Deaf LGBTQ advocate Fuyumi Yamamoto of Kobe, who founded a support group for Deaf sexual minorities, on Japan's constitution at 80: 'activism can change society'

Fuyumi Yamamoto, 45, of Kobe's Tarumi Ward, was born Deaf and is also a member of a sexual minority. In 2014, at 32, she founded a support group for people like herself, and she studied Deaf LGBTQ studies at a university in the United States, where she felt the gap in how diversity is understood. Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the promulgation of Japan's constitution, which guarantees fundamental human rights and equality under the law, the Kobe Shimbun looks at her experience and activism and where Japanese society stands today.