ジェンダー研究第 23 号

2020 年

特別寄稿論文“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:
From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context 1
Akiko Shimizu

The University of Tokyo

Let 1 me start with some historical background, some personal, others not so much.
Just like many feminist and queer academics of my generation, I started my careerin the nineties with the exciting theoreticalburst of “queer theory” and perhaps equally exciting shift around cultural politics ofgenders and sexualities. Just like everyone
else, I read Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick,
Gayatri Spivak, and all the other “star”
feminist academics, although I would haveto point out that the Japanese translation of
Gender Trouble was not out till 1999, nearly a decade after it was first published in
English. And this, actually, was the same
year the Basic Act for Gender Equal Society came into force in Japan, which evoked
an immediate and strong response frommoral and religious conservatives, which,then, culminated as a full-blown backlash
against feminism and women’s movementin Japan. As I started my first job teach-ing in universities in the early noughties,
although I was certainly excited to talkabout Butler or Spivak, I was also trying
very hard to figure out how it was evenpossible that Japan’s national government
was arguing in all seriousness against theuse of the “ideological” term that is “gender”. As a feminist theorist, I have beenreading mostly in English, while, working in Japan, my thoughts and analysis areinevitably both affected by and dealing
with Japanese culture, society and politics:
it has been impossible for me not to beconstantly working in and on that elusive
space of translation—linguistically, culturally and politically.
And that is what I would like to take alook at in this essay: that space of varioustranslations, where what is indigenous (or“traditional” if we stick to the Japaneseterm used in the context) and what is imported and foreign are constantly set and

1 The original version of this essay was titled “Imported Hatred?: Japan’s Transphobic Feminism inTransnational Context” and presented as part of an international symposium “Transgender Questions: Body, Race and Identity” at Ochanomizu University (2019/12/15). An extended version,
with the current title, was then written for a lecture at UC Berkeley (2020/1/27), which is here
published with minor corrections.

DOI：10.24567/00063795

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

re-set against each other in an uneasy andjerky connection and disjunction. I am trying to tell a story: a story of feminist/queer
struggles in Japan in the last twenty years,
which may or may not be related to all
those contemporary theoretical concerns
and fads in Anglo-European language
academia, but exact forms of whose relation to the latter is certainly not obvious; astory where the imported and the indigenous, the transnational and the local, haveentwined with each other and been playedout to shape a distinctively local and inherently transnational form of politics ofgenders, sexualities and bodies. This is astory of 20 years of cultural and politicalstruggle that does not necessarily have aclear and exciting narrative, a happy ending, or even an inspirational lesson. It is astory of tedious repetitions, a messy anddisorganized “plot-what-plot”, and crushing disappointments.
The story consists of three parts: thebacklash in the noughties; the use of marriage equality in the 2010s; and the surgeof transphobic alliance of the online feminist culture that we are currently witnessing.

1．The backlash in the early noughties
We will start by looking back at the backlash in the early noughties in Japan against
feminisms, women’s movements and gender studies. What was remarkable about
this backlash is that it was just as blatantly
and systematically led by the national government as it was fuelled and upheld by
the grass-root moral/religious conserva-

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tives who are the major constituency of theruling Liberal Democratic Party. In thissense, it was arguably a strange predecessor of the “anti-gender” movements that
we currently see elsewhere in the world as
well.
The backlash started as a response frommoral conservatives to the Basic Act for
Gender Equal Society, which came into
force in 1999 (Ueno, 2006; Wakakuwa,
2006). The Basic Act itself is by no meansa progressive one. It has been criticizedby feminists for effectively deflecting therequirements set by CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms ofDiscrimination Against Women), which
Japan ratified in 1985, and attempting instead to set up a “gender equal society”,
an official English term chosen by the government. The literal word-by-word translation of the original Japanese term 男女共同参画社会, however, would be something
like “a society of coopesrative participation by men and women”: the Basic Act, inother words, is not about equality or aboutanti-discrimination; it is about cooperative
joint participation in, and contribution to,society, by men and women.
Still, the majority of feminist and women’s groups welcomed and supported the
Basic Act, if not wholeheartedly. Nakajima Michiko, one of the early feminist
critics of the Basic Act, argued that thiswas partly due to the increasingly strong
voices from the moral/religious conservatives that attacked feminism and women’s
movements as “destroying human bondsin the name of equality of men and womenジェンダー研究”(Nakajima, 2000). Substituting “genderequality” or “anti-discrimination” with“cooperation” and “joint participation”
might seem like a clever way to circumvent possible attacks from the moral conservatives, while implementing the legal
ground for bringing about social changes.
Of course, however, things did not workas the feminists had hoped. Nakajima also
pointed out that the then chief of the Cabinet’s Headquarters for the Promotion of
Gender Equality repeatedly stressed thatthe Basic Act was not something that Japan
had to implement because of internationalpressure from outside; it was promoted
as demonstrating Japan’s autonomous approach to the issue. Japan’s “autonomous”
approach, she correctly argued, was put
forward here in order to effectively separate the Basic Act from the local feminist and women’s movements which had
been working to realize gender equality
by sometimes appealing to the CEDAW
requirements, and which, therefore, were
here characterized and disregarded as partof the “outside” forces.
In other words, while some feminists
might hope that the Basic Act could help
them achieve gender equality by avoiding
the expressive use of the term to appease
the moral conservatives, the governmentside was in fact effectively setting up thekind of legal ground for the authentic andautonomous Japanese version of genderequality, independent of “foreign pressure”, and therefore of the local grass-roots
feminist and women’s movements. In thatsense, it may not even be accurate to say

