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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how trans men in Kyūshū negotiate and perform masculinities, showing how they gradually move beyond stereotypical norms toward authentic, gender-affirming expressions.

Paper long abstract

Trans men remain underrepresented in both Japanese trans studies and masculinity studies, with existing scholarship focusing almost exclusively on individuals living in Tōkyō (Yuen 2018, 2020). This narrows our understanding of trans experiences in Japan by treating the capital as a normative frame, while obscuring the ways in which regional differences shape trans lives.

My research addresses this gap by adopting an inductive approach grounded in the experiences of trans men in Kyūshū, a revealing site for examining how masculinities are constructed, negotiated, and inhabited in provincial settings. Drawing on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork, complemented by qualitative methods such as walk-along interviews, life histories, and participant observation, I explore how my research participants make sense of their identities and enact their masculinities in a region commonly associated with conservative gender norms and expectations.

I argue that, rather than reproducing shared masculine traits associated with stereotypical regional male identities, the participants to my study construct their masculinities through the pursuit of jibunrashisa 自分らしさ ("authenticity", “being true to oneself”), even when this runs counter to hegemonic masculine ideals and incorporates traits and practices conventionally coded as feminine. While their process of gender affirmation often begins with the adoption of normative masculine behaviors, which function as recognizable markers of masculinity in social interaction, at a later stage they describe a reflexive re-evaluation of these practices, gradually distancing themselves from them and integrating forms of self-expression they experience as more authentic. These dynamics resonate with previous research conducted in different sociocultural contexts (see Todd et al., 2022; Anzani et al., 2024).

By foregrounding regionality and lived experience, this paper offers preliminary findings that contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how Japanese trans masculinities are locally produced, embodied, and negotiated over time, aiming to contribute to broader discussions on the interplay between authenticity and normative expectations in the production of gendered identities.