Taiga Ishikawa

is a Japanese politician and LGBT activist. He was elected to the House of Councillors in the 2019 Japanese House of Councillors election, becoming the first openly-gay man to be elected to either chamber of the National Diet. Previously, he became one of the first two openly gay male politicians to win an election in Japanese history when he was elected in April 2011 to a seat in the Tokyo's Toshima ward assembly. Wataru Ishizaka, also openly gay, was elected in the same election to the Nakano ward council in Tokyo. Before he was elected to the city council, he was Mizuho Fukushima's chief of staff.

Personal life and activism A graduate of the Meiji Gakuin University School of Law and a native of Sugamo, he previously served as a secretary to SDP chair Mizuho Fukushima, and founded the gay male support organization Peer Friends in 2004. He came out in 2002 at the age of 28 through a memoir, Where is My Boyfriend? (Boku no kareshi wa doko ni iru?). He has since been active in the Japanese LGBT rights movement and has appeared in various series, including NHK's Heart-to-Heart, and has participated in the Tokyo Pride Parade.

Political career In October 2013, he ran for Social Democratic Party party chairmanship but lost to National Diet Councilor Tadatomo Yoshida. The first openly gay candidate for leadership of a sitting parliamentary party in Japanese history, Ishikawa was recognized after the election by an editorial in The Japan Times as one who could both "be a valuable asset for the SDP" and "help channel the voices of marginalized people, including irregularly employed workers and members of the gay community, to ensure that they are reflected in local and national politics".

Ishikawa left the SDP in 2018 and received the nomination of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in November for the 2019 House of Councillors election.

Political positions

Same-sex matrimonial rights He helped to successfully lobby the Japanese government to amend the certificate allowing Japanese citizens to marry foreign nationals of the same sex in countries where same-sex marriage is legal. He is campaigning for the creation of a municipal domestic partnership registry for Toshima which would grant ward-managed housing and hospital visitation rights.

Words and actions In the middle of the night on March 20, 2020, at Shinjuku Ni-chōme, the biggest gay village in Tokyo, Japan, Ishikawa suddenly filmed a police car on patrol. A police officer noticed him and questioned what he was doing, but he ignored the officer and continued to film the video.

Shortly before Shinzo Abe announced his resignation from the position of Prime Minister of Japan on August 28, 2020, citing worsening ulcerative colitis, Ishikawa posted a tweet calling for accountability, saying that Abe would not be allowed to hide behind the clouds.