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that the backlash started as a response to
the Basic Act, because the Act had alreadybeen involved in the LDP government’s
conservative and anti-feminist politicalmoves from the start. In 2005, a “Project
team for investigating the actual state of
the extremely radical sex education andgender-free education” was formed by theruling LDP, which went as far as to suggest that the government should not use
the word “gender” because the definitionof the term is not clear enough and also
because gender studies denies sexual differences, holds negative views of marriage
and family and attempts to destroy traditional Japanese culture.
These official attacks on feminisms
and women’s movements were supported
strongly, on one hand, by moral/religious
conservative organizations capable of considerable grass-roots mobilization (mostof which have its membership overlappingwith the Japan Conference, the powerfulextreme conservative political organization that strongly opposes women’s andLGBT rights and has sent a dozen members to the current cabinet including PM
Abe himself). It was also supported by, on
the other hand, the emerging online rightwingers, whose attack on feminism seemed
to have been rooted more in the frustrationand the cynical joy of bullying, perhaps related to the economic recession Japan was
experiencing, than in any political beliefs
or commitments. This online bully community was formed around anonymous
BBS like 2チャンネル, which you could callthe original Japanese version of 4chan, one

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

of the possible birthplaces of the alt-right.
In fact, the community could be describedas, again, a strange Japanese predecessorof the alt-right, attacking not only feminists and women but also increasingly
targeting ethnic minorities living in Japanthroughout the noughties.
What I would like to focus our attention
on here, however, is not the backlash itself
but the way feminist and gender studies
reacted to it. In attacking feminist movements and gender studies, the backlashers
targeted what they thought was the mostcontroversial and scandalous to the general public, and as such the most divisive
for the feminist communities: the issuesof sexual and gender minorities. They
claimed that feminists and the advocates
for what they called “gender-free movements” were denying sexual difference,creating a new generation of “genderconfused” and/or bisexual children, anddestroying traditional Japanese families
and communities 2. It is perhaps also worth
pointing out that this strategical move was,in itself, clearly taking a hint from the rhetoric of religious rights in the U.S. throughthe moral panic over sex offenders in the
80’s and the Culture War in the 90’s. Even
though they claimed to be the defenders of
the “traditional” Japanese family, culture,and values against the “foreign pressures”
and against the resulting “extreme individualism” (which has always been associated with the “West” in the discourses ofJapanese rights), the backlasher discourses
were, in fact, as transnational as the feminist’s.
That feminists are creating queers to destroy families was clearly a false claim: thefeminist and women’s movements were notalways trying to deny sexual difference,even though some of us might have beenworking on undermining the patriarchal“family” system; and creating a whole newgeneration of gender-fluid and/or bisexualchildren was simply beyond our capacity.
Still, when the mainstream feminist andwomen’s groups quickly and emphaticallydenied the claim, repeatedly stressing that“feminists denying or questioning sexual
difference is a groundless rumour spreadby the backlashers” or that “our way is
not going to create androgynous or bisexual kids”, instead of owning it up andclaiming that feminism could question
the binary notions of sexual difference, or
stating that we see no problem in having
more gender-fluid and/or bisexual kids insociety, they effectively failed gender andsexual minorities. In a similar manner,
mainstream feminist academics and activists also felt the need, as they tried to argue against backlashers who claimed thatfeminism and “gender-free” movement
negate “manliness” and “womanliness”, tostress that they would not do such things.
They even tried to stress that feminism
would not criticize or question the “traditional” Japanese children’s festivals, gen-2 For example, see an article posted on the website of Japan Policy Institute, which is one of thedriving forces of the backlash in the noughties. “Dreadful Harm of Gender-free Education”, July
3, 2006（ジェンダーフリー 教育の恐るべき「弊害」）. http://www.seisaku-center.net/node/286

