Rainbow Olympics push Japan on LGBTQ rights

When Makoto Kikuchi was aiming to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics boxing tournaments two years ago, she felt pressure to hide her sexual orientation, which she was worried might affect the selection process.

Ahead of the postponed Tokyo Summer Games, however, the 34-year-old professional boxer decided to come out as lesbian, hoping to bring change to Japanese sports society, where LGBTQ people still suffer from discrimination and prejudice.

Kikuchi said she decided to come out after learning more about the current situation of Japanese LGBTQ community when she visited Pride House Tokyo, an international initiative to provide a place for LGBTQ people and others to connect during the games.

"I learned that there were very few athletes who had come out. By speaking openly and becoming one of the out athletes, I hoped to be as helpful as possible for those who feel lonely. That's why I decided to come out," said Kikuchi.

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games have marked a historic number of publicly out gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary athletes in Tokyo.

According to the website Outsport.com,  it is now up to 179, more than three times the number that Outsports tallied at the last Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

At the London Games, it counted just 23.

Gon Matsunaka, head of Pride House Tokyo, welcomed such changes in sports, which he called the "final frontier" with "deep-rooted discrimination and prejudice" against LGBTQ people.

Japan is the only country in the Group of Seven major industrialized nations where same-sex marriages are not legally recognized.

Japanese sexual minority groups and their allies in June submitted requests to get long-sought equality legislation passed before the Tokyo Olympics, to the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), whose conservative members have stalled the bill.

Yet, Fumino Sugiyama, a transgender activist and a former fencer for the Japan national team, said support and awareness of sexual diversity has slowly grown in Japan.

"When I was an active fencing athlete, I thought being my true self and competing in games would never be possible. If I wished to be myself, which was a man, I couldn't have my life as an athlete, nor vice versa", said the 39-year-old, who was nominated for the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC)'s board of directors weeks before the Games.

Kikuchi said she will continue to share her experiences on her platforms, hoping to reach more people who are struggling with accepting their identity.

"I want to tell people that you are never alone," Kikuchi said.