Shiho Shimoyamada: The Form of Family I Envision

I turned 27 this year. Many of my friends back home got married around age 20, and their children are already about to become elementary school students. My seniors and peers from university, with whom I worked hard aiming for the Intercollegiate Championships, are also starting to build "families" one after another.

It has been five years since I started dating my partner. We began dating in our fourth year of university, overcame two years of long-distance while I was a professional player in Germany, and have now entered our third year of living together in Japan. Once, my partner went out for drinks with university friends and came home crying. I couldn't hide my surprise, as I had assumed it would be a fun gathering. When I asked, "What happened?" she opened up hesitantly. "I was told, 'I hope you find a romance where you can get married someday.' When I thought about how they probably think I'll eventually break up with Shiho and that I'm pitiful because I can't get married, it just became too painful."

The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001. Even now, 20 years later, it is still not possible for same-sex couples to marry in Japan. Ever since I realized that I liked women, "marriage, children, and family" became someone else's business to me. I felt they had nothing to do with me, and I even thought I would live my whole life alone.

However, I met a partner I wanted to be with forever, and I wanted the two of us to stay together. Moving to Germany and seeing my teammates talk with sparkling eyes about same-sex weddings and their future family structures made me feel truly envious. Returning to Japan and witnessing same-sex couples and FTM (Female to Male) couples raising children made me realize that it was okay for me to want children too. My partner by my side and the wonderful people around me taught me that the way of life I desired deep in my heart was something I had been forced to give up on by my country. I realized that I am not alone; I, too, want to live together with a family.

I have a senior from my days in the Women's Soccer Section of the Athletic Association who was a comrade-in-arms and remains a close friend after graduation. That senior got married the year before last, and a child was born last year. My partner and I often visit their home and get to dote on the child. Both members of the senior couple are truly wonderful people, and we look up to them. Seeing them raising their child in such a harmonious atmosphere, I can't help but think how wonderful a family is.

The family of Fumino Sugiyama, an LGBTQ activist and a founder of Tokyo Rainbow Pride, is also someone I admire. Fumino is an FTM individual whose physical sex at birth was female and whose gender identity is male. In Japan, to change one's legal gender to male, one must undergo the removal of the uterus and ovaries, which is a high physical burden. For this reason, while Fumino has undergone hormone injections and a mastectomy, he has not had a hysterectomy or oophorectomy and is female on official records. Fumino has two children. They were conceived with his partner through sperm donation from a close friend who is gay. Reading Fumino's book, "We Tried Becoming Parents as a Trio," I strongly feel that the love of the three is poured into the children, overflowing with happiness, and that a family is a family regardless of the background. "Of course," a legal marital relationship with the partner cannot be established. However, what exists there is unmistakably the image of a family.

Such families have simply been made invisible by national laws and individual consciousness; various forms of family must have existed all along. Families choosing common-law marriage, families living as a couple without children, families of single mothers living and helping each other, families of two people with a sexuality involving no romantic feelings... there are more forms of family in the world than can be listed here. Every form of family is wonderful, and every form of family is very precious.

"I hope you find a romance where you can get married." I believe the words said to my partner that day were nothing more than the imposition of "normalcy." Normally, people of the opposite sex fall in love; normally, they get married; normally, they give birth to children... that is a normal family. The world revolves around a standard of "normal" that no one knows who decided. But what if, in the first place, "there is no such thing as normal"? What if everyone has a different form of family? I believe there are structures we can change by changing these underlying assumptions.

My partner and I are currently discussing becoming an official family through "Famiee" (a privately issued partnership certificate using blockchain technology) and the "Setagaya City Same-Sex Partnership Oath." Even now, while same-sex marriage is not legalized, there are people working to redefine what a family can be so that everyone can live the life they desire. Thanks to those people, I have come to feel a sense of discomfort with "the normal family" being the standard, and I have also come to feel proud of the form of family we envision for ourselves.

On the other hand, I still think it is unfair not to have the freedom of choice to marry. In the first place, being the subject of a judgment on whether or not one is recognized by the state lacks human dignity. It's not that I want to take away anyone else's way of life; it's about whether or not I can choose the way of life I desire. That is all I am asking for.

I want to live in a society where I can be proud in any setting of the fact that we chose this form of family from many options. I want my partner, who went out for a meal with friends, to come home with a smile, saying they had a truly wonderful time. That is the future I am looking toward.