92ジェンダー研究

dered between the girls’ festival in Marchand the boys’ in May. They believed thatcriticizing or “attacking” the “traditional” Japanese cultural rituals and festivals
would only aggravate the backlash. Theirclaims, however, did not only undermine
the long-lasting feminist criticism of gender roles, but also showed very little concern for queer people, many of whom havebeen disciplined, ridiculed or reproached
for not being manly or womanly enoughin one way or another. In order to focus
on survival in the difficult political climateof the backlash, mainstream feminism inJapan in the early noughties sacrificed intersectionality and failed feminism.
After the worst storm of the backlash
had passed, however, feminist and genderstudies in Japan never truly recognized andreflected on this failure. We just moved on.
We could argue that this was at least partof the reason why, when “LGBT” becameslightly more fashionable and various LGBTQ activisms started to rise again in Japan in the last decade, feminism could notplay a major role and almost seemed like it
had been left behind.

2．The use of marriage equality inthe 2010s

In March 2013, a Japanese lesbian couple
held a wedding ceremony at Tokyo Disneyland. The phrasing here is a deliberatechoice: they “held a ceremony”; i.e. they
did not necessarily “get married”. Still,the “Disney marriage”, as their wedding

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ceremony became known in Japan, especially in the on-line LGBTQ+ community,
attracted the public’s attention in a way noother events, persons or groups, or movements had managed to. It seemed to catchthe public’s heart: the media were generally positive (on top of the fact that the wedding even made headlines in the national
media!), and suddenly people were talking about gay marriage. It looked happily“liberal”; it looked “Western” in a cool,
uplifting, and yet non-threatening way.
Part of the LGBTQ+ activisms in Japan
rapidly and arguably strategically reorganized themselves around the “gay marriage” agenda to seize the moment. And
yet, there are others who remain scepticalof the newly established focus on marriage
equality.
Let us first take a look at how the LGBTQ+ community in Japan has articulated
and explored the necessity and possibilityof the legal recognition of same-sex partnership. The wording is, again, important:the difference between “the legal recognition of same-sex partnership” and “marriage” is fraught, in Japan, with the weightof the system so fundamental to the postwar nation that it has almost acquired thepower of national religion. I am, of course,referring here to the system of family register.
It is impossible to discuss marriage inJapan, same-sex or otherwise, without
discussing the family register, as demonstrated by the still common expression of(Accessed April 30, 2020).

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

referring to getting married as Nyu-seki
suru, which means to enter the family
register. While the Constitution does not
require anything apart from the mutual
consent of both sexes for the marriage totake place (article 24), it is stipulated in
the Civil Code (article 739) that “marriage
shall take effect upon notification pursuant
to the Family Register Act”, thus making
marriage effectively about the family register: Marriage in Japan only takes placethrough two people (currently a woman
and a man) handing in a registration of
marriage to the local authorities, which isfollowed by deleting their names from therespective former family register (of thefamily they were born into) and creatinga new family register (as a wife and a husband). This is the only way that partnership is “recognized” in Japan.
This almost inseparable connection between marriage and the family registerhas been one of the major reasons, and arguably the most crucial one, for feminist(especially post-colonial, anti-imperial
feminist) objection to the institution of
marriage itself in Japan. There are certainly the “usual” arguments against marriage,
similar to those you could find in othercountries as well: opposition to the regulation and control of personal relationships
by the state may be one example. However, the family register, with its undeniable historical roots in the colonial rule ofImperial Japan and especially in the idea
of family system (ie-seido) based on patriarchal lineage that has the Emperor as its
ultimate father/ruler, has unquestionably

