Kamikawa Aya （上川あや) is a Tokyo municipal official, the first transgendered person to seek elected office in Japan. She was elected in April 2003.
Ms. Kamikawa, a 35-year-old writer, submitted her election papers with a blank space for "sex." Her birth documents, wherein she is listed as male, cannot be altered under Japanese law. However, she was permitted to run as a woman. This was hailed as a victory for transgendered rights in Japan.
Running as an independent, she won her seat, placing sixth of 72 candidates running for 52 seats in the Setagaya municipal assembly, a district in Tokyo. Despite an announcement that the government would continue to consider her male for other purposes, she declared that she would sit as a woman. Her platform was to improve rights for women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and sexual minorities.
