Written by: Ollie Kaplan
We’re coming up on the most visible time of the year for the queer community. PRIDE. No longer celebrated only in the month of June, Pride Month is now more like Pride Summer, with international celebrations spanning from May to August. While Pride is often distilled down to criticisms of the intersection between capitalism and the pink dollar, those months also offer rare moments of visibility for the queer community on the larger world stage — or at least used to offer rare moments of visibility for the queer community before we became the target of a targeted hate campaign. And thanks to this campaign, there’s still much work to be done to fight discrimination and inequality — particularly against transgender people.
This year marks the sixth Tokyo Trans March. Instead of taking place in November as in past years, this year’s event will occur during Tokyo’s Pride Month in June 2026.
Announced on Instagram, the post invites the community to join. “Let’s walk the streets of Shibuya together on June 7, 2026, during Pride Month,” the post reads. “I don’t care if politicians say ‘weird LGBT or anything.’ In an era where people make discriminatory remarks, such as ‘I don’t have to tell you,” #WeAreHere will vividly deliver the message.”
The seeds of the Tokyo Trans March were planted in the hostility of the late 2010s. When Ochanomizu University announced it would begin admitting trans women in 2018, anti-trans sentiment that had long simmered beneath the surface erupted on social media. By 2021, the Trans March co-founder, Tomoya Asanuma, had had enough.
“[Tomoya] strongly insisted that this was exactly why we needed a march,” Tomato Hatakeno, the co-founder of the Tokyo Trans March and representative for the Transgender Japan organization, recalled in a 2025 interview with Time Out. “It really felt like we were at the stage of simply saying, ‘We exist. Please see us.'”
Despite last-minute planning, that first event drew around 500 people, a modest but meaningful turnout. But in the years since, the march has gained more and more momentum every year — expanding the second march into a festival-style event that earned national newspaper and television coverage — and Transgender Japan launched full-scale operations in 2022. Since 2024, the march has grown further still, shifting to a joint organizing committee with partner groups to become a more open, community-driven event.
Trans Activism in Japan
When Time Out asked about the specific obstacles trans people face in Japan compared to other countries, Hatakeno pointed to two interconnected issues: low public awareness of human rights and a weak culture of grassroots democracy.
“Many people don’t have the sense that if we raise our voices together, we can change society,” Hatakeno explained. The numbers reflect this — even Tokyo’s Pride parades, including corporate contingents, draw around 15,000 participants (though the number of Pride attendees far exceeds that number, with one website reporting that there were upward of 270,000 attendees at the 30th anniversary of Tokyo Pride event in 2024). Taiwan’s, by comparison, which is recognized as one of Asia’s largest Pride events, brings in roughly 100,000 — most of them community members themselves.
“I believe this stems from a long-standing lack of education on gender equality, human rights, and democracy,” Hatakeno said. “Without those foundations, it becomes very difficult to build grassroots movements where people feel they can collectively push for change.”
For those who want to carry the momentum beyond the Trans March, Hatakeno’s advice is rooted in inclusivity. “It’s crucial not to narrow what ‘transgender’ is supposed to look like,” she says — keeping space for gender-nonconforming people, staying connected to drag queens and the broader gay and lesbian communities, and remembering that trans rights are part of a larger, global queer struggle. “Holding on to that sense of connection is what gives our movement strength — here and globally.”
How to Participate
The sixth Tokyo Trans March takes place on Sunday, June 7, 2026, at 1:30 PM, starting at Tsunohazu Bridge near Shinjuku Central Park.
Included as part of the Instagram post is the application form for participating in the “Tokyo Trans March in Tokyo Pride 2026” parade float, which will be featured in the Tokyo Pride 2026 parade on Sunday, June 7, 2026. You can sign up to participate here.
Source: Instagram
