Tokyo Court Orders Local Assembly Member to Pay ¥1.1 Million for Outing Award-Winning Author Li Kotomi

Key Points

• Financial Penalty Ordered: The Tokyo District Court ordered Hiromi Muramatsu, a local assembly member in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, to pay ¥1.1 million ($6,972) in damages—comprising ¥1 million for emotional distress and ¥100,000 in legal fees—for unlawfully invading the privacy of award-winning author Li Kotomi.
• Unlawful Disclosure of Private Data: Presiding Judge Yohei Motomura ruled that Muramatsu’s social media posts disclosing Li’s gender assigned at birth, pre-transition name, and childhood photographs constituted a severe, unjustified invasion of privacy without consent.
• Escalated Harassment: Although Muramatsu deleted an initial post following a police warning, she subsequently uploaded a second post containing minor-era photographs of the author.
• Precedent-Setting Legal Battle: Li filed the lawsuit in June 2025 after publicly disclosing that she was transgender in November 2024 due to intense online harassment, marking the second successful ruling in Japan ordering damages for forced outing, following a May ruling against a lawyer.
• Literary Acumen and Advocacy: Li, a Taiwanese-born author who moved to Japan in 2013 and won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2021 for The Island Where Spider Lilies Bloom, expressed relief at the verdict while highlighting the ongoing absence of national legislation explicitly prohibiting forced outing in Japan.

TOKYO (Japan Daily News) October 30, 2026 – A Tokyo court has ordered local assembly member Hiromi Muramatsu to pay ¥1.1 million in compensation to acclaimed author Li Kotomi for unlawfully outing her on social media. The Tokyo District Court ruled that publishing Li’s pre-transition name, childhood photographs, and assigned gender without consent constituted an invasive breach of privacy. While the court rejected a request for a permanent injunction against future disclosures, the verdict marks a significant legal milestone in Japan’s evolving jurisprudence regarding the protection of sexual orientation and gender identity privacy.

What did the Tokyo District Court rule regarding Hiromi Muramatsu’s social media posts?

The Tokyo District Court delivered a landmark ruling on Thursday, holding a local politician financially accountable for disclosing private identity details online. Presiding Judge Yohei Motomura found that Hiromi Muramatsu, an assembly member representing the city of Kofu in Yamanashi Prefecture, had committed an unlawful invasion of privacy by posting sensitive personal information regarding award-winning author Li Kotomi on social media.

The court established that Muramatsu’s posts—which detailed that Li’s gender differed from what she was assigned at birth, revealed her pre-transition name, and displayed childhood photographs—were highly personal and lacked any reasonable justification for public disclosure. Judicial records showed that although Muramatsu deleted an initial post after receiving a formal warning from police authorities, she subsequently defied the warning by uploading a second post containing photographs of Li taken when she was a minor.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference following the verdict, Li expressed complex emotions regarding the legal outcome. As reported by judicial and general news correspondents covering the judiciary, Li Kotomi stated: “I feel relieved. But I do not feel the slightest bit of happiness or joy. I should never have had to go through any of this in the first place.”

While the court awarded ¥1 million for emotional distress and ¥100,000 to cover legal fees—totaling ¥1.1 million ($6,972)—it declined Li’s broader request for an injunction barring Muramatsu from making future disclosures, citing insufficient grounds to determine that repeat violations were imminent. Li had originally sought ¥5.5 million ($34,862) in damages when she filed the lawsuit in June 2025.

How has the outing impacted author Li Kotomi’s literary career and personal life?

Li Kotomi is a critically acclaimed, Taiwanese-born author who relocated to Japan in 2013, establishing a prominent literary career centered on themes of queer identity, diaspora, and the immigrant experience. Her celebrated novels include Solo Dance and The Island Where Spider Lilies Bloom, the latter of which earned her Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2021.

Despite her literary success, Li has been subjected to sustained campaigns of online harassment. She publicly disclosed that she was transgender in November 2024, a disclosure she stated was forced upon her after a series of malicious social media posts outed her without her permission.

Describing the psychological toll of the outing, Li told reporters: “It felt as though the ground beneath me gave way. It felt as if I was falling into a bottomless abyss. It was terrifying.”

Thursday’s decision builds upon a separate ruling issued in May by the Tokyo District Court, which ordered a lawyer to pay ¥220,000 for outing Li on social media. According to Li’s legal representatives, that earlier judgment was the first in Japanese legal history to award damages in a forced outing case concerning a plaintiff’s gender identity.

Reflecting on the historical significance of the consecutive legal victories, Li stated: “Today is a day that deserves to be recorded in history. I hope the victory we have achieved today will be carried forward into the future. I will never give up my dignity as a human being, my identity as a woman or my happiness as a writer.”

What are the legal protections and gaps regarding forced outing in Japan?

The rulings in Li Kotomi’s lawsuits highlight a significant legislative gap in Japanese law. Currently, Japan has no national statutory framework explicitly criminalizing or prohibiting the act of “outing”—the unauthorized disclosure of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

In the absence of national legislation, protections rely heavily on local municipal ordinances. Certain local governments across Japan have enacted rules restricting the non-consensual disclosure of personal identity markers. The movement gained momentum following a tragic 2015 incident where a student at Hitotsubashi University died by suicide after being outed by peers, prompting the western Tokyo city of Kunitachi to adopt the nation’s first anti-outing ordinance in 2018.

Legal experts note that while tort law provisions regarding privacy invasion and defamation can be utilized in civil courts—as demonstrated in Li’s successful litigation—victims still face substantial evidentiary burdens and lack uniform statutory remedies across prefectures.

Background of the particular development

The legal battles fought by author Li Kotomi in 2025 and 2026 underscore growing tensions surrounding LGBTQ+ rights, digital privacy, and online harassment in Japan. While cultural visibility for queer and transgender individuals has increased in metropolitan areas, national legislative reforms regarding gender recognition and anti-discrimination protections have faced prolonged political debate.

The practice of outing—often used maliciously online to intimidate public figures, activists, and minority individuals—has increasingly drawn judicial scrutiny. The 2015 Hitotsubashi University suicide case galvanized civil rights advocates to push for municipal ordinances penalizing forced disclosures. Li Kotomi’s legal actions represent the first systematic civil challenges resulting in financial judgments for gender-based outing in Tokyo courts, establishing important precedents for civil privacy litigation in Japan’s judicial system.

How this development can affect LGBTQ+ individuals, legal privacy standards, and public figures in Japan

The Tokyo District Court’s ruling in favour of Li Kotomi carries broad implications for multiple stakeholders across Japanese society:

• For LGBTQ+ Individuals and Digital Privacy: The verdict provides a vital legal deterrent against malicious online outing, signaling to harasses and public commentators that unauthorized disclosures of sensitive personal history carry tangible financial and legal consequences.
• For Japanese Legal Practitioners and Civil Courts: By reinforcing that pre-transition names, childhood photos, and assigned gender details constitute protected private information, the ruling expands the scope of privacy torts, encouraging legal professionals to pursue civil damages for victims of digital harassment.
• For Lawmakers and Municipal Policy Advocates: The ongoing absence of a national statute explicitly banning forced outing will likely intensify pressure from civil rights organizations and legal scholars on the National Diet to enact federal legislation safeguarding sexual orientation and gender identity privacy across all prefectures.