Paper short abstract:

In my presentation I will analyse schoolbooks and prefectural guidelines for sex education, and discuss if they encourage schools to open up spaces for sexual minorities. My research shows that the spaces currently opened up for sexual minorities are too small to change current school setting.

Paper long abstract:

"Homosexuality may disturb the healthy development of heterosexuality. It is against the social morals and destroys the sexual order. Thus it is unacceptable and should be treated." These were the words of the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1979. In 1994 the Ministry of Education finally removed homosexuality from the list of deviant behaviours. In the 2010s the Ministry issued several documents encouraging schools to take sexual minorities into consideration, for the first time. While the latest teaching plan (2020) still does not include any information about sexual minorities, new schoolbooks and prefectural guidelines for sex education started to refer to sexual minorities.

In my presentation I will analyse schoolbooks and prefectural guidelines for sex education (grade 7-12), and discuss the following questions: 1. How much and what kind of information about sexual minorities do they provide? 2. Do they encourage schools to open up any spaces for sexual minorities?

While textbooks for high schools only refer to sexual minorities in the connection with themes like discrimination and family, two ethics textbooks for junior high school mention sexual minorities in school context. Here we can find small spaces for them, like unisex bathrooms and, if they are lucky, there are individual teachers who understand their sexualities and can provide them with a sense security.

Guidelines for sex education provide a limited space for sexual minorities. Indeed, the guideline of Tokyo Metropolis encourages better understanding of sexual minorities in the school context. However, model lessons in this guideline are highly heteronormative and there is only one sentence encouraging teachers to take supportive action for sexual minorities, namely "Tell students, that if they have personal problems including the issue of sexual orientation and sexual identity, they should contact their classroom teacher or school nurse".

I would thus argue that in a small number of schools there are very small spaces that have opened up for sexual minorities. However, currently the spaces are so small and hidden that they may neither change the existing school system nor make majority of students aware of the presence of sexual minorities in their own school.