Gender politics

It has been six weeks since Aya Kamikawa, 35, was sworn in as one of the 53 members of the local assembly in Setagaya-ku, a ward in Tokyo. With her long hair and slender body, she cuts a distinctly feminine yet professional figure in a bright-red mini-skirt and matching jacket. And like many first-time politicians, she feels her presence may be changing Japan.

But this is not a typical story of an ambitious young woman rising up the ranks. For Ms Kamikawa won her seat in late April by openly running as a transgender candidate - unheard of in Japan's electoral history. When she told voters her life story, few people knew - and many still do not know - what a gender-identity disorder was.

Tokyo-born Ms Kamikawa was diagnosed with the disorder in 1987. At the time, she was working in the public relations office of a non-profit organisation. But she was feeling stressed from pretending to be a man - her sex at birth - when she identified herself as a woman.

She initially thought she was gay, but was not. So she started hormone treatment and eventually decided to undergo a sex-change operation.

For Ms Kamikawa, however, that was not enough. She wanted to promote legal reforms and change Japanese society so that people like herself could live without discrimination.

She decided to run for office after meeting Satoru Ienishi, a victim of an HIV medical scandal who ran for parliament in 1996 and won.