otherwise be denied.

For Adelaide and Lisa, obtaining the partnership certificate was another way to integrate into Japanese society. “We hope to be viewed as a normal couple. We want to show that we gays aren’t bad people,” Sanders said.

Gordon Hayward, a resident of Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture and volunteer at advocacy group Rainbow Saitama, married Japanese national Hayato Watanabe in San Francisco in 2014, right after same-sex marriage was legalized in the US.

In 2020, Kawagoe adopted the partnership system, and Hayward and Saitama were the third couple to apply. With their new partnership certificate they could declare themselves as a family while applying for health insurance, bicycle insurance, to get a shared credit card, and to be registered within the city office as a family, rather than housemates sharing the same address.

Hayward says he views the partnership system as “a truck stop towards a bigger goal.”

The next step within the framework of the partnership system is to bring it in uniformly across all prefectures.

“If we leave Kawagoe and move to Chichibu, we have to de-register from Kawagoe and then register again at Chichibu. Once we have a prefecture-wide system, then we can have a nationwide system. And that will take a while, let alone marriage equality. Change is slow in Japan,” Hayward said.

Even though they carry Japan in their hearts, Hillary and Yuko are less optimistic: “If the authorities stop at the partnership, then it’s just a cop-out,” Hillary said.

Yuko is now urging Hillary to initiate the process of obtaining a statutory declaration of common-law union in Canada. “I want a piece of paper to confirm our relationship. It is my Japanese hangover!”

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