On November 7, 2014, a three judge panel of the Putrajaya
Court of Appeal said that a state of Sharia law ban on cross-dressing because
it was “degrading, oppressive and inhuman” and that as long as it was in force,
transgender people “will continue to live in uncertainty, misery and
indignity.”
The case was filed by a transgender women in Malaysia who
challenged section 66 of the Sharia law in Negeri Sembilan state, which
prohibits “any male person who in any public place wears a woman’s attire or
poses as a woman.” The state’s Religious Department has used this law
repeatedly to arrest transgender women – most recently, in a mass arrest of 16
transgender women at a wedding party on the night of June 8, 2014.
The Court of Appeal ruled that section 66 was
unconstitutional and void because it violated the appellants’ rights to live
with dignity, earn a livelihood, and directly affects their freedom of
movement, expression, and equal protection of the law. The court stated that
transgender people “will commit the crime of violating section 66 the very
moment they leave their homes to attend to the basic needs of life, to earn a
living, or to socialize; and be liable to arrest, detention and prosecution.
This is degrading, oppressive and inhuman. … [It is] discriminatory and
oppressive and denies the appellants the equal protection of the law.”
Muslims are subjected to state-level Sharia (Islamic law)
ordinances, in addition to the federal criminal law. Since the 1980s, every
state has passed Sharia criminal enactments that institutionalize
discrimination against transgender people. All 13 Malaysian states prohibit
Muslim men from “dressing as women,” while three states also criminalize “women
posing as men.” The laws, enforced by state Islamic Religious Departments, do
not define what constitutes transgender dressing or posing.
In comparison with Japan
Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism that are in Japanese
traditional religions, do not prohibit homosexuality and transexualism
explicitly. For 1872 years, at the beginning of the Meiji era, some action of transexualism
are decided as illegal under the influence of the Western politics and culture.
But this rule disappeared in 1880 -eight years later. After that any big discrimination
and court case does not happen in Japan. However same-gender marriage is not
accepted by law, except in some area in Japan.
Translated from: 日本の伝統的な宗教である神道や、仏教、儒教などは同性愛や異性装を明示的に禁止しておらず、日本の歴史においてそれらは肯定的なものと捉えられていた。その後、明治時代初頭の1872年、西洋の政治・文化の影響などで同性愛行為のうち鶏姦（肛門性交）のみが違法とされたが（鶏姦罪）、8年後の1880年に制定された旧刑法（施行は1882年）からはこの規定はなくなった
Sources: http://www.hrw.org/ja/news/2014/11/08-1
