Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美) is a right-wing member of the parliament and the Minister of Defense under Abe administration (2016-). As a lawyer, Inada represented the families of Japanese soldiers executed as war criminals involved in Nanking atrocities against newspapers that reported the war crime. She was recruited by Shinzo Abe, then the acting secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, to run for the House of Representatives after Abe heard Inada give a talk on the topic at the headquarters of the party.

Recognized as among the most hard-line nationalists when it comes to the issue of Japan’s past, Inada signed on to both The Facts (2007) and Yes, we remember the facts. (2012), opinion ads published in U.S. media to dispute historical orthodoxy on comfort women. Her appointment to Defense Minister by Abe led to a widespread concern about the further militarization of Japan.

Interestingly, Inada is surprisingly pro-LGBT, having proposed a legislation to combat discrimination against the LGBT community. In 2016, Inada claimed that LGBT groups in San Francisco supported Japanese Consulate’s campaign to prevent the establishment of a comfort women memorial in the city as a reason to support LGBT rights, but there is no evidence that any LGBT group took a position on the issue, let alone an opposition to the memorial. On the contrary, prominent Asian American LGBT leaders endorsed the memorial along with other Asian American community members.

Inada is a member of the parliamentary Japan Conference caucus.