Nintendo Announces Recognition of Same-Gender Partnerships

Nintendo, the immensely popular Japanese video game company, announced that it will offer equal marriage benefits to employees who are in same-gender partnerships. Nintendo also announced that it would revise corporate policies to forbid outing or harassing employees over their LGBTQ status, and recognize common law marriage.

“We want to create a work environment that supports and empowers each and every one of our unique employees,” Nintendo Japan states.

The company made the announcements in the annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report. This makes the company, best known for the creation of popular games Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, an employer that ensures employees who are in a partnership with a same-gender partner have the same benefits as those in different-gender partnerships. Nintendo introduced its Partnership System in March 2021 but has now publicly recognized the change. Fans of the video game company applauded the move.

Japan is a socially conservative country where national LGBTQ non-discrimination protections do not yet exist. LGBTQ people in Japan often face inequities in employment, housing, education, and healthcare. Japan also requires that transgender people must be “surgically sterilized if they want legal recognition of their gender identity,” according to Human Rights Watch.

To address these issues, more than 200 Japanese municipalities offer some recognition for same-gender couples enabling them to rent apartments together, visit each other in city-run hospitals, and receive other benefits that same-gender couples enjoy. However, a national LGBTQ bill that would make equal civil rights and non-discrimination protections into law was defeated by Prime Minister Fuko Kishida in advance of last summer’s Olympic Games.

A message from Nintendo Japan’s president, Shuntaro Furukawa, called for all employees “to adopt a renewed understanding that even speech and actions, which are not intended to cause harm, can cause significant emotional pain.” He called for “understanding and support to create an environment in which everyone can work comfortably.”