A queer writer and YouTuber in Japan
“Hate crime is nonexistent in Japan,” “Japan only recently started having pride marches,” “homosexuality is accepted in Japan because of the traditional male-male shudo sexual/romantic culture,” “Japanese media are LGBT-friendly,” and “Taiga Ishikawa is the first openly gay politician in Japan” are all false!
There’s a debate on whether homosexuality is a preference or orientation. But is one better than the other? Let’s take a moment to go back in history to see how the idea of homosexuality was born.
While a gay YouTuber in the US asks his fans to donate money to an anti-LGBT bullying charity, YouTube Japan is filled with homophobic content like “let’s go inside a gay bathhouse” and stuff. In this video I invite Kody, born in Japan and currently residing in the UK, to talk with me about the
Continue Reading “My first collab video – “LGBTQ & YouTube: Japan vs. UK/US (part 1/2)””
Amelia said she wanted to interview me for the AniFem website, and I agreed, part of the reason being it’s a new website and yet they promise to pay all writers starting 2017. That should not be a big deal, but it kinda is when so many writers around the world are underpaid or not paid at all. That, and I just liked the idea of creating a sort of like an online hub where you can find lots of queer and feminist information, resources, critiques etc. about otaku cultures.
As I was going through the daily routine of browsing Facebook & Twitter, I found a NYT article, Gay Couples, Choosing to Say ‘I Don’t’, the title of which caught my eye, as I oppose the institution of marriage, and the like-minded people who shared the link in FB/TW seemed content with anti-marriage opinions circulating at last in the mainstream media. Excited, I read on, only to be disappointed, but in a way that was quite unexpected, by the elitist tone of the article.
Although this isn’t intended to be an exhaustive summary of history of LGBT politics in Japan, which I cannot possibly provide given my limited knowledge, I just couldn’t take anymore the shittiness of the news articles written about LGBT politics in Japan.
The most typical, all-too-common article written in English never fails to make the followings clear:
And I say, THIS IS BULLSHIT.
ORIGINALLY POSTED ONLINE MAY 3, 2011. The following quote has been and still is circulating rapidly on the Internet, even spreading beyond the English-language online communities:
actup.org, which has revived itself last year with new outlooks and aims, tweeted today that: #Japan’s first openly #gay #politician wins seat http://i.actup.org/fXKkTq #lgbt #politics