Japan’s LGBT community mostly stays in hiding at work, study finds

Only 18 per cent of sexual minorities in the country felt comfortable enough to come out to their colleagues

More than a third of companies now tailor policies for LGBT workers, and more local anti-discrimination laws are taking effect

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A Rainbow Pride parade in Tokyo. In Japan, just 17.6 per cent of the LGBT community said they were open about their sexuality at work. Photo: AP

Published: 10:00am, 16 Nov 2020Updated: 11:13am, 16 Nov 2020

Less than a fifth of the members of Japan’s LGBT community have opted to come out at their workplaces, according to a new study, although sexual minorities here say there is evidence of positive change within companies and society in general.

The study, conducted by online financial services provider Au Jibun Bank, examined attitudes towards sexual minorities at companies in Japan and the ways in which they are treated differently than their heterosexual colleagues.

Just over 36 per cent of the 1,000 people taking part in the study – of whom precisely half were heterosexual and half identified as LBGT – said their companies conducted LBGT awareness training, while 34.4 per cent of firms took part in or sponsored events for sexual minorities. Of the latter, 36.6 per cent provided congratulatory money gifts for special occasions, such as a wedding to a same-sex partner or a bereavement payment in case of death, but only 33 per cent included clear statements concerning discrimination in the workplace.

Of the sexual minorities who took part in the survey, just 17.6 per cent said they were open about their sexuality among their colleagues.

Hitoshi works for a Japanese company in Tokyo and has come out, although he is still sufficiently concerned about being treated differently that he did not want his full name used for this article or his company to be identified.

“Just like any country in the world, it is generally not easy to come out to anyone,” he told This Week in Asia.

Hitoshi said there was a degree of concern among LGBT people about discrimination within a company, although it may not be as acute in Japan as in some other countries. But he added that transgender people are more often subject to “quite significant” discrimination in Japan.

“At my company, none of this is an issue – at least in my eyes – but nobody knows just how another employee would actually react” if they learned that a colleague was a sexual minority, he said.

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