Claire Maree

Same-Sex Partnerships in Japan: Bypasses and Other Alternatives

In contemporary Japan, the family remains a strong social and legal entity. The right to make decisions on behalf of another in emergency situations lies with the immediate family. Similarly, immediate family members are legally entitled to claim from deceased family members estates. One way to ensure that property and inheritance rights are passed on to same-sex partners is for the older partner to adopt the younger, thereby becoming family in the eyes of the law. An alternative that has recently been proposed is for partners to draw up legal agreements and register them with a local notary office. Neither of these options are problem free—the former introduces a parent/child relationship to a domestic partnership; the latter is yet to be tested in a court of law. Both rely on surreptitiously accessing (or appropriating) the existing civil code. This article briefly outlines the current situation in Japan regarding same-sex partnership rights and the alternatives available.

The un/state of lesbian studies: an introduction to lesbian communities and contemporary legislation in Japan.

Abstract Although it would be safe to say that Lesbian Studies has never seriously been placed on the Japanese academic agenda, women-loving-women in Japan continue to individually and collectively desist from and resist heteronormative gender discourses. This paper first gives a brief overview of rezubian communities since the 1970s and then outlines the Basic Law for a Gender Equal Society and the Law Concerning Special Rules Regarding Sex Status of a Person with Gender Identity Disorder; two recent laws that demonstrate contemporary regulatory gender discourses. In closing, I stress that the paradox of contem porary Japanese “lesbian studies,” being almost nonexistent in the academe and continuously in development in the community, is clear only if we look at academic discourses alongside writings in both commercial and community publications.

Weddings and white dresses: Media and sexual citizenship in Japan

Representations of gender and sexuality in mainstream media operate to both shape the contours of, and contest the limits to, sexual citizenship. The ‘citational practices’ of media representations mould contemporary understandings of these limits. In this article, the author examines mainstream and social media reports of two separate same-sex wedding ceremonies in Japan; the first at a queer community event in 2007 and the second at a major theme park in 2013. Through citations and quotations, a multitude of voices are embedded in the media texts. In the 2007 case, increased media visibility is mitigated by citational practices that clearly mark the same-sex wedding as devoid of legal standing. Whereas media reports situate the 2013 ceremony in the context of marriage equality trends internationally, an instance of possible discrimination is emphasised as being a ‘misunderstanding’. Similarly, a microanalysis of a light news documentary of the ceremony uncovers citational practices that highlight the importance of ‘forgiveness’ or ‘tolerance’ for ‘mutual coexistence’ in society. Furthermore, the reporting confines the ceremony to a ‘fairytale’-like ‘foreign’ domain. The process of ‘othering’ issues of sexual citizenship is linked to a cyclical process since the 1950s wherein representations of queerness are posited as ‘new’ forms of being in Japan. Discourse surrounding sexual citizenship is thereby projected into a non-domestic, non-specific future time.

Writing one: Deviant orthography and heternormativity in contemporary Japanese lifestyle culture

Since the turn of the millennium, Japanese variety television has witnessed a revival in onê-kyara (queen personalities). In contemporary lifestyle media, the trans-gendered onê-personality figure is demonstrative of how suitable consumption and personal effort can bring forth the transformational happiness of the individual. The transgressive, radical potential of the figure of transformative non-normative gender is muffled by the onê-personalitys positioning within variety television as a friendly expert of extraordinary and often comical proportions. Language is one of the key sites where the tensions of critical expertise and queerness are negotiated via synthetic friendship and comic relief. In lifestyle media, onê-kyara-kotoba (queen-personality-talk) is juxtaposed with conventional Japanese and emerging practices of digital orthography. This social practice of writing effectively facilitates the contemporary fetish of the onê (queen), and the consumption of homosexual and trans-gendered lifestyle experts selling the promise of heteronormative romantic love.