Kamikawa Aya Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Kamikawa Aya （上川あや Kamikawa Aya) is a Tokyo municipal official, the first transsexual person to seek elected office in Japan. She was elected in April 2003.Ms. Kamikawa, a 35-year-old writer, submitted her election application papers with a blank space for "sex." Her birth documents, wherein she is officially listed as male, cannot be altered under Japanese law.
Running as an independent and thanks to disproportionally huge media attention, she won her 4-year term seat, placing sixth of 72 candidates running for 52 seats in the Setagaya ward assembly, the most populous district in Tokyo. Despite an announcement that the government would continue to consider her male officially, she insisted that she would work as a woman. Her platform was to improve rights for women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and, of course, LGBT's.
But as Kamikawa, non-Setagaya-native, had had almost no political experiences before the election and has failed to gain any supports from major parties like the ruling Liberal Democratic Party or the New Komeito, her political debut has been highly controversial even in the trans community.