Photo/Illutration Taxis wait for customers in Osaka's Kita Ward. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

OSAKA--The Osaka District Court has ordered a taxi company here to pay wages to a transgender driver who had been barred from driving for months because she wears makeup.

In a provisional disposition order, Presiding Judge Toru Mizoguchi ruled that the company should pay the driver’s 180,000 yen ($1,700) monthly wage.

“Wearing makeup and spending life as a woman is a desire that is only natural and understandable,” he said.

The driver, 60, was identified as male at birth and is listed as such under Japan’s family registration system. But she identifies herself as a woman.

According to the court decision, dated July 20, the driver was hired by the company in November 2018 after she informed company officials that she was diagnosed with gender identity disorder.

She drove a taxi while wearing makeup after joining the company.

But in February, her superiors criticized her for applying makeup, citing complaints from customers.

“Putting on makeup is out of the question since you are a man,” the driver quoted one official as saying.

“Your gender identity disorder is an incurable disease,” another official reportedly said.

The driver filed an application for a temporary injunction at the court after the company banned her from driving and stopped paying her monthly wages.

In the ruling, the judge said, “Putting on makeup should not be recognized as an act to excessively assert personal identity and values.”

He also said the company should allow her to apply makeup to the same extent that female workers do, and that there is no need or reason to forbid her from working as a taxi driver.

The taxi company declined to comment on the temporary injunction.

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