Paper short abstract:

In this paper I suggest that ‘voicing up’ about gender issues in Japan is defined not so much by ‘loud and proud’ or “post-closet discourses” (Ueno 2022, Seidman 2002), but by the creation of intimate community spaces. These spaces may grant individuals control over their own narratives.

Paper long abstract:

During and since the #MeToo Movement in 2017, Japan has experienced a surge in activity from grassroots groups like Voice Up Japan and branches of international organisations like Human Rights Watch. These groups work to tackle the issue of sexual violence. Much of this violence and harassment is rooted in gender disparities, though there remain many issues related to race, ethnicity, and class.

The category ‘gender issues’ (or gendaaa mondai) encompasses many conversations Japanese youth are having now, particularly regarding changing gender roles and expectations in home, work, and school spaces. This article will examine the current discourse around gender issues contextualized in precarious Japan in order to examine youth community building around gender identity, sexuality, and relationships.

In addition to my ongoing fieldwork, I will engage with existing literature on labour immobility (Allison 2013), precarity, intimate disconnections (Alexy 2020), and queer narratives in Japan. I will use these sources in combination with the personal experiences of my interlocuters to unpack how youth ‘voice up’ and become involved in groups focused on preventing sexual violence against women, LGBTQ+ awareness, and anti-discrimination.

I suggest that ‘voicing up’ in Japan is defined not so much by ‘loud and proud’ or “post-closet discourses” (Ueno 2022, Seidman 2002), but by the creation of intimate community spaces. This article shows that smaller-scale community involvement, rather than styles of protest activism, is shaped by both institutional and individual narratives. The ‘passing on’ of such narratives is essential for youth to enact ‘survivance’ (Vizenor 2008) and find belonging in different groups.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how a perception of schools-as-gender-equal functions to maintain normalcy in women-teachers’ experiences of realities of difference at work and at home. Findings from interviews with 12 women-teachers reveal multiple and contested notions of gender equality.

Paper long abstract:

Unlike many other industries and workplaces, schools are generally perceived by the Japanese public, and arguably even more so by teachers’ themselves, as a gender equal environment.

Scholars on the other hand often look to education to explain persisting gender inequalities in Japanese society. Several decades of gender research demonstrates and conceptualizes the educational system’s role in perpetuating inequalities. Educators particularly are held accountable for reproducing gendered roles and for failing to realize opportunities to promote gender equality. Yet, teachers’ perceptions and perspectives on the matter are often neglected. Further, the notion of gender equality itself often remains undefined and unquestioned.

In nowadays Japanese society, where various individuals, groups and platforms manage to break through and give voice to gender injustices, is the perception of schools-as-gender-equal still the norm?

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of women working as teachers in senior high schools. Based on interviews with 12 women in their late-20s-40s this paper aims to clarify and give voice to teachers’ multiple narratives about gender equality in upper-secondary schools.

Two conceptualizations of gender equality were utilized as a framework for analysis; educational studies' notions of formal versus substantive equality; and policy studies' notions of equality as gender-sameness, difference, or transformation.

This study found that on the surface women-teachers stressed gender equality as the normal state of schools, both as workplaces and as educational environments. However, the concept itself remained opaque, seldom debated or reflected on. Probing further, it was found that a discourse of gender equality played a role in women-teachers’ maintenance of normalcy. Participants utilized multiple and contested concepts of gender-equality in order to negotiate realities of difference they encountered among students, in their work and private-lives. Generally, participants adopted a notion of ‘formal equality as sameness,’ namely, they believed women are, or should be, treated the same as men, however they were also ambivalent towards the male-standards this notion masks, and the personal toll it takes. Narratives constantly moved between rejection and acceptance of inequality.

Paper short abstract:

The push for same-sex marriage in Japan continues to gather steady speed and public support. Although equal marriage is presented as a broad ‘LGBTQ+’ community goal, transgender people face unique challenges and forms of discrimination when seeking legal recognition of their families and marriages.

Paper long abstract:

The push for same-sex marriage in Japan continues to gather steady speed and public support. Many municipalities across the country now offer some form of same-sex partnership certification, which are not legally binding but provide important symbolic recognition and some limited benefits. A number of high-profile court cases, including the recent lawsuit by the pressure group Marriage For All Japan, keep the issue of equal marriage in the public eye.

Although equal marriage is presented as an ‘LGBTQ’ community goal, transgender people face unique challenges and forms of discrimination when seeking legal recognition of their marriages and the families they build. Their ability to marry or register partnerships depends on the status of their koseki [family registry], and thus on medical transition: heterosexual trans people who have changed gender on their koseki enjoy full legal marriage rights, for example, while heterosexual trans people without an updated koseki are forced to register as a ‘same-sex domestic partnership’. Gay and bisexual trans people with same-sex partners do not have any access to legal marriage after transition; trans people who are in opposite-sex marriages before transition are required to divorce in order to change gender, even if their spouse is supportive, as their marriage would otherwise become a same-gender partnership after a legal gender change. This ban on same-sex marriage also has grave implications for international couples and long-term residents in Japan, whose various forms of documentation may be contradictory and leave them vulnerable to legal difficulties.

Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with LGBTQ communities in Kansai, along with a wealth of legal proceedings and newspaper reportage over the last five years, this paper begins with an overview of the many challenges – legal, medical, and administrative – faced by heterosexual and gay or bisexual transgender people who wish to get married in Japan. I will then analyse three legal challenges brought against the Japanese government by transgender plaintiffs on the topic of equal marriage, 2018-2022. I conclude with analysis of the November 2022 Marriage For All ruling and its implications for the next stage of LGBTQ marriage rights in Japan.