The education ministry issued a landmark notice on Thursday, urging local education boards to ensure that schools do more to cater to children who believe they were born the wrong gender.

The move, which comes amid rising sensitivity toward sexual minorities by Japanese society and officialdom, will oblige schools to pay greater attention to the needs of transgender students. The measures include, for example, allowing them to come to school with uniforms of whichever gender they prefer or letting them use a bathroom or locker room as they choose so as to pay heed to students’ gender identity as much as possible.

It also says other sexual minority students — gays, lesbians, and bisexuals — deserve greater accommodation, the first such notice of its kind.