94

added extra layers to the opposition. The
marriage system in Japan is both based on
and intended to support and help prolong
the family system. Buying into the marriage system, those opposing the system
would argue, you are upholding the family
register and therefore, in effect, helping tocontinue the colonial-patriarchal legacy ofImperial Japan.
When the first serious attempt appeared
to explore the possible forms of the legal
recognition of same-sex partnership, manyof the LGBTQ+ activists who were involved were familiar with, and well-versed
in, this feminist opposition to the family
register and the institution of marriage.
The first book dedicated to the issue andpublished in Japan back in 2004 was titledSame-Sex Partnership: Understanding
Gay Marriage and Domestic PartnershipLaws, and focuses more on domestic partnership laws than marriage, at times evenrather critical of the latter (Akasugi et.al.,2004). The editors claim in the preface thatthey understand same-sex partnership as“the creation of new forms of relationship(11)” between/among free individuals. It
is, in that sense, clearly distinguished fromthe marriage system, which “deep down,
people still think of as a contract between
two ie (families)” (12).
We should, however, remember that
this was at the height of the gender backlash in the early noughties: the “feminist” criticisms of “traditional” Japaneseculture were becoming increasingly not
only unpopular but “risky”. Just as themainstream feminists were trying to de-ジェンダー研究fend themselves by separating themselvesfrom anything queer during the backlash,it appeared to make more strategical sense
for lesbian/gay or trans activists to keep
distance from anything that may look“feminist”. In this political climate, theincreasing number of same-sex wedding
ceremonies in this century and especiallyin the last decade, the “Disney marriage”
being one of them, could be said to haveoffered a good, but also convenient cause
for the movement to advocate. Publicly
claiming a same-sex partnership througha symbolic gesture of wedding performance when it was not legally recognizedas marriage, these ceremonies were often
as much a form of activism as a personalcelebration. We could argue that this was
the beginning of the strategic deploymentof marriage with the aim of securing legal
recognition for same-sex partnership.
When decoupled with the feminist criticism of the patriarchal-imperialist family
registry, however, the strategy risks contributing less to LGBTQ+ rights and moreto the moral conservative agenda. How
does that work?
If the “Disney marriage” can be considered one of the most successful P.R. moves
in the strategic recourse to marriage by
LGBTQ+ activists, the similarly successful P.R. move in terms of the recognitionof same-sex partnership is no doubt theordinance on same-sex partnership thatwas enacted in Shibuya Ward in Tokyo, in
April 2015. Some obviously welcomed themove by Shibuya Ward. However, again,
there were objections not only from the

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moral conservative side (which is predictable, so to speak) but also objections or atleast reservations from some queer/ LGBT
people and activists as well.
Shibuya ward’s ordinance is the first ofa series of similar policies by local governments to officially recognize same-sex
partnerships to a certain degree. Setagaya,
another ward in Tokyo, almost immediately followed, then cities such as Takarazuka, Iga, Naha and Sapporo. Even though
the certificate does not have legal biding
when it comes to areas such as inheritance,
joint child adoption, or spouse visa for apartner without Japanese nationality or
permanent visa, and therefore these policies seem to be a rather “symbolic” gesture, it could be argued that the spread of“symbolic” gestures could help the public
get used to the idea of same-sex partnership. What, then, are the problems?
The main problem is that we now havesymbolic performances coupled with symbolic policies, but nothing substantial tolegally support same-sex partnership. As
we have already seen, it is only the national government that can legally “recognize”
or “authorize” marriage in Japan, because
it is the national government that manages the family register. Since the national
government does not recognize same-sex
marriage and local governments have noauthority to independently determine what
can and cannot go into the system, the simple and basic fact is that local governments
such as Shibuya Ward cannot recognize
same-sex marriage, or legally grant a partnership status equivalent to heterosexual95

“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

marriage to same-sex couples. Under suchcircumstances, the same-sex partnershipcertificates issued by local governments
feel a little more like window-dressing
than symbolic policy. Still, we could justlive with the symbolic policies as something that does not achieve anything real
but won’t do any extra harm either: if it
was not, that is, for the hyper-conservative
political turn the national government isclearly taking.
As I have already pointed out, the family register plays a crucial role if samesex marriage were to be legalized in thiscountry. One will have to change the way
the family register system operates, inorder for two women, or two men, to beregistered as legally married. And this issomething that Japanese conservatives
would do anything to prevent, especiallythe current LDP government that’s known
for enjoying a huge support from ultraconservatives. In order to understand how
difficult it is to try and change the system,
you only have to look at what happens tothe call for the use of separate surnames bya married couple. For decades people havebeen pointing out the inconvenience andalso the feelings of loss of their identitythat are caused by having to change theirofficial surnames in order to get married.
This, however, has never been legalized,
due to very strong resistance from the conservative side: that would confuse the family register and destroy the family, they
have argued. For these people, the family
register is the basis of the country. It ties
an individual to a family, representing the96

