Chalmers, Sharon. Emerging Lesbian Voice From Japan. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2002.

Hara, Minako. “Lesbians and Sexual Self-Determination.” Voices from the Japanese Women’s Movement. Ampo, ed. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. 129-132.

Hideki, Sunagawa. “Japan’s Gay History.” Trans. Mark McLelland. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context 12: n. pag. Jan. 2006. Web. 20 May 2010. <http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue12/sunagawa.html>.

Keiser, Yuki. “2009 Tokyo Pride Festival Video Report!” Tokyo Wrestling, n.d. Web. 25 May 2010. <http://www.tokyowrestling.com/articles_eg/2009/11/2009_tokyo_pride_festival_1.html>.

McLelland, Mark. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Mishima, Yukio. “Onnagata.” Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. Stephen D. Miller, ed. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1996. 172-189.

Moss, Olivia Mayumi. “About SJ.” ShatterJapan. 2007. 29 May 2010. <http://www.shatterjapan.com/content/view/20/51/>.

Nakamura, Karen and Hisako Matsuo. “Female Masculinity and Fantasy Space: Transcending Genders in the Takarazuka Theatre and Japanese Popular Culture.” Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa. James E. Roberson and Nobue Suzuki, eds. New York: Routledge, 2002. 59-76.

Peichen, Wu. “Performing Gender along the Lesbian Continuum: The Politics of Sexual Identity in Seitō Society.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 22 (2002): 64-86.

Pflugfelder, Gregory M. Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse 1600-1950. Berkley: University of California Press, 1996.

Subramian, Erin. “Women-Loving Women in Modern Japan.” Yuricon, n.d. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://www.yuricon.org/essays/women_loving_women.html>.

Summerhawk, Barbara, Cheiron McMahill, and Darren McDonald, eds. Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. Trans. Norwich, VT: New Victoria Publishers, 1998.

TW Editors. “Top Lesbian Words and Phrases of 2008.” Tokyo Wrestling. Nov. 2008. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://www.tokyowrestling.com/articles_eg/2008/12/popular_lesbian_words_2.html>.

Welker, James. “Telling Her Story: Narrating a Japanese Lesbian Community.” Japanstudien: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts fur Japanstudien 16: 119-144.

This project started as I began brainstorming about a final project for the class “Queer Japan” with Professor Matsugu at DePaul University.  While browsing the dashboard of my personal Tumblr blog, I notice pictures of queer women posted by blogs that I follow as I scroll down the screen. (White) dykes with short hair, tattoos, piercings, and androgynous clothes flash before my eyes.  I think, “What portion of the ‘queer community’ do these images really represent?” For young, queer girls logging on to the Internet in the U.S., what do these images tell them about what it means to be queer?

These questions got me wondering what “images” of queerness young Japanese women receive as they come to term with non-heterosexual identities. I began researching personal stories of queer Japanese women, as well as reading academic texts on the history of lesbianism in twentieth century Japan. My notes became a timeline of (female) homosexuality from the turn of the twentieth century to the 2000s, interjected with emerging themes and focused around linguistic categories of queer identity.  My project became an examination of how and why different words describing queer woman in Japan have come into use. To what linguistic tools have queer Japanese women had access, and why does “identity” matter?

Baisekushuaru (bisexual) – an English loanword* for “bisexual” popularized in the 1990s and 2000s, sometimes shortened to bai

Bian – shortening of resubian used by an increasing number of queer women in Japan today as a sexual identity not associated with pornography

Daiku (dyke) – term borrowed from the English “dyke” used because of its lack of negative connotations in Japanese; gives its users a sense of security because it is largely unknown as a queer word outside of queer spaces; same pronunciation as Japanese word for “carpenter”

Dōseiai (same-sex love) – term established in the early 1900s to refer to both male and female homosexuality; this term was the first to give a name to female-female sexuality in Japanese

Dōseiaisha (same-sex love person) – medical term for a male or female homosexual

Gei – term originally introduced into Japanese by homosexuals in the Occupied Forces that came to be associated with the cross-dressing gei boi and effeminate male homosexuality; word associated with artistic performance (geisha) that carried a transgender connotation until it was reintroduced in the 1980s in the context of the gei to rezubian (gay and lesbian) movement; gei was a common Japanese term twenty years before “gay” in English

Gei boi (gay boy) – term used to describe effeminate male employees of gei bā with a transgender association; replaced by nyūhāfu in the 1980s; “beautiful boys” of the twentieth century

Hentai (perverse, unusual) – term associated with Japan’s “perverse” press of the 1950s and 1960s, it is sometimes translated to “queer” (AKA hentai seiyoku could mean perverse or queer desire)

