The second CGS International Workshop was held at ICU in the lingering heat of the Japanese summer from September 16 to 18. This year's sub-theme was "Gender Representation in Asia". We welcomed scholars and activists from all over Japan and many other Asian countries, including China, South Korea, the Phillipines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India.
On June 6, 2005, Professor Toshio Yamauchi gave a lecture entitled "Rethinking Gender through Gender Identity Disorder," as part of a foundation course for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Professor Yamauchi is the President of Saitama Medical School and a leading figure in the field of GID research in Japan. In 1996, as chairman of the Saitama Medical School Ethics Committee, he submitted a report which stated that Gender Identity Disorder (GID) should be properly regarded as an illness which requires medical treatment. He then helped to draw up guidelines for its diagnosis and treatment through the Japanese Society for Psychiatry and Neurology. GID is a condition in which a person's self-awareness of gender, or 'gender identity', does not correspond to their body's biological sex.