minaduchi

A same-sex couple came to the bank to plan their estate. Thirty years together, building a life side by side.

Yet neither can inherit from the other as a spouse — the law simply won't let them marry.

A married couple owes no tax on up to ¥160M (~$1M). A same-sex partner gets no exemption — and 20% more.

He has dementia, and has forgotten my face. Thirty years on, I still feed him, hold his hand, and sit through the night beside him.

The care home's forms have no box for us. Not husband, not family. Just "an acquaintance."

His final days are decided by a relative who hasn't visited him in years.

Thirty years of care, still a stranger by law.

My poll came out 86% in favor — 333 votes, two platforms. Run the very same poll on your own account.

You won't. Deep down, you already know a "yes" majority would win there, too.

It isn't a "no" majority you fear. It's a "yes" one. Not even the guts to press one button. A chicken.

He'll rest in his family's grave. A place for blood relatives only. After thirty years, there's no room for me.

Yet a couple married just three days will share one grave, no questions asked.

Strangers in life. Strangers in death.

All I want is to rest beside him at the end. Even that, this country won't allow.

For the first time. A couple of 30 years waited. But on paper, they stayed strangers to the end.

One died still longing to be called "family." A husband and wife are there as spouses. The only difference: they couldn't marry.

One change to the civil code fixes it. That is all. Yet this country will not act.

Together 30 years, they lost their home that day. Both fled to the same shelter.

Blankets went out "by household." A married couple got one. The two of them were not counted as one.

Safety updates, housing: family only. On paper, they were strangers.

A husband and wife are never questioned. The only difference: they couldn't marry.

He asked for bereavement leave. They refused.

They can't marry, so the law calls them strangers. Leave is only for "family."

The day after the funeral, he went to work and worked with a blank face.

A husband and wife get it without question. He got nothing.

The only difference: they can't marry. For that, even grief was denied.

Ten years, one home. We were family in every way.

But we can't marry here, so he was never granted a spouse visa.

Now we say "good morning" through a screen, to him, a time zone away.

If we were a man and a woman, one form, and he'd still be beside me.

The only difference: we can't marry. And it tore our family apart.

She only wants to raise her child with the woman she loves.

They can't marry here. So her partner adopts the child to also be a legal parent.

Then custody goes to the adopting partner. The birth mother loses it.

A married man and woman keep custody together. The only difference: they can marry.

Her child, or her love. The law makes her choose.

Lately, his heels have worn down on one side.

His back has begun to bend with age. He can't stoop to set out his own shoes now, so lining them up became my job.

The mail carrier knows. The neighbors know. A family lives behind this door.

The only one who doesn't know is the law.

His partner wept harder than anyone. But no one there called him family.

At the front sat the family: a nephew who hadn't visited in a decade. His partner sat in the back, as "a friend."

Everything the man left goes to blood relatives. After 30 years, his partner inherits nothing.

Japan is the only G7 country without marriage equality, and we've waited years for that "someday."

Five of six high court rulings have called the ban unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is deciding now.

Still — "someday."

Your country was once told to wait, too, and learned that "wait" can mean "never."

"But Japan has partnership certificates," people say. The clerk who hands them out knows the truth.

The couple who received one wept, holding hands. No one dared say it aloud.

This paper holds no legal power.

No inheritance. No tax break. No survivor's pension. Move to the next city, and it stops working.

In public, a man said aloud: "LGBTQ people are just sick, right?"

A friend said, "No, that's wrong." But he said it again. Twice.

The WHO delisted it as an illness 36 years ago.

1 in 10 people are LGBTQ. Even that friend could be one of us.

If anyone there heard those words, the pain would be beyond imagining.

It has been this way for thirty years.

He knows what I face out there, yet he never says a word about it.

Only, on days like that, somehow, the miso soup at dinner feels a little warmer.

This quiet life is what I am fighting to protect.

It's not anger. It's not stubbornness.

Somewhere in this country, there are people hiding who they are, just to survive.

At school. At work. Even in front of family.

Until the day they can stand tall and say "I married the one I love" —

let the ugly words come. I'll take them all.

"Disgusting." "Get out of Japan." "You produce nothing of value."

These are thrown at people who simply want to marry the one they love.

Without a thought for how deeply those words cut.

They keep saying them, never imagining the harm. This isn't an opinion. It's plain discrimination.