ideal that an individual puts the family before themselves, and the nation before thefamily, with the emperor on top as the father of all families.
And yet, the dilemma for the national
government is that they cannot appear asinconsiderate to LGBTQ+ rights, especially in the face of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Under such circumstances, if the government can demonstrate, to the international
community, that it is making efforts toprotect and promote LGBTQ+ rights anddiversity, without actually making any
effective legal or systematic changes that
may offend the conservative constituency,that would be ideal. In this light, the basic
policies of the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party regarding this matter makes perfectsense. A 2016 LDP paper, titled “Our Basic Views Towards the Society That Accepts Diverse Forms of Sexual Orientation
and Gender Identity”, basically states thatsociety has to understand and accept LGBTQ+ people but absolutely no legal actions or changes should take place in orderto protect their rights. Interestingly, thisemphasis on acceptance over rights is also
supported by their claim that Japan has
traditionally always been open and tolerant to diverse forms of genders and sexualities. I have pointed out how the Basic
Act for Gender Equal Society allowed thegovernment to surreptitiously substitutegender equality with cooperative participation: Japan’s “autonomous” approach togender equality, while keeping up the appearance of promoting gender equality, infact alienated feminist and women’s move-ジェンダー研究ments and served as a distraction fromanti-discrimination attempts. The claim of“traditionally tolerant Japan” put forward
by the LDP serves exactly the same purpose: the alleged openness and toleranceof “traditional” Japanese culture gives thegovernment an excuse to propose a Japanese version of a diverse society to theInternational community, where in factpeople with diverse genders and sexualities may be culturally “understood” and“accepted” but not necessarily granted fulland equal legal rights.
Ironically, this is exactly where thenon-legally-binding same-sex partnershipcertificates issued by local governments
comes in handy: the national government
can financially support the promotionof the understanding and acceptance of
LGBTQ+ people by local governments,
which won’t affect the fundamentally crucial family register system. This allows
the government, both national and local,
to claim that they are doing their job toaccept queer people—if not their rights.
It means that both the national and local
governments will be able to put all the efforts and resources in window-dressing,
without having to go through the difficult
task of tackling systematic sexism, homophobia and transphobia, of reconstructing
new and more diverse forms of the family,of actually leading the change to enable diversity in society. In a way, the brillianceof “partnership certificate” lies in thatit could sell the fantasy of marriage, but
not the actual marriage; the official recognition of partnership that feels almost as

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legally binding as marriage but never actually is.
What aggravates the situation is that, as
the term “same-sex marriage” becomes
more familiar to the general public andas the local governments’ same-sex partnership certificates keep being reported,
mistakenly, as recognizing same-sex partnership as “equivalent to marriage”, it has
started to be strategically deployed by themoral conservatives to their political end.
For example, viewpoint, an online media
run by the Family Federation for World
Peace and Unification (formerly known as
the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity), a powerful moral conservative organization, hasstarted to warn its readers in the last couple of years that same-sex partnership willlead to gay marriage, and therefore to thedestruction of the traditional “family”. So
has Nihon Jiji Hyoron, a political publication issued by another moral/religious
conservative organization Shinsei-Bukkyo-Kyodan (this time not Christian, but
Buddhist). They also repeatedly stress how
gay marriage goes against natural order
and will harm social stability. Japan Policy
Institute, a right-wing think tank known
to have strong influence on the LDP andespecially on the current Abe cabinet, had
its senior member publish articles on an
online journal by a right-wing national
paper, strongly arguing against same-sex
marriage.
At least two of the above three, the Unification Church and Jiji Hyoron, have already started to mobilize their supporters

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

for an anti-LGBTQ+ rights campaign: a
few years back, they effectively prevented
LGBTQ+ issues from entering junior highschool curriculum guidelines set by the
Ministry of Education, by mobilizing people to submit public comments. It is also
important to point out here that all threeorganizations are among the most powerful and crucial driving forces in the genderbacklash in the early noughties. The way
they’re starting to mobilize their readers and supporters around the purported
threat to the traditional family brought bygay marriage has a worrying resemblance
to their moves back in those days.

3. The surge of transphobic alliance

It is against this political backdrop that thecurrent surge of transphobic online feminism takes place. The trans-antagonist
claims by women and feminists became
increasingly noticeable in the Japanese
twittersphere in the summer of 2018, when
one of the oldest and the leading women’s
universities in Japan, Ochanomizu University, announced that it would accept applications from transgender girls (most ofwhom, under current Japanese law, cannot
have changed their legal gender status because of their age, and therefore are “male”
on paper at the time of application). The
trans-antagonists claim that this is part ofa trend of misogynous transgenderism thatseeks to invade women’s space, threaten
women’s safety, and usurp women’s rights
and opportunities. Although such blatantly transphobic feminist discourses are still
mostly observed online, as I will point out,

98

this by no way implies that the majorityof feminists are necessarily supportive oftrans-rights in “real life”.
First, however, it may be necessary topoint out here that, until recently, strongly
transphobic sentiments coming from ciswomen (feminist or not) against transwomen were not necessarily visible inJapan. Cross-gender expression and/or
identification has often been allowed acertain place, although quite limited andlimiting, in Japanese culture and society.
This is not to say that Japanese culture
and society is less transphobic than, forexample, a “Western” one, or that trans-,
gender-nonconformist or non-binary people have been enjoying full and equal
rights in Japan. Still, there has always
been a small but stable demand, especiallyfor male-to-female crossdressers and/ortrans folks in mainstream entertainment,
presenting themselves sometimes as comical, sometimes as sympathetic, sometimes
even as exemplary, but never as threatening. It is not even uncommon that certain “celebrity” trans-feminine figures,
whether they are male actors of traditional
theatres known for playing women’s roles,
gay male performers who cross-dress (notnecessarily drag-queens), or media personalities who are trans-women, to be set
up against cis-women audience to criticize
and reproach, or sometimes give advice
and guidance to the latter, as the “experts
who know both sides”. In other words, inthe limited world of media and entertainment in contemporary Japan, while transfeminine figures are sometimes repre-

