The rules on foster parents were only revised last year, making fostering an option for same-sex couples. High hurdles to fosteringĪn alternative that she has considered is fostering, although that has high hurdles as well. And since same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in Japan, we cannot be a married couple,' she added. 'Japan does not allow couples to adopt a child unless they are married. Now I live with my partner, a woman, and I have decided that I would rather live with a child who has already been born than to give birth,' she told DW. 'I was once married to a man and even then I thought long and hard about having children.
'I have always wanted to have children,' says Takahashi, a 40-year-old writer who lives in Tokyo.
That same-sex couples in Japan find it effectively impossible to adopt, she believes, is a pity for the thousands of youngsters waiting in children's homes across Japan for a foster family or adoptive parents. Ai Takahashi says she has always wanted to have a child but Japan's 'traditional' attitudes towards family and only incremental acceptance of equal rights for the nation's LGBTQ+ community means she is losing hope that she might one day be a parent.