LGBTQ politics in Japan, gay marriage, and sex education
I was interviewed by a student in the UK and here are excerpts from my answers.
On recent changes in Japan regarding LGBTQ politics
First and foremost, the acronym LGBT has gotten currency in mainstream media. Many people now know what it means or at least have heard of it and have a vague idea of what it is. The downside to it is that the LGBT politics usually gets reduced to either an economic concept to identify a newly found market. or interpersonal mannerism that gives rise to shallow allyship. Second, Twitter has become widely popular in Japan especially among young people who want to stay anonymous, which means many queer people can talk about their sexualities and gender identities on Twitter. Especially these two years, as far as I know, there has been a surge of queer Twitter users who voice their opinions and share their experiences and feelings, not just activists or activisty folks but also ordinary queer people, giving diversity to the online queer community. Third, and this is a bit dangerous to the advancement of the LGBT politics but, conservative, neoliberal politicians are starting to make alliances with LGBT organizations and startup businesses. The force to co-opt queer causes by the right wing is creating a political fissure among queer communities.
On gay marriage
I strongly believe that marriage as a social institution is a diversion from all the flaws in other institutions such as the immigration system, medical guidelines, family laws, welfare/social security, etc. We have so many problems in those systems because they are made such that one is more likely to suffer from their flaws if they’re single. Instead of fixing those problems, which would cost a lot more money, the government has the institution of marriage in place, like a first-aid kit, or a band-aid. So basically, the more marginalized you are, the more attractive marriage becomes for you. Advocates of gay marriage and gay partnership recognition say that gay people should get the same benefits of marriage, but we must fight for those benefits so they go to all people, gay or straight, married or unmarried. Right now, the most privileged are not straight people. It’s those who don’t need to get married but can choose to, who don’t need to get divorced but can choose to. We need to demand changes in the systems other than marriage, so that the benefits of marriage as of today will be provided through those systems instead of through marriage, and that marriage now will have no meaning whatsoever, making it only a symbolic union of persons. Only then can we say we have achieved marriage equality.
On sex education and the lack of mention of LGBTQ
A government official earlier this year, or last year, publicly stated that the national curriculum should not include information about LGBT people because people were not educated enough. That doesn’t make any sense, because people not being educated enough about LGBT issues is exactly reason why they should be educated through school curricula. But for the Abe administration, not educating is the answer. I’m sure there are individual teachers and school nurses who independently create ways of teaching students about human sexual and gender diversity, but it will be years until we finally see anything LGBT-related in Japanese school curricula. One concern, on a side note, is that many non-profits and queer startups and entrepreneurs are dying to make money off of education through lectures, seminars, workshops, teaching materials, textbooks, and many other products. I will be very concerned, when LGBT issues go into the national curricula, that children might be taught an assimilationist view of LGBT politics, a scientifically-unproven statement (e.g. gay people were born that way), or any other misleading, dishonest, and/or state-favoring messages.
