Kirsty KawanoJapan Women’s University announced last month that it will start accepting transgender students, joining a recent trend among women’s universities here. In consideration of its current enrollment, it has set 2024 as the start date for entrance of students who were assigned the male gender at birth, but identify as female.
The university says it has redefined the term ‘woman’ in line with public acceptance that the issue of gender is more diverse than the binary choice of male or female.
As of this year, Japan’s two national women’s universities, Ochanomizu University and Nara Women’s University, started accepting transgender students, only one or two years after announcing they would do so. Until now, women’s universities had limited entrance eligibility to those officially listed as female in Japan’s family register system, or in documents such as passports.
Respecting human rights
The decision by JWU, the nation’s oldest private women’s university, to delay the change by four years means current students will have graduated before it takes effect. It wants to ensure that all students who enter the university from 2024 onward understand that they may study together with transgender students.
JWU President, Satoko Shinohara explained in a statement said that “it is the mission of this school to endeavor to teach women to contribute to creating a society that respects human rights and in which people are not treated unjustly due to various differences.”
JWU is currently putting together guidelines and a manual to carry out the policy change.
Instituting change for inclusion
Ochanomizu University, which was the first Japanese women’s university to decide to include transgender students, described its 2018 decision as aiming to help create a society that embraces diversity. The Japan Times reported that the move came after the school received an inquiry from a person born male who identifies as female who said the only course she wanted to study was one offered by Ochanomizu.
The university’s guidelines on transgender admission allow such students to request a different name from the one given to them at birth be used on a daily basis and on documents, including their graduation certificate. Transgender applicants must apply to the school for admission eligibility before sitting entrance exams and discuss preferences for use of toilets and changing rooms. The university has 15 multi-purpose toilets on its campus.
Ochanomizu has set up a support center for LGBT students and committees to manage transgender student admission and measures for their integration. It will not expel a student if her identity changes to male while still enrolled.
In an interview last year with the Asahi Shimbun’s withnews, the director of the university said it requires transgender applicants to lodge a declaration of gender identification and other paperwork, such as reports from doctors and schools, as objective proof of their gender identity. He said the school will not accept applicants whose gender identity is unclear.
Slow change is better than none
It is a welcome change when the institutions in our lives recognize and factor in the diversity of those lives. The acceptance of transgender students is a natural move, particularly amid the global trend of dramatic change in how sex and gender are defined, which Nara Women’s University referred to in its 2019 announcement.
But changes often cause consequences beyond their main goals. JWU’s decision to delay the admission of transgender students until 2024 aims for inclusion of transgender students, but also of its current students who may not be comfortable sharing a changing room with a biological male. Ignoring such issues would be a recipe for failure.
Although slow change can be frustrating, it can be key to ensuring consensus and long-term success. It’s also the Japanese playbook in a nutshell.
[Reference] Resemom
