Japan: LDP lawmaker Mio Sugita faces backlash after describing LGBT people as ‘unproductive’

A ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker has drawn a fierce backlash after labeling the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community “unproductive” in terms of childbirth, and warning that a society that accepts same-sex relationships risks “increasing unhappy people.”

Junior lawmaker Mio Sugita is facing nationwide criticism after contributing an article to the latest issue of conservative magazine Shincho 45 questioning what she perceives to be Japanese media’s recent trend toward favorable coverage of LGBT-related issues.

In it, Sugita argued that there is no justification for efforts by the state and municipalities to invest taxpayers’ money into policies supporting same-sex couples because “these men and women don’t bear children — in other words, they are ‘unproductive.’ ”

She went on in the article to recall her adolescence, the bulk of which she said she had spent being surrounded by female classmates in an all-girl school system.

In such an environment, it was not uncommon for girls around her to fantasize about becoming romantically involved with each other, she wrote. But they would soon outgrow that phase and move on to have “normal” lives by marrying husbands, Sugita wrote in the article.

The recent media tendency toward embracing same-sex relationships in the name of diversity, she said, “could make people capable of enjoying normal romance and getting married believe that they have an option of going homosexual, and as a result risk increasing (the number of) unhappy people.”

“A society deprived of ‘common sense’ and ‘normalcy’ is destined to lose ‘order’ and eventually collapse. I don’t want Japan to be a society like this,” she concluded in her four-page article.

The nation’s LGBT community was quick to lambaste Sugita’s remarks.

The Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation issued a statement pointing out that Sugita’s description of LGBT people as abnormal disregards the LDP’s own acknowledgment of the fact that many sexual minorities suffer from being forced into the “norm” imposed by society.

Her assertion that LGBT people are not discriminated against in society, it said, also belies a 2017 Cabinet Office survey suggesting 49 percent of the public think gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals have been targeted by “discriminatory remarks.”

A member of the Toshima Ward Assembly, Taiga Ishikawa — one of Japan’s first openly gay politicians — said that given Sugita’s role as a member of the ruling party, her remarks “significantly tarnish Japan’s reputation” ahead of the 2020 Olympics. Read more via Japan Times