Opinion To be young and lesbian in Japan By Matthew A. Thorn	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
同性愛者の人権 筆者の教え子に同性愛の女性がいる。 性の志向は生まれつきのものなのに、日本の社会は、主流から外れた人々を差別し、笑い物にしがちである。 教え子が、ありのままの自分を受け入れてもらえるのはいつだろう？

A student of mine, a young Japanese woman, recently came out to me. And by "came out," I mean she told me she was a lesbian. To be more precise, she came to realize that she was a lesbian, and not a bisexual, as she had been telling herself. Later I took her with me to a very small convention in Tokyo where more than half of the participants were lesbians. She was incredibly excited to meet others like herself.

But back in Kyoto, she is lonely and isolated. There is one very small group at our university for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered students, but she's not even sure if the women in the group are lesbians, bisexuals or just heterosexual women who like the idea of being "queer." There are just two lesbian bars in Kyoto, both run by the same people, so if you don't like the atmosphere or clientele, you're out of luck. (There was a third bar, but it seems to have gone out of business, as so many lesbian bars do in Japan.)

Just finding other lesbians is a struggle, but even if you do, and you are lucky enough to meet someone you can love, you still have to deal with the reality of living in a heterosexist society. My student has good friends at school, and they now know she is a lesbian, but they don't want to hear about it or talk about it. They would prefer that she keep that aspect of her life hidden from their sight. And while she has told her sister, it will probably be difficult for her to tell her parents. Many lesbian, gay and transgendered Japanese are told by family and friends that they are just going through a phase, or that they are sick and need psychiatric help. And in the future, she can expect to be discriminated against in the workplace if she does not hide her identity.

Japanese children are taught in school to not discriminate against people of certain social backgrounds, Koreans or other foreigners living in Japan, the disabled or the elderly. But they are not taught to respect lesbians, gays or the transgendered. The mass media portray gay men and the transgendered as perverted clowns. Lesbians are portrayed as pitiful psychopaths, or as mannequins performing for the pleasure of heterosexual men. Television, comics and video games teach children that people whose sexual or gender identity is different from the mainstream are freaks to be laughed at.

Current scientific evidence indicates that sexual orientation is inborn. It is not a choice, nor is it shaped by environment. And though there is little reliable data available, most experts believe that between two and five percent of all humans are born homosexual. That means there is probably at least one homosexual in your workplace or classroom. But he or she is probably hiding that fact from everyone. When will these people free to come out of the closet? When will Japanese society begin to take seriously the basic civil rights of people whose only "problem" is that they fall in love with people of the same sex? When will my student be able to simply be herself, and be accepted by others?

Shukan ST: Sept. 30, 2005

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