The Tokyo District Court on Oct. 29 ordered Kofu city assembly member Hiromi Muramatsu to pay novelist Li Kotomi ¥1.1 million, about $7,000, over social media posts that revealed Li had transitioned.
Presiding Judge Yohei Motomura found the posts unlawfully invaded Li’s privacy, Jiji Press reported. Li had asked for ¥5.5 million, roughly $35,000.
Li was born in Taiwan and won Japan’s top literary award for new writers, the Akutagawa Prize, in 2021. Li had kept her transition private since moving to Japan in 2013, Kyodo News reported. She and Muramatsu had never met.
What Hiromi Muramatsu Posted About Li Kotomi in May 2024
In May 2024, Muramatsu disclosed private details of Li’s transition on Facebook, according to the ruling as summarized by Kyodo. Li went to the police. Muramatsu took the post down after a police warning, YBS Yamanashi Broadcasting reported.
Then she posted again. This time it included photos of Li from before her transition, some taken when Li was a minor, along with her former name.
Li said the posts forced her to come out. She did so in a public statement in November 2024, Taiwan’s Public Television Service reported. She sued in June 2025.
Judge Yohei Motomura’s Ruling on Outing and Privacy
Motomura wrote that the information was “closely related to the plaintiff’s physical sex and gender identity” and that “there was no reasonable justification for making it public,” Jiji reported.
Muramatsu’s side had argued Li’s fame as an author made disclosure necessary, Kyodo reported. The court rejected that argument. It called the information “extremely personal” and said it “should be strongly kept secret,” according to YBS. Reposting the old photos and name after deleting the first post “cannot escape strong condemnation,” the ruling said.
The court also said posts made from a city assembly seat reached a sizable audience.
It turned down Li’s request for an injunction over posts Muramatsu made after the lawsuit was filed, though. By then, the court found, the information was already public, partly through Li’s own news conference announcing the suit, YBS reported.
Li Kotomi Tells Muramatsu ‘I’ve Never Met You’
“I don’t really feel happiness or joy, and I think it is strange that the trial was necessary,” Li told reporters after the ruling, according to Jiji.
She spoke to Muramatsu directly, TBS reported. “I’ve never met you. We don’t know each other, and I hold no grudge against you. So why did you violate my privacy? Do you enjoy destroying and trampling on someone else’s life like this?”
“If I were a cisgender woman, I wouldn’t have suffered this harm in the first place, and I wouldn’t have needed to go to court,” she said, per YBS.
In a statement on her blog, Li wrote that her gender identity is female, that she doesn’t consider herself transgender and that she uses the word for convenience. “My life is not a tool for the defendant’s political activities,” she wrote. She said she won’t appeal but will file a cross-appeal if Muramatsu does.
Muramatsu told YBS she’d talk to her lawyer once the written ruling arrives. “As before, I will keep fighting for women’s safety,” she said.
Kyodo described court-ordered damages over outing as rare in Japan. In a 2020 case over a Hitotsubashi University law student who died after being outed in a group chat, the Tokyo High Court said outing violates privacy but didn’t award the family damages, Unseen Japan reported.
Li has won before. In May, the Tokyo District Court ordered a lawyer in Kanagawa Prefecture to pay her ¥220,000, about $1,400, over a 2024 post on X, Unseen Japan reported.
