Marriage Equality in Japan and beyond
Thursday, May 20, 2021
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. JST

Virtual event
Speakers
Kanako Otsuji
Member of Japan’sHouse of Representatives
Makiko Terahara
Representative Director,
Marriage for All Japan
Hanae Fujinami
Associate, White & Case, Tokyo

Moderator
Rika Beppu
A founding member and former
President of Women in Law
Japan, and Partner, Squire
Patton Boggs

Join this event

Co-sponsored:

We are pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event “Marriage Equality in Japanand Beyond” at 6:00 p.m. on May 20, 2021, featuring Kanako Otsuji, memberof Japan’s House of Representatives and Makiko Terahara, representative
director of Marriage for All Japan. Our speakers will discuss the status of marriage
equality in Japan, the Sapporo District Court decision, and the status of marriage
equality in Asia and the world. In addition, Hanae Fujinami, associate, White &Case LLP will update the current status of the Viewpoint for Marriage Equality.
The panel discussion will include Kanako Otsuji and Makiko Terahara. Rika Beppu,a founding member and former President of Women in Law Japan, and partner,Squire Patton Boggs will moderate the event.
If you have any questions for our panelists, please feel free to send them tocontact@womeninlawjapan.org.
This event is open to all genders.

Other information
This event is complimentary.
CLE accreditation for this webinar is under application.
For further information about this event, please contact us atcontact@womeninlawjapan.org

Speakers
Kanako Otsuji
Kanako Otsuji is a Member of the House of Representatives and the current
Deputy Director General of the Interest Policy Group Bureau of the Constitutional
Democratic Party of Japan (CDP). She also serves as the Secretary-General of theCDP’s PT regarding SOGI, and head of Osaka’s District 2 electoral branch for theCDP. She is a Member of the House of Representatives’ Health, Labor and Welfare
Committee and Special Committee on Consumer Issues. She was a Member of theHouse of Councilors (2013), and a Member of Osaka Prefectural assembly (20032007). She is also a Representative Director of the LGBT Policy Information Centre,
as well as a certified social worker, care worker, and medical social worker.
Ms. Otsuji holds second-dan rank in karate and first-dan rank in taekwondo. In 2005,
she published “Kamingu auto-Jibun rashisa o mitsukeru tabi (Coming Out: A Journey
to Find My True Self)” (Kodansha), and publicly announced that she was a lesbian.
In 2013, she became the first openly lesbian Diet Member after being elected to
the House of Councillors (due to the withdrawal of the incumbent member). Her
focus in politics is to create an inclusive society where no one is left behind.

Makiko Terahara
Makiko Terahara is a lawyer admitted in Japan and New York. She has worked as an
attorney at Nagashima, Ohno and Tsunematsu Law Firm, and graduated from theNew York University School of Law, after which she worked as in-house lawyer at Merrill
Lynch Japan Securities Co., Ltd. She is now a co-representative of Tokyo Omotesando
Law Firm. As a member of the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations’ “Project Teamon LGBT Rights,” she has devoted herself to the protection of sexual minorities’ humanrights. In recent years, she has focused on marriage equality as the co-representativeof Tokyo Litigation Attorney, and representative director of “Marriage For All Japan.”Hanae FujinamiHanae Fujinami is a litigation associate at White & Case LLP. She specializes in complex
commercial litigation, particularly for technology clients. She is barred in New York.
Ms. Fujinami has been a core member of LLAN and the Viewpoint for Marriage Equalitycommittee from its inception, and is hopeful that marriage equality will become a reality
in Japan soon.

Moderator
Rika Beppu

AP202104-002_ENG_06

Rika Beppu is a founding member and former President of Women in Law Japan (WILJ).
After graduating from Sophia University’s Faculty of Foreign Languages and Studies, English
Language Department, Rika studied and trained in the United Kingdom and obtained her
qualification as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. Upon her return toJapan in 2001, she was the founding managing partner of an international law firm’s Tokyo
office, and subsequently a Corporate M&A partner at her former firm since 2008. As fromOctober 2017, Rika is a Corporate M&A partner at Squire Patton Boggs in Tokyo. Rika is aforeign registered lawyer (English law) of the Tokyo Dai-ni Bar Association since 2001. She
currently serves as the chair of the European Business Council, Legal Affairs Committee and aboard member of Lawyers for LGBT & Allies Network. She is also a founding member of theAsia Society Japan Center, where she leads the Asia21 Young Global Leaders Japan chapter.