Heterosekushuaru (heterosexual) – an English loanword for “heterosexual”

Homo (homo) – term used to describe masculine-identified male homosexuals, as distinct from gei bōi that was most popular from the 1960s to 1980s

Josei no homo (female homos) – another term used to describe female homosexuals in the 1950s

Joshi dōseiai (female homosexuals) – clinical term for female homosexuals, who were seen easier to “cure” than male homosexuals because female sexuality in general was seen as a spiritual, rather than a carnal, experience

Kuia (queer) – an English loanword for “queer” that is used mainly in academic and activist circles

Okama (pot) – Edo period term used to describe “passive” male homosexuals that eludes to anal sex, it is still used to describe effeminate gay men

Onabe (pan) – most recognized Japanese term for a female transgendered person today

Nyūhāfu (new half) – term introduced in 1982 to signify a transgender performer that replaced gei bōi

Rezu – shortening of rezubian/resubian similar to “lezzie” or “lez” in English and considered highly derogatory for its pornographic connotations

Rezubian/resubian (lesbian) – term used to describe female homosexuals; historically linked to lesbian pornography created for heterosexual male readership; sometimes shortened to rezu; first homosexual term to be infused with political connotations in lesbian feminist activism of the 1970s; Japanese translator Hara Minako changed rezubian to resubian in order to separate the term from pornographic appropriation

Rezubianizumu (lesbianism) – term used to describe female homosexuality

Resubosu ai (Lesbos love) – term used to describe female homosexuals in 1950s media

Ryōseiai (bisexual) – a more medical term used to describe those who are attracted to men and women, or base their desire on characteristics other than gender

Sekushuaru mainoritii (sexual minority) – term used as an umbrella word for LGBTQ people, sometimes shortened to sekumai

Tachi/Neko (butch/femme) – tachi literally means a “sword bearer” and neko literally means a “cat”; the former refers to an “active/masculine” lesbian while the former refers to a “passive/feminine” lesbian; this dichotomy was mainstream in Japanese lesbian circles of the 1960s and 1970s; tachi has a history in Kabuki theatre of referring to the performance of masculine roles

Toransujendā (transgender) – an English loanword for “transgender”

Toransusekushuaru (transsexuals) – a loanword from English referring to transsexuals that is gaining usage in lesbian and queer communities

* English loanwords, while borrowed from the language of LGBT communities in the West, are more adequately understood as homophones and not synonyms of their English counterparts.  They have been contextualized to the experiences and cultures of the Japanese people who use them.

References

Chalmers, Sharon. Emerging Lesbian Voice From Japan. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2002.

McLelland, Mark. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Pflugfelder, Gregory M. Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse 1600-1950. Berkley: University of California Press, 1996.

TW Editors. “Top Lesbian Words and Phrases of 2008.” Tokyo Wrestling. Nov. 2008. Web. 23 May 2010. <http://www.tokyowrestling.com/articles_eg/2008/12/popular_lesbian_words_2.html>.

Welker, James. “Telling Her Story: Narrating a Japanese Lesbian Community.” Japanstudien: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts fur Japanstudien 16: 119-144.

TIMELINE:

1872: Education became compulsory for girls and boys under the Education Ordinance (Gakusei).

1894-1895: Sino-Japanese War

1904-1905: During the Russo-Japanese war, homoeroticism was seen as part of the male military experience (Pflugfelder 250).

IDEOLOGY:

The term okama traces back to the Edo period as an honorific term literally meaning “pot” used to refer to the act of male-male anal intercourse.  By the early twentieth century, however , okama  “had typically come to signify a distinct type of individual: a male who enjoyed ‘passive’ sexual intercourse with men, who exhibited feminine gender traits, and who often received money or some other form of remuneration for his sexual favors” (Pflugfelder 323).  It is still used today—by some queer men as an identity and by some heterosexuals as a slur—to refer to male homosexuals and men who act “effeminately.”

There was no pre-Meiji (1868) equivalent to the term nanshoku to describe female same-sex desire in Japanese.  This, of course, does not mean that female homosexuality did not exist in earlier Japanese cultures, but rather that it was linguistically inconceivable.

The formerly honorable and natural male-male sexuality of the Edo period became pathologized by late nineteenth century sexologist discourses.

TIMELINE:

1910s: Some Japanese feminists pushed to address issues of sexuality, albeit in a heterosexual framework.

1910s to 1920s: Dōseiai (same-sex love) was established as a category encompassing both male-male and female-female sexuality due to their shared transgression of male-female gender roles.  The popularization of the word dōseiai—a term loosely synonymous with “homosexuality”—is the first time that a linguistic category to describe female-female sexuality existed in Japanese (McLelland 19).

