Aya Kamikawa

is a Tokyo municipal official. With her election in April 2003, she became the first openly transgender person to seek or win elected office in Japan.

Life

Aya Kamikawa was born on January 25, 1968, in Tokyo's Taitō Ward. She is the second child of three. She attended Hosei University Second Senior High School, an all-boys school. She won a four-year term as an independent under huge media attention, placing sixth of 72 candidates running for 52 seats in the Setagaya ward assembly, the most populous district in Tokyo. Despite the government counting her win as part of the number of men elected to public office, she stated that she would work as a woman.

In 2005, subsequent to the passage of Japan's GID law, Kamikawa was finally able to change the sex designator on her koseki to female.