Subaru, Nintendo Step Up for LGBTQ Workers in Conservative Japan

Subaru Corp. has spent decades building a reputation as an LGBTQ-friendly company. In the 1990s it introduced ads in the US geared toward lesbians. And the company later won praise for its equality policies for employees, including offering domestic partner benefits to American employees in same-sex relationships more than a decade before the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage equality in 2015. But the automaker’s home market of Japan, which still doesn’t allow same-sex marriage, remained a major gap in its approach—until last year.

Last April the maker of vehicles such as the Forester SUV revised its benefits policy in Japan to cover same-sex partners of employees. With that shift, Subaru, which declined to comment on how its policies affecting LGBTQ employees have evolved, joined a growing list of companies working harder to promote equality in the absence of government action. Blue chips such as Nintendo, Rakuten, Sony and Toyota offer benefits to same-sex partners of their employees in Japan, and there are large companies with pro-equality policies in almost every segment of the economy, from instant noodles maker Nissin Foods Holdings and convenience store operator FamilyMart to cigarette giant Japan Tobacco and insurance company Sompo Holdings.