1911: The Seitō (Bluestocking) Society was established as the first Japanese women’s literary society lead by women (Peichen 64-65).  Its leading members not only challenged ideas of normative femininity and women’s role in Japanese societies, but were radical in their same-sex relationships and questioning of heteronormativity.

1913: Kobayashi Ichizou broke from traditional male-dominated theatre to form the Takarazuka Revue—an all female theatre school and performance space—in which women played both male and female roles (Nakamura and Hisako 61).

1914-1918: Japan joins the Allied forces in WWI

1912-1925: In the Taisho period, the location of sexual discourses changed from the realm of the elite in Meiji period sexology to more popular mediums with the hentai boom of media interest in “perverse” sexuality (McLelland 69).  (While the term “perverse” in English has a negative connotation, hentai signifies something that is odd or out-of-the-ordinary.)

1920s: Sexologist discourses became part of mainstream media discussion about sexual behaviors, which were also increasingly seen as a concern of the state.  The modan gāru or moga (modern girl) of the 1920s and 1930s explored gender ambiguity and was classified as one category of “problem women”—that is, women who acted outside of the narrow limits of normative femininity (McLelland 24).  “School girl crushes” and same-sex love suicides were also a matter of concern in the press, but were treated as a temporary phase of girlhood.

1937: Second Sino-Japanese War begins

1941: Pacific War begins (Japanese involvement in WWII)

1945: Japan surrenders after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Allied Occupation begins (McLelland 57).

IDEOLOGY:

Middle class Japanese women were called upon to adopt the desexualized role of the “good wife, wise mother” (ryōsai kenbo). Within increased state surveillance of personal lives, women were interpellated as mothers whose duty it was to breed sons for the nation (McLelland 33).

Male-female sexuality became heteronormative in the sense that their gendered roles were linked to national identity, financial success, and racial purity in the confines of monogamous marriage.  Even though monogamy was institutionalized, men were allowed some license to seek sexual pleasure outside of marriage (McLelland 42).

Homosocial environments existed for men and women during the Pacific War.  While men engaged in homosexual behaviors in military service, women’s roles were temporarily shifted as they were asked to seek employment (McLelland 56).

Until dōseiai was coined in the first decades of the twentieth century, “female same-sex love was inconceivable…In other words, the lack of a term for the female same-sex relationship suggests that the concept simply did not existent [sic] in Japan prior to the early twentieth century” (Peichen 68).  This does not mean that female homosexuality did not exist before this time, but that it did not have a linguistic expression to give it substance as a social category.  According to the literature of the 1920s, female homosexuality was divided into two types: dōseiai  and ome no kankei.  The dōseiai form of female homosexuality was seen as an intense platonic friendship that was a temporary phase of girlhood.  Ome no kankei, on the other hand, was seen as the type of homosexuality embodied by the tachi, or the more masculine woman, who was pathologized as a gender invert (Chalmers 25).  With the rise of the Takarazuka theatre, social critics and sexologists became fascinated with the otokoyaku, “claiming that there was a direct relationship between playing male roles (tachi) and abnormal psychology (hentai seiri) (Chalmers 25).  Some social theorists even tried to explain the appearance of tachi lesbian women in the 1920s and following decades as resulting from the inclination of the otokoyaku to play males roles outside of the theatre and cause a shift from dōseiai to ome no kankei.

TIMELINE:

1950s: Media boom of hentai seiyoku (perverse/queer desire) publications.  Lesbianism was a central fantasy trope in male pornography and was closely associated with S-M, an association that remains today.  In some ways, male-male sexuality was associated with high culture, recalling the ancient Greeks and other societies were male homosexuality is noted as a pervasive culture practice.  While a plethora of terms existed to describe homosexual men (see below), female same-sex love was seen as encompassing a largely homogenous group.  Words used to describe female homosexuality included resubosu ai (lesbos love)and josei no homo (female homos) (McLelland 70).  Again, these terms were constructed in conversations between men in pornography, and were defined against and by heterosexuality and male homosexuality.

1952: Allied Occupation of Japan ends.  Homosexuals in the Occupation Forces introduced the term “gay” to Japanese, which became gei and took on a transgender connotation (McLelland 72).  It should not be understood in this time period as a synonym of “gay,” but rather as a homophone.

1956: An anti-prostitution bill was passed that led to the replacement of the “prostitute proper” with the gei bōi, or young boys working in bars.  While gei was originally a transliteration of the English word “gay,” it became associated with the gei bōi—a transgender bar performer— and effeminate homosexual men (McLelland 107).  Gei predates “gay” in English as a widespread term to refer to homