This semester I\u2019ve been going to the lunch meetings of Doshisha University\u2019s LGBT social circle, GRADATION. I had hoped to really get a picture of what it was like to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community as a college student in Japan. However, while I feel like I\u2019ve been able to make some insights into the opinions of members of the group on their lives, I never really felt like I was really a part of the community or was ever really seeing what their everyday lives were like.<\/p>\n
First of all, the group, by its very nature, is separate from the rest of the members\u2019 lives. As I said in the last blog post, the members use nicknames in the club and agree not to relate any personal information discussed in a meeting to anyone outside of the meeting. I can\u2019t confirm whether or not the names people used to introduce themselves were their real names or not. I got the feeling that for the most part the people attending the meetings didn\u2019t know each other very well or at all outside of GRADATION. No one ever slipped and called someone by their real name. Other than two leader figures, one of which was the kaich<\/i>\u014d, <\/i>there was significant distance between the members of the circle. Those two leader figures definitely seemed to know each other in \u2018real life.\u2019 They also usually sat next to each other. The rest of the regulars at the meetings always sat in the same seat, at least two or more seats from another person. To match the physical distance, there was obvious social distance between the members as well. Two of the regulars used desu-masu<\/i> with the other members. There were also often awkward silences. Conversation was usually very hard to more forward. I\u2019m sure that some of this was on my account, being a foreigner, but there was definitely tension between the members of the group as well. Whenever this happened, the kaich<\/i>\u014d <\/i>or their friend would bring up a topic like food or anime that everyone could have an opinion on.<\/p>\n
The topics of the meetings rarely turned to anything having to do with LGBTQ+ issues. When they did, there was a palpable apprehension from most of the members of the group. It was clear that the members were not at all used to talking about their sexuality. Mostly these conversations were about favorite districts, bars and clubs in Osaka. One day a member shared pictures of person in their class that they had a crush on. That was the closest the conversation ever got to the private lives of the members.<\/p>\n
Another frustrating part of my experience was that gender never came up as a topic. In the meetings I attended there was never a Japanese person who performed as a woman. I\u2019ve heard from others who attended that there are women who attend the meetings, but they are clearly a very small minority of the circle. Trans* issues never came up as a topic. In U.S. LGBTQ+ groups it is standard practice to give people a chance to request a specific pronoun to use when referring to them. Since gender pronouns are unnecessary in Japanese, this opportunity never came up. The gender identities of the group members were never discussed.<\/p>\n
At first I was disappointed at the differences with American groups but I feel like this experience has given me a small look at how taboo LGBTQ+ topics are in Japanese society. And, consequently, how separate people\u2019s \u2018queer\u2019 life is from their public life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This semester I\u2019ve been going to the lunch meetings of Doshisha University\u2019s LGBT social circle, GRADATION. I … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080