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Hello all! Today& #39;s the 2nd anniversary of one of the largest LGBTQ protests in Japanese history. The protests, part of a larger response to an article by a conservative politician stating that LGBT people arent & #39;productive,& #39; have been called & #39;Japan& #39;s stonewall& #39;. Thread:
In the summer of 2018, a conservative politician in Japan& #39;s ruling Liberal Democratic Party named Sugita Mio wrote an article for a conservative magazine arguing against extending tax benefits to LGBT couples. In the article, Sugita states that because same-sex couples cannot
have children, they lack productivity and thus do not deserve governmental benefits or protections. She also attacks trans students, and argues that the Obama administration& #39;s decision to allow trans students to use the bathroom of their choice threw the US into & #39;chaos& #39;
The thing about the article was that she wasn& #39;t saying anything new. Sugita, and other members of the LDP and associated right wings groups, have argued for years that LGBT people threaten to traditonal gender roles, and offering them support would encourage childbirth decline.
This time, however, the response was different. Sugita& #39;s article began spreading around twitter, prompting a reply from Otsuji Kanako ( @otsujikanako), Japan& #39;s first openly gay member of the Diet. Kanoko& #39;s response, which criticized Sugita for her presumptions about productivity,
generated further criticism of the Sugita article on social media. In a few days, the discourse began to move offline, when one twitter user ( @undefeated0411) suggested organizing protests at the LDP& #39;s headquarters after the party refused to unequivocally condemn her comments
On July 27, more than 5,000 people showed up at the LDP& #39;s headquarters to protest Sugita& #39;s comments. A group of local LGBT politicians attempted to deliver a statement of protest at the time, but were rebuffed by police
According to journalist Utagawa Shii ( @siiudagawa) who covered the protests, the crowd was composed of both LGBT people and their allies. Many of the protesters took Sugita& #39;s comments about LGBT people& #39;s productivity as insulting to the disabled, elderly and those without kids
Building on the momentum of the July 27 protests, in August 5th a second demonstration was held in front of Shibuya station, with concurrent protests also held in Osaka, Fukuoka and elsewhere. The organizers were largely journalists, academics and individual twitter users
Many of the speakers at the demonstration spoke openly about their own struggles being LGBT and the pressure the metric of being & #39;productive& #39; put on them. The youtuber Natose Suzuki ( @seisei_talk) perhaps summarized it best by saying "We do not live for the sake of productivity!"
In any case, the response to the protests was...interesting. Sugita herself ignored the protests and criticism until the 2019 (more on that later) but the magazine that published her, Shincho 45, tripled down with a special issue titled "Was what [she] said really that crazy?"
![In any case, the response to the protests was...interesting. Sugita herself ignored the protests and criticism until the 2019 (more on that later) but the magazine that published her, Shincho 45, tripled down with a special issue titled "Was what [she] said really that crazy?"](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EerIek-XkAA_ZZG.png "In any case, the response to the protests was...interesting. Sugita herself ignored the protests and criticism until the 2019 (more on that later) but the magazine that published her, Shincho 45, tripled down with a special issue titled \"Was what [she] said really that crazy?\"")
The articles range from mildly critical of Sugita to fully supportive, but maybe the wildest one came from a man named Ogawa Eitarō, who once called himself Shinzo Abe& #39;s brain. In the article, Eitarō compares LGBT people wanting rights to & #39;pathological gropers& #39; wanting rights
As you can imagine, this poured more fuel on the fire. A full fledged mutiny broke out at the magazine and its publishing company with staffers calling the issue inappropriate and ill-timed. At one point, an advertisement by the magazine& #39;s publisher was vandalized so that
the "yonda" (did you read it?) became "ano heito hon, yonda?" (Did you read that hateful book?) At another point, the company& #39;s own twitter account wrote a tweet criticizing the magazine by quoting the company& #39;s founder, Sato Yoshisuke
All of this was too much for Shincho 45, and in October it announced it would be halting publication indefinitely. Sugita, in the meantime, came to an amends of sorts in April of 2019, when she and fellow LDP member Inada Tomomi had conversations with LGBT people for a TV special
During their discussion, Sugita apologized for her words, calling them inappropriate. Her apology was accepted by some organizations and activists, but many called it too little, too late
So why is all of this interesting or even relevant? In Japan, lesbian and gay people can& #39;t adopt or get married, precluding them from traditional families. To change their sex markers on their birth registry, trans people in Japan have to undergo sterilization. The current system
in Japan, with its constant emphasis on (re)production, excludes not just LGBT people, but also disabled people, working women, and childless couples. The protests resonated beyond just LGBT people because fundamentally these are issues that affect most people
By focusing on (re)productivity as their target, protesters managed to make the protests into a larger conversation about ideals of productivity and reproduction in society, and how these values both become entrenched by capitalism and heteronormativity and reproduce them at once
And that& #39;s the other reason the protests are worth considering. LGBT activism tends to be framed in terms of the US and everywhere else. But strategies used by LGBT activists in Japan to connect with other marginalized groups and fight back are valuable to activists everywhere.
By examining how activists in Japan and elsewhere respond to specific social and political conditions, we can decenter Western ideals of LGBT activism and expand our understanding of queer cultures to build meaningful connections and solidarity across borders and languages.
