Ten years ago, two municipalities in Tokyo wrote history by commencing Japan’s first so-called “partnership systems” (パートナーシップ制度) to recognize LGBTQ+ couples’ relationships. In the years that followed, the policy has spread tremendously. Owing at least partially to the spread of these partnership systems, LGBTQ+ relationships have become increasingly normalized in Japan, as the country continues to slowly inch towards an eventual legalization of marriage equality.
On November 5, 2015, Setagaya and Shibuya became the first two places in Japan to hand out certificates recognizing the relationships of couples who are otherwise unable to get married due to being of the same legal gender. A year later, three other municipalities had joined in their footsteps. By the time I wrote my previous piece on this topic, back in May 2019, there were already 20 places with such a policy. In the piece, I stated that it was “likely to be only a matter of time” until the first prefecture-wide partnership system—a prediction that would quickly come to fruition, as Ibaraki Prefecture’s government ended up starting the policy on July 1, 2019.
At the time of this writing, there are now at least 541 individual partnership systems (also often referred to as “same-sex partnership systems” or “partnership oath systems”), and the number only keeps rising. I write “at least” because keeping track of the exact amount has become increasingly difficult. Although this accounts for 30% of Japan’s 1788 different local governments, these governments together cover roughly 93% of the country’s population. Each of Japan’s 47 prefectures has at least one partnership system. In fact, there are 33 prefectures with full “coverage”—30 of them due to partnership systems introduced by the respective prefectural government, and three (Kanagawa, Saitama, and Kagawa) because every individual municipality in the prefecture has implemented the policy.
The partnership systems’ real value arguably lies in their power to transform society and move it towards marriage equality
There exist various differences between the different partnership systems spread across Japan. Initially, some only allowed couples of the same legal gender to register their relationship. Nowadays, most are open to any couple where at least one partner identifies as LGBTQ+. But there are also those that explicitly allow applications from unmarried couples in general, regardless of gender or sexuality.
At the end of the day, however, the policies all share a basic premise: to help (primarily LGBTQ+) couples receive some level of recognition and alleviate struggles in their daily lives. This recognition typically applies to local government-run services such as public housing and hospitals, by allowing the partners to be acknowledged as family, and to be treated in the same manner as a married couple would. Private businesses are generally urged (but not forced) to follow the example set by the local government. In the case of Shibuya’s specific version of the policy, businesses that violate this principle and do discriminate against the couples end up shamed by having their name made public.
In January 2021, Akashi City became the first place in Japan to widen the scope of the policy by introducing a “familyship system” (ファミリーシップ制度), to also recognize children living with the couples as family of both partners. This, for instance, allows a partner to take the children home from school, or attend parent-teacher meetings, even when they aren’t recognized as one of the children’s parents from the perspective of Japan’s family register. Since then, over one hundred other local governments have similarly implemented such “familyship systems” alongside their partnership systems.
On the one hand, these local policies still leave much to be desired. Because they don’t confer any legal rights to the couples, crucial issues such as a lack of spousal inheritance rights remain unsolved, for instance. As explained in my report for the LeidenAsiaCentre, this can lead to situations where a partner is forced to move out of a house they’ve been living in for years after their loved one dies. Without actual marriage equality, queer couples remain severely disadvantaged vis-à-vis their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts.
On the other hand, the partnership systems’ real value arguably lies in their power to transform society and move it towards marriage equality. Over the course of the past ten years, same-sex marriage has been transformed from a relatively niche topic into a salient policy issue, and partnership systems have undoubtedly played a role in this process.
Underscoring just how little-discussed the topic used to be, it is remarkably difficult to find opinion polling regarding same-sex marriage in Japan from before 2015. An oft-cited Ipsos report from May 2013 and an opinion poll by the Nihon Yoron Chosa Kai from March 2014 appear to be two of—if not the—earliest pieces of nationwide surveys on the topic. Both indicated low levels of support. In the 2013 Ipsos report, only 51% of respondents were in favor of same-sex marriage (24%) or some other form of legal recognition for same-sex couples’ relationships (27%). The contents of the remaining 49% of responses are unfortunately left to the imagination of the report’s readers, but can be assumed to range from indifference to outright opposition. In the 2014 Nihon Yoron Chosa Kai survey, 52.4% of respondents voiced some level of opposition towards same-sex marriage, while only 42.3% were partially or completely in favor.
