The movement for removing the gender entry field from applications for public high school admissions has quickly spread throughout Japan. This was done in consideration for the transgender community and other groups. There were only 2 prefectures that were working towards the removal of the gender form field on the spring entrance examination of 2019, but it has increased to 41 prefectures this spring. The movement has spread quite quickly in a span of two years.
Asahi Newspaper interviewed 47 prefectural education committees in December 2020. Out of 47, 41 answered that they would remove the gender entry field on the admission application. 7 of the 41 prefectures will be implementing it this spring for their entrance examination.
Local governments support this movement mainly to give consideration to the transgender community and gender minorities. However, they have also provided other reasons to abolish the gender entry field. "Gender isn't relevant to selecting applicants, so we concluded that it's not important information to collect" (Aomori prefecture). "Of course, we do this to support gender minorities, and if we remove the gender entry field, it won't be much of an inconvenience. Looking at what other prefectures have done, we're debating if asking for one's gender is important at all" (Yamanashi prefecture). "Aside from legal documents, the whole prefecture can eliminate the gender entry field for all applications" (Hyogo prefecture). "This is just part of the initiative to promote the movement prefecture-wide, starting with the prefectural office and the prefectural board of education. In 2017, applications had multiple choices for gender. From 2018-2019, it was a fill-out form. By 2020, the gender entry field had been abolished altogether. The movement was implemented in different stages" (Mie Prefecture). These statements prove that there are municipal governments that are looking over other documents to remove gender entry fields aside from school applications.
Even if they eliminate the gender form field on the applications, high schools can still obtain the student's gender, which is recorded on the family register, because junior high schools have their genders on their school records. "There are still school records that are kept hidden from the students, which have records of their gender. Schools use these as convenient references for tasks such as forming class sections, etc" (Okinawa prefecture).
The 6 prefectures that still have gender entry fields are as follows: Yamagata, Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Tokyo, and Shizuoka. Yamagata plans to abolish it in spring of 2022, while Tochigi is still up for debate. (There have been criticisms against Tokyo. Tokyo has an LGBT discrimination ban ordinance, but the removal of gender entry field doesn't seem to be included in it.)
The admission application is the document that is to be submitted at the time of the entrance examination. The applicant has to fill in their name and their home address on it. All of the prefectures had either multiple choice or fill-in forms for the gender entry field in 2018, but in 2019, Osaka and Fukuoka led the initiative to remove it.
An Asahi Newspaper article featured a transmasculine third-year student from a metropolitan high school. He said that he had scribbled down "female" on his application the day before the entrance exam, but 3 years later, he wrote down "male" for his resume as he was job-hunting because he wanted to work with his real gender identity. His high school teacher supported him and had his back. They said, "If that becomes the reason you don't get the job, this school will work hard for you to get one."
Students like him appreciate the increase of municipalities that will remove the gender entry field, and are hoping that the whole nation will abolish it altogether. "Gender is something I decide for myself. I think it's unfair that anyone might have to worry about filling in gender entry fields because not all prefectures have abolished it," the student said.
A principal of a public junior high school in the Tokyo metropolitan region, where they are taking gender-sensitive measures, welcomes the idea of removing the gender entry field to lessen the discomfort of people filling it in. However, at the same time, there are still many activities at school like physical check-ups and separating boys and girls for certain classes. The principal wonders to what extent transgender students are accepted by their fellow students and their guardians. "I can't help but say that the system, too, is still discriminative," they pointed out, "removing the gender entry field will not solve the many issues that still exist."
Abolishing the gender entry field has been taken up to the National Diet. Taiga Ishikawa, an openly gay member of the House of Councillors, asked about this movement within various prefectures during a meeting with the Committee of Education and Science on November 26 of last year. The Director of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Takimoto Yutaka answered, "It depends on their Board of Education if they will use applications without gender entry fields. We have to respect the judgment and the decision of each prefecture." Councillor Ishikawa also brought up an issue from the transgender community about having the Japan Standards Association (JSA) to stop requiring gender on resume templates. "The format of the school transcript will be based on what the employer needs and that will be the job of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and other related organizations," Director Takimoto commented.
Miho Mitsunari, the vice president of Nara Women's University (Gender and Law), stated, "As schools continue to support gender minorities, there are still students who take the entrance exam wearing uniforms that differ from their registered gender. There shouldn't be a need to fill in one's gender on application forms or examination slip, which other people might notice. However, at the same time, it is still important to obtain that information on documents such as their school records, so that we can release statistics on the ratio of men and women who passed the exam. Without it, then we won't be able to see the gender disparity in issues like unequal admissions to medical school. It is dangerous to disregard the gender ratio within the government or in society while we take into account our support for gender minorities. It is important to separate and organize when and where gender is needed to be mentioned in a document."
For that transgender examinee, having to put gender on the application form made him almost trip over the entrance of the building. It haunted him later when he had to write his gender on his resume and entry sheet while he went job-hunting.
Kokuyo released a resume template without a gender entry field last December in response to JSA and to the community's long-held wish of removing it. This is a huge step towards progress.
Before this,
Unilever Japan had already released application forms without gender entry fields and implemented a policy to not ask about gender in their 2020 employment selection.
A former student, Mizuno, spoke of their job-hunting experience as a nonbinary (X-gender) person. "I can't stand being told that I have to wear this or that because I'm a man or a woman. The unspoken rules of job-hunting and only having two options for professional attire is heart-breaking. I gave up on wearing clothes that fit my gender expression when I didn't get the job one time."
These are examples of job-hunting sexism. These gendered expectations without any logical basis are being pushed onto job-seekers. People started a
petition to reform sexist expressions and to propose professional attire for diverse genders rather than sticking with only 2 genders as advertised by major companies and suit companies.
In September last year,
Pantene featured a trans job-seeker on a newspaper ad. It became a huge topic for discussion. Hopefully, people will come to respect that there are more diverse genders than being "man" or "woman."
Abolishing the gender entry field from applications will not solve everything. It won't matter if school systems cannot protect their transgender students or if their parents don't understand and accept them. It won't matter if employers won't let transgender employees work under their true gender identity or if their coworkers won't understand and accept them. Aside from legal measures to prevent harrassment and outing incidents, LGBTQ policies also need to include protection for the transgender community. (If you are someone wondering how you can help the LGBTQ community, you can contact OUT JAPAN)
I will end this article with the
words of the Director of the GID Society, Professor Mikiya Nakatsuka of Okayama University:"Having a different gender identity from the one you were assigned at birth and having dysphoria is not an illness or a disability. "The illness is not the person themselves, but the bigots who refuse to understand and continue to discriminate in this society."
References:
Removing the gender entry field from public high school admission applications expands from 2 prefectures in 2019 to 41 prefectures in 2021
https://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S14792330.html
