(Part2) by Choko Ishioka
⑶ What is in common?
Let’s take a look at “Nijiiro Diversity.
The founder of Nijiiro Diversity is Maki Muraki, who for a time was in a same-sex partnership with Kanako Otsuji, a member of the House of Representative.
This organization is also sponsored by Pfizer, and they are also in contact with local bar associations and give lectures to government ministries and municipalities across the country. This organization has deep ties with Dentsu.
The origin of Nijiiro diversity is the Diversity Research Institute, which was established in 2007.
The institute's business partner is the Sasakawa Foundation and Nippon foundation.
Those were founded by Ryoichi Sasakawa, a man who had been associated with the government since World War II. Sasakawa was a close friend of Mussolini and was detained in Sugamo Prison as a Class A war criminal, but was later released.
He was also a friend of Nobusuke Kishi, a former member of the Tojo Cabinet who was also a Class A war criminal. Nobusuke Kishi became Prime Minister in the LDP after the war.
What these rainbow organizations and the ruling LDP have in common is their involvement with giant corporations such as Dentsu and the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation ) as well as foreign companies. The Keidanren has close ties to the military industry and advocates revisions to the Constitution.
The LDP's gender identity survey report(2019) also mentions the names of two huge interest groups, Dentsu and Keidanren.
What do these facts mean?
A number of gender identity-related ordinances have been enacted by local governments.
As far back as 2006, the LDP had gender issue investigated by an outside think tank.
（This link is valid only in Japan.）
The UN Human Rights Committee pointed out that the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence does not provide protection for same-sex couples and that the pension system does not cover LGBT people, and so on.
It also called for a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The government accepted the UN's recommendation in 2008.
But the government did not make a LGBT related law.
In 2017, there was an investigation into LGBT issues by the House of Councillors' Legal Affairs Committee, but the government still did not enact a law.
It may be that they thought that voters would not accept it. However, local governments are creating more and more ordinances that include a clause that "does not discriminate against gender identity" without informing the public. A search for "性自認(gender identity)" in the ordinance database yielded 224 hits for ordinances containing the word.
What does this mean?
The government wants to make LGBT-related laws. But the supporters of the ruling party are against it. So first of all, local governments are making ordinances secretly. The ruling party probably wants to make a national anti-discrimination against LGBT law next.
In the past few years, there have been PRIDE marches all over Japan, and the mass media have all come together to promote diversity. And last year, the LGBT bill was discussed, but the bill was still not submitted to the legislature. This was due to opposition from the ruling party.
Indeed, if you listen to the opinion of the supporters of the ruling party, they are skeptical of gender identity ideology.
And this October, there will be an election for the House of Representatives. Many Japanese are getting poorer, and the wind is blowing harder against the ruling party. The LDP wants to come up with some kind of policy that will win votes.
This is where the LGBT issue comes in. Japanese women can see the incidents that are happening in other countries on Twitter. Also, in 2021, there was the Tokyo Olympics, and trans women competed in the women's category. Women are very afraid of the ideology. At the request of women's groups, the LDP has issued a policy of “not submitting anti-discrimination against LGBT bills, which means “LDP can protect you”. The women may believe the ruling LDP. But what if the LDP later reneges on its promises? It is true that the LDP is notorious for easily reneging on its promises.
The referendum law for constitutional revision was revised in June 2020.
This made it easier for the LDP to revise the Constitution.
As we all know, the LGBT anti-discrimination law functions as a law to suppress speech. If the ruling party breaks its pledge and creates an anti-discrimination law against LGBT, they can easily revise the constitution.
If the constitution is revised, Japan will be militarized, the government's authority will become very strong, and the people's rights will be restricted.
In this way, Japan will strengthen its military power and its military industry will become even bigger. The foreign companies that have already acquired Japanese companies will also reap huge profits.
Choko Ishioka, is a mother of 2cats. A Japanese who grew up under Japan's peaceful and democratic constitution and loves it so much.