After Shibuya Ward announced its partnership system in February 2015, many surveys and polls followed. Despite differences in terms of pollster, methodology, sampling and other factors, what can be discerned clearly is that support has risen strongly and opposition has become low. In a 2023 Pew Research survey, for instance, 68% of Japanese respondents were either somewhat (56%) or completely (11%) in favor, and 26% were somewhat (18%) or fully (8%) opposed to same-sex marriage.
Although marriage equality itself still has to be achieved, queer relationships have gradually gained some level of legal recognition. In 2021, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that a woman was eligible for financial compensation after her female partner had cheated on her. In other words: the court deemed her former relationship sufficiently akin to the relationships of opposite-sex couples in “de facto marriages” to award her the same level of legal protection against infidelity.
In 2024, the Supreme Court similarly ruled that a man whose male partner of 20 years had been murdered in 2014 was eligible for bereavement benefits. The Aichi Prefectural Public Safety Commission had previously denied him payouts because of the same-sex nature of his relationship, but the Supreme Court acknowledged that he needed support to deal with the mental and economic impact of his bereavement, just the same as people who used to be in a long-term opposite-sex relationship would need it when their partner dies a violent death.
What started with two wards in Tokyo changed socio-political norms across Japan
Following these rulings, the Japanese government decided in January 2025 to recognize same-sex couples’ relationships in the context of 24 laws, and then in September, expanded this number to 33 by adding more laws. As Marriage For All Japan indicated in its statement, same-sex couples remain seriously disadvantaged—especially since the government explicitly excludes them from a much longer list of other laws and systems, such as the pension system and unemployment insurance—but this move from the national government nevertheless represents an important step forward.
Partnership systems certainly were not the sole catalyst for the abovementioned shifting views and societal changes, but they definitely have played an important role. Some scholars speak of a so-called “LGBT Boom” that is said to have started in Japan earlier in the 2010s, associated with increased attention and visibility for LGBT people and identities in popular media. But, as Nikaido Yuki once wrote in an edited volume by Ninomiya Shuhei, it is 2015 that should arguably be regarded as the year in which a clear turning point for LGBT politics was reached in Japan. With the introduction of partnership systems, the problems faced by LGBT people became a political issue the LDP administration could no longer simply ignore.
In the wake of the announcement of Shibuya’s partnership system in early 2015, national and local LDP politicians expressed opposition. Akaike Masaaki, who was the incumbent Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, strongly criticized the policy on his personal blog. There, he wrote that he thought the policy might be unconstitutional, that it was unnecessary since there was little or no discrimination against same-sex couples anyway, and that this kind of decentralization could lead to a “divided” nation. In Shibuya’s municipal assembly, the local LDP faction voted against implementing the policy.
In the ten years that passed since Shibuya and Setagaya started distributing partnership certificates, opposition gradually lessened to the point where even conservative LDP strongholds such as Toyama Prefecture eventually adopted the policy. What started with two wards in Tokyo changed socio-political norms across Japan. Importantly, these changing norms are taken into account by courts. When the Tokyo High Court ruled in October 2024 that the current absence of marriage equality is unconstitutional, it explicitly referenced in its judgement the “rapid nationwide adoption” of partnership systems as evidence of “a growing awareness that same-sex couples should be protected by the institution of marriage in the same manner as opposite-sex couples.”
Despite their shortcomings when it comes to addressing LGBTQ+ couples’ problems, partnership systems have helped pave the way for further recognition by making headlines, stirring up discussions, changing norms, and providing a very basic first level of limited recognition.
Emily Boon is a Tokyo-based independent researcher from the Netherlands with a BA and MA in Japanese Studies and an MA in International Relations, all from Leiden University. As part of her studies, she also spent a year at Waseda University's Graduate School of Political Science (GSPS) as an exchange student. Her research primarily focuses on the politics surrounding LGBTQ+ people and identities in Japan. She has previously been a research intern as well as a full-time junior researcher at the LeidenAsiaCentre, with the latter position culminating in the publication of a research report that gives both a broad overview as well as in-depth insights into current Japanese LGBTQ+ politics.
