4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Asahi Shimbun
Award-winning author sues politician for outing her
Author Li Kotomi, right, and her advocate, Yutori Takai, speak at a news conference in Tokyo on June 5. (Saori Kuroda)
Akutagawa Prize-winning author Li Kotomi has sued a local politician from Yamanashi Prefecture, seeking 5.5 million yen ($38,000) in damages and the removal of social media posts that she said outed her as transgender.
In a lawsuit filed at the Tokyo District Court on June 5, the 36-year-old Taiwanese-born novelist accused Hiromi Muramatsu, an assembly member from Kofu, of violating her privacy and personal rights by disclosing sensitive information online.
'There are storms in this world that only strike certain people and I was hit by such a storm,' Li said at a news conference. 'My peaceful daily life was taken from me. What happened to me is only the tip of the iceberg.'
Li transitioned to being a woman before she moved to Japan in 2013 and chose not to disclose her gender identity publicly.
However, after Li won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2021, posts claiming that Li was transgender began circulating on social media.
According to Li, Muramatsu posted on Facebook in May 2024 that Li 'has a male body and has not undergone surgery.'
Muramatsu also shared photos of Li as a minor, along with Li's previous legal name. Some of these posts remain online.
Li said that she has never met Muramatsu and accused her of 'suddenly exposing sensitive personal information in a targeted attack.'
As a result of being outed online, Li was forced to come out publicly in November.
The onslaught of online abuse continues to cause her physical and mental distress, and she has since been diagnosed with an adjustment disorder.
'I am a woman and a lesbian. I never wanted to go public with this,' she said when she came out.
Muramatsu responded to the lawsuit saying, 'The initial post has already been deleted, and I have responded appropriately to subsequent posts.'
Muramatsu said she would consult with a lawyer about whether this constitutes defamation.
LONG-BUILT LIFE DESTROYED
Yutori Takai, an associate professor of transgender studies at Gunma University, appeared alongside Li at the news conference.
'Outing Li deprived her of her peaceful life as a woman,' Takai said. 'It shattered the life she had painstakingly built.'
Outing a transgender person means publicly revealing that person's birth gender or pre-transition identity without consent.
Transgender people feel a deep disconnect from the gender assigned to them at birth and may find it impossible to live as that gender.
However, transitioning to live in alignment with their gender identity can be a long process that may involve medical treatments and changes in appearance and name.
Due to persistent social prejudice, many transgender people are forced to change schools, jobs or even sever ties with family and friends. And even after all that, legal gender recognition may not be guaranteed.
Many transgender individuals chose to keep such experiences private. Li was one of them.
For such people, having their pre-transition past exposed can collapse their 'painstakingly built life.'
'There are people who change their attitude the moment they learn someone is trans, as if dealing with something 'foreign,'' Takai said. 'People pry into whether they've had surgery, too.'
Takai called for transgender people's past and present gender-related information to be protected as sensitive personal data.
In response to the growing challenges faced by transgender people, the advocacy group Tnet issued a policy proposal in May calling for stronger privacy protections.
'Social media abuse against trans individuals has become extreme, with personal information being exposed and human rights violations worsening,' the group stated.
The full proposal is available on its website:
(This article was written by Saori Kuroda and Yuki Nikaido.)
