Japan: LGBT activists march to demand a …

Japanese activists Lgbt marched in Tokyo to bring Parliament to sanction a law for their rights and against the discrimination to which the community is subjected.

The colorful demonstration was held this Sunday in front of the famous Shibuya crossroads in the center of the Japanese capital, where participants they danced in their rainbow-colored masks, brought to life by the parade of drag queens and DJs to live music.

For years, the LGBT community in Japan has been unsuccessfully asking for a law that protects them from all kinds of discrimination. It wasn’t until 2015 that the proposal seemed to gain momentum when a group of lawyers started working on it in earnest.

However, several members of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, currently in power, have already argued that they reject the initiative and one of its legislators is said to have declared that homosexual relations threatened “the preservation of the species”.

“I was very disappointed,” said a 20-year-old drag queen who identified herself as Okuni. “The people who still think of us this way control politics,” he continued with concern.

Activists called on their supporters to demand that lawmakers put the project back on their agenda.

A few days ago, it emerged that large companies were backing Japan’s equality bill, which would protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination. Some of the companies that have signed the letter of support to LGBT businesses for #EqualityActJapan include Coca-Cola, Deloitte, EY Japan, Intel, Microsoft, PwC, Salesforce, PepsiCo and SegaSammy.