ジェンダー研究

sented as a joke, at other times they could
be exploited as a convenient tool for thepatriarchal control over women. And yet,blatant hostility or phobia against transwomen from cis-women has never manifested itself as among the main problems
regarding transgender rights in Japan thatneed urgent attention.
Moreover, trans-activists have worked
hard to expand the field of “acceptance”
beyond the narrowly confined world of entertainment. The highly problematic 2003
“Act on Special Cases in Handling Gender
Status for Persons with Gender Identity
Disorder” hugely divided the community
over its hyper-strict conditions imposedon those who wish to legally change theirgender (i.e. one must not be currently married; one must not have a child who is a minor; one must have no reproductive glands
or one’s reproductive glands must havepermanently lost function; and one musthave genital organs that appear similar to
those of the opposite gender). But it at leastserved to appease public hostility against
those who are diagnosed as “suffering”
from this disease that is “GID” during thetime of severe gender backlash, when to
appear as claiming the minority rights oras criticizing/threatening the “traditional”
Japanese family might be politically suicidal. The first out transgender politician,Kamikawa Aya, was elected as an assembly member for Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, in
2003: the same year the first out lesbianpolitician (Otsuji Kanakao) won a local assembly election in Osaka, and years before
the first out gay politicians got their seats

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2020 年(i.e. Ishizaka Wataru and Ishikawa Taiga
in 2011).
The recent rise in online transphobia ortransmisogyny, therefore, came somewhat
as a surprise to many LGBT activists andacademics. Where has this sudden hostility come from, one may wonder; has thehostility been smouldering among women
all this while, or perhaps has it recently
been transplanted from elsewhere? There
are, in fact, some clear similarities between
the anti-trans “feminist” discourse in theJapanese twittersphere and in certain othercountries—most notably in the U.K. andperhaps also to a certain degree in South
Korea: for example, the emphasis on “biological and innate women” as opposed to“male-bodied persons” and “penis-bearers”; the alarmist “concern” that transwomen with all their “male” privileges intact would usurp cis-women’s hard-earned
rights and opportunities; the scaremongering call for alert that allowing “penis-bearers” into a women’s space would severely
threaten women’s safety; and the accusation that treating trans-women as womenand advocating their rights is tantamountto ignoring and oppressing the pain andtrauma of women who have been exposed
to sexual violence and threats. These patterns of discourse were hardly noticeable,
if any, in Japanese language SNS before
2018, and some of their earliest conspicuous distributers were SNS accounts thatare also known for actively translating andintroducing transphobic rhetoric, transrelated “incidents” and “hot topics” fromEnglish- or Korean- language SNS.

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

However, if strong hostility and phobia against trans-women were not that
common among cis-women in Japan,
how could these accounts be successful
in spreading transphobic messages in thefirst place? One explanation may be foundin the strategic use of up-front and sharptongued expression of feminist anger andresentment by these accounts.
While Japan was late to notice what may
be called the revival of feminism in AngloEuropean countries led by a new generation of feminists in the last decade, a seriesof accusations of sexual violence against
powerful male journalists and artists in2017 and 2018 finally brought the nation
into the era of #MeToo. If an outspoken
feminist voice were still most likely to be
simply mocked, harassed, and silenced in
the Japanese twittersphere (as much as in“the real life”), the anger, frustration andfear of women started to get increasingly
voiced, shared and circulated in the last
couple of years, urging others to join in. In
fact, when Ochanomizu University madethe announcement regarding transgenderapplicants, the biggest topic among feminists in the Japanese twittersphere was a
BBC documentary about a Japanese female journalist who accused her powerfulmale colleague for sexually assaulting her,and the fact that a female LDP politician
blatantly victim-blamed the accuser in the
program. This was, in itself, a welcomechange in a society where conformity is
the norm and where women have found it
so difficult to express their negative feelings and be taken seriously.

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There were two problems here, however.
Firstly, when voicing their frustration andjustifying their anger, women naturally
turn to what resource they could get—they
looked to the latest feminist and/or #MeToo movements overseas. Those who werefamiliar with overseas feminist discourses
translated articles and tweets, showed images and videos, and introducing various“feminist” logics and rhetoric that could
be deployed when talking back to andfighting against patriarchy and misogynists. This again should not, in itself, be
a problem— feminist and queer politics,
or arguably most political movements andarguments advocating equal rights and social justice in Japan, have always sought
help, ideas and inspirations from “outside”
as well as from their own tradition. The
problem is that along with fearless, inyour-face rhetoric of feminist response,
rebuttal and criticism, some highly problematic ones—for example, those using
homophobic, racist, or ablist slurs in order
to attack a “male” they are in disagreement with—were introduced, shared oroverlooked without much criticism. The
second problem is that, once thus introduced, such problematic rhetoric proved
to be a powerful tool to attract followers:
anger, frustration and fear, when suddenly
let out after being repressed so much forso long, could easily be led to find its way
out in a misguided attack and hostility towards an easy target.
And this is exactly how transphobic discourses were imported: scattered amongoutspoken “feminist” rhetoric and intro-

ジェンダー研究

duced by “feminist” accounts that were
gaining more and more popularity forfiercely attacking the misogynist society
and protecting the women’s rights at all
costs. They were arguing that women—
the majority cis-gendered women—should
not stand having their rights put off any
more. “Women are so oppressed, so discriminated against and suffering frominequality,” they would argue, “that asking women (i.e. cis-women) to accept andcare for those who have grown up enjoying the male privilege, asking women to
share with trans folks what little rights andopportunities they have earned and whatlittle safe-space they have secured, is in itself a form of misogyny”. They appealed
to the women’s fear of sexual harassment
and violence, and to their anger and resentment towards the misogynous society;they moulded it into the kind of hatefulanger that women are not usually allowed
to express, and re-directed it towards transwomen. Some estimate the number of active trans-antagonist twitter accounts tohave come up to about 1000, which is nota small number considering they have only
become visible for a year or so.
This also implies, we could argue,that even though blatant expression oftransphobia was not that common among
Japanese cis-women and feminists, andeven though some crucial rhetoric oftransphobic feminist discourses seem tohave been imported from “outside”, things
are clearly not that simple. There weregrounds that prepared for, required, andwelcomed the import of these discours-

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2020 年

es. One of them is, as we have seen, thedeep-rooted misogyny and disregard of
women’s sexual (and reproductive) rights
in this society; another can be found in theway feminists in Japan have tried to fightmisogyny. The mainstream feminist andwomen’s movements in the early noughties, trying to protect themselves from thesevere backlash, set a direct precedent forthe current online attack on trans womenby mainly cis-women and feminists; eventhough the former never expressed phobia
and hostility as blatantly as the latter, its
indifference in effect had already cut off
minority women from feminist concerns.
In fact, in spite of the tireless effort bytrans activists to gather evidence of online transphobic hate speech and the repeated appeal by queer activists and academics to pay closer attention to the riseof transphobic “feminist” discourses, mostfeminist SNS accounts, including those oflegal experts, journalists, and academics, have been avoiding to even touch on
this issue, much less voicing a clear criticism or opposition of those discourses.
Well-known women’s activist groups andacademic feminist centres have planned
public lectures by a “Western” academic
feminist who happens to be visiting Japanfor research and is also a known transantagonist, in spite, again, of the repeatedalerts from queer activists and academics.
At best, they just are not interested at all
in trans issues: they do not care because
it has nothing to do with them. At worst,
they agree with, or at least feel sympathetic to, the trans-antagonistic discourses.

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“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

The irony, however, is that some among
the trans-antagonists are starting to seek
alliance with anyone with similar views,
and therefore with the moral conservatives and the ruling LDP government.
Here again, we are witnessing transnational similarities: it has been repeatedly
pointed out how some Anglo-Americantrans-antagonist “feminists” do not seem
reluctant to team up with extreme moral/
religious conservatives. In the Japanese
twittersphere, some have started to argue that they have no other choice but tosupport the LDP and the moral conservative’s view as more agreeable to “ordinary
women”; some argue that a person’s gender recorded on the family register is their
only “true” gender and that trans womenshould always be prepared to prove what
their gender is on the family register incase they raise suspicion in public toilets(it would perhaps be unnecessary to pointout here that the idea of requesting surveillance and control of women’s bodies
based on the family register is so out ofsync with anything Japanese feminist andwomen’s movements have stood for that if
one is even remotely familiar with them it
is almost unthinkable); some even go as
far as to argue that “gender backlash” inthe noughties was justifiable, for they havecome to the understanding that the conceptof “gender” actually is, just as the LDP“Project team” put it, a mere ideologicaldevice without a clear definition. Whenthey are not as overtly supportive of LDP
and the moral conservatives, they tend to
express concerns over the possibility that102

