is a Japanese LGBT rights activist, member of the House of Representatives for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and retired karateka and taekwondoin. She is also former member of the House of Councilors, and a former member of the Osaka Prefectural Assembly (April 2003–April 2007). One of only seven women in the 110-member Osaka Assembly, Otsuji represented the Sakai-ku, Sakai City constituency. In May 2013, after her party member of the House resigned, Otsuji became the nation's first openly gay member of the Diet, but her term in office expired in July. She won a seat in the 2017 general election and became the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives. Early life Otsuji was born in Nara Prefecture, but grew up in Hannan, Osaka. As a schoolgirl in Kobe, Otsuji was an Asian Junior karate champion, then later enrolled at Seoul University to study Korean and taekwondo. She lost by TKO to Yoriko Okamoto in 1999. She had hoped to go to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but was unsuccessful in making the national team. She returned to Japan and enrolled at Doshisha University in Kyoto, where she first became interested in politics. Career Otsuji stood for election as an Independent in April 2003, at 28 becoming the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka Assembly. She later joined Rainbow and Greens, a new Japanese political coalition dedicated to developing an alternative society based on ecological politics, participatory political ideas and decentralisation. She contested the 2007 House of Councillors election on the Democratic Party of Japan list for the national proportional representation block but was not elected. However, in May 2013 when incumbent member Kunihiko Muroi, Otsuji took up his spot and became the first openly homosexual Diet member. As Otsuji did not run in the 2013 House of Councillors election, she left office at the end of the term in July. Otsuji returned to the Diet in October 2017, this time to the more powerful House of Representatives. She contested Osaka's 2nd district for the CDP. Despite finishing third in the district, she obtained a sufficiently high proportion of votes to be returned through the CDP list for the Kinki proportional representation block. Her election is another watershed for the Diet as she became the first openly gay House of Representatives member in history. She again became the only openly gay Diet member that term,