ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the negotiation of sexual citizenship as proscribed through the koseki by individuals, groups and partners seeking to resist and contest the material impacts of the household registry system on partnership rights. It also focuses on same-sex partnerships in contemporary Japan. Mobilized within academia and activism, the notion of sexual citizenship emphasises the gendered and sexualized aspects of citizenship, that is, the impact of legal and social discourses on sexual expression, reproduction and the family. Citizenship as a notion of 'civil, political and social rights, as well as common membership of a shared community' is intimately linked to the 'institutionalisation of heterosexuality'. In an era of post-gender equality and Gender Identity Disorder (GID) laws, full engagement with the patriarchal and heteronormative system of household registry and the many areas on which it exercises influence family, identity, citizenship is a fundamental aspect of discourses of global mobility and sexual citizenship in contemporary Japan.