“radicalized transgenderism” is inviting
backlash against feminism and against
transsexual people by pushing “ordinary
women” too far, forcing them to take sides
with the extreme rights. As might be clear
by now, both of these trans-antagonist“feminist” approaches are the direct descendants of the backlash in the noughties:
the former blatantly repeats and supports
the anti-trans sentiment used as a tool toattack feminism; and the latter repeats the
feminist gesture of cutting off the “weakest link” to defend against the backlash.
What is worse, while the majority offeminist activists and academics, eventhose who are quite active online, are moreor less ignoring the transphobic attack as
peripheral events not worth their passing comments, the conservative side havebeen paying attention. For example, MATSUURA Daigo, a former member of theHouse of Councillors from the Democratic
Party of Japan and who came out as a gay
man after he lost the seat in the House in2017, was quick to notice that a transphobic attitude may rebuild his declining political career. On an internet TV program
aired in early January, 2019, he criticized
the bill for the elimination of discrimination targeting sexual minorities, submitted by five opposition parties in December
2018, claiming incorrectly that the bill, if
passed, would mean that denying entry ofa trans person with a male genital organ
into “women’s” public baths constitutes
discrimination. His comment was quickly
circulated not only among tans-antagonist
feminists but also by the conservative sec-ジェンダー研究tion of the gay community who have become more and more vocal in expressing
their dissatisfaction with what they see as
the over-politicization of LGBT issues. As
if in response, viewpoint, a website run
by Family Federation for World Peace
and Unification, which is one of the major
players in the backlash fifteen years ago,published an article in January 2019. Discussing the safety of cis-women in public toilets and baths, the article suggested
that “current LGBT movements” could“result in the violation of human rights
for women”. Viewpoint had already criticized, in an August 2018 article, the decision by Ochanomizu University to accept
transgender girls as applicants, hinting at
the fearful possibility of a “fake male student”; the Sekai Nippo, a paper also published by Family Federation, published anarticle in July 2019 about transwomen athletes, arguing against the participation of a“male” athlete in women’s sports.
Both Sekai Nippou and viewpoint arechoosing the right timing to translate
and introduce to the Japanese readers thetransphobic argument that have been circulating in English, which was exactly thesame role the media owned by Unification
Church played during the backlash. So
far, extreme conservative media like viewpoint have not started a full-on campaign
against trans rights like they did against
feminist and women’s movements in thenoughties. However, considering the crucial role these media played back then byintroducing discourses of U.S. religious
rights to fuel backlash, how successful

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2020 年

they turned out to be, and how AngloAmerican religious rights and trans-antagonist “feminists” have started to cooperate, it is not too far-fetched to assume thatthe fear and hatred against trans women
would be fuelled and exploited, at any
time when it becomes necessary, to startanother “backlash”.

Conclusion

So, that was the story: the story so far of
feminist and queer struggle in Japan in thelast two decades. As I hope to have demonstrated, it is a story of how feminists
have kept feeling forced into concession to
the moral/religious extreme conservatives
operating hand-in-hand with the national
government, and how the concession has
effectively eroded and undermined feminist politics to the point where not only
have we, Japanese feminists, failed to provide for the queer communities enoughtheoretical and political tools to securelegal protection for same-sex couples, butfailed to stop some women, including feminists, from sharing a political goal with,and sometimes actively cooperating with,the extreme conservatives. There is no
happy ending to the story, and we cannot
take an inspirational lesson out of it.
The story shows what we, as feminists,
as queer, and/or as academics, have towork with, and it poses questions: questions to which I do not have answers athand. How can we effectively relate thesehighly transnational and yet stubbornly local political struggles in the last two decades to feminist and/or queer theoretical103

“Imported” Feminism and “Indigenous” Queerness:From Backlash to Transphobic Feminism in Transnational Japanese Context

discussions in Anglophone academia andto the transnational and local politics thathave informed them? How can we do that,as feminist/queer academics working outside the Anglophone world and outside theglobal metropolis, in a manner that is moreengaged in the local politics than trying tocontribute first and foremost to the Anglophone academic discourses and knowledge? How, just as we struggle to figure
these out face to face with the global/international/Euro-Anglophone academic discourses, do we resist on the one hand theothering by the conservatives that under-

mines the local feminist efforts as “foreignpressure” and on the other hand the temptation to go “traditional” at the expenseof local minority women? And perhaps
most importantly, how do we best navigate
the incessant and increasingly rapid flowof transnational feminist, queer, and alsoanti-gender movements and discourses sothat we can learn from and work with eachother, without losing sight of our respective local, distinctive, and messy amalgam of translational politics between theimported and the indigenous, the transnational and the local?

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筒井真樹子ほか, 2004, 『同性パートナー―同性婚・DP法を知るために』社会批評社.）
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