Taiga Ishikawa
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese politician and LGBT activist. He became the first openly gay male politician to win an election in Japanese history when he was elected in April 2011 to a seat in the Toshima ward assembly.
A graduate of the Meiji Gakuin University
School of Law and a native of Sugamo
, he previously served as a secretary to SDP chair Mizuho Fukushima
, and founded the gay male support organization Peer Friends in 2004. He came out in 2002 at the age of 28 through a memoir, Where is My Boyfriend? (Boku no kareshi wa doko ni iru?). He has since been active in the Japanese LGBT rights movement and has appeared in various series, including NHK
's Heart-to-Heart, and has participated in Tokyo Pride Parade.
registry for Toshima which would grant ward-managed housing and hospital visitation rights.
A graduate of the Meiji Gakuin University
Meiji Gakuin University
is one of the Christian universities in Tokyo and Yokohama which was established in 1863. The Reverend Dr. James Curtis Hepburn was one of the founders and the first president...
School of Law and a native of Sugamo
Sugamo
is a neighborhood in Toshima, Tokyo, Japan. It is well known for , a popular shopping street for the older generation . It lies at the crossing point of the JR Yamanote railway line, and national road route Route 17.-See also:* Sugamo Prison* Sugamo Station...
, he previously served as a secretary to SDP chair Mizuho Fukushima
Mizuho Fukushima
is a Japanese politician. She has been a member of the House of Councillors since 1998, was re-elected in 2004 and 2010,and is the current chair of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, a position she has held since 2003....
, and founded the gay male support organization Peer Friends in 2004. He came out in 2002 at the age of 28 through a memoir, Where is My Boyfriend? (Boku no kareshi wa doko ni iru?). He has since been active in the Japanese LGBT rights movement and has appeared in various series, including NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
's Heart-to-Heart, and has participated in Tokyo Pride Parade.
Same-sex matrimonial rights
He helped to successfully lobby the Japanese government to amend the certificate allowing Japanese citizens to marry foreign nationals of the same sex in countries where same-sex marriage is legal. He is campaigning for the creation of a municipal domestic partnershipDomestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union...
registry for Toshima which would grant ward-managed housing and hospital visitation rights.