A women's university in Japan will accept transgender women as students in 2020, Gay Star News reported.

Tokyo's Ochanomizu University has stated that it will allow trans students who have not undergone gender-affirming surgery to attend the school. The move builds on a prior decision by the Japanese Women's University in 2017 that allowed for trans students to enrol after such surgery.

This means that even trans students who are still listed as male on their family registries will be allowed to attend Ochanomizu University.

The decision is "unprecedented," according to an official from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology quoted in both Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun and in Gay Star News.

In order for transgender people in Japan to be legally recognised as the gender with which they identify, they must be at least 20 years old with no minor children, and then undergo gender-affirming surgery and sterilisation, which costs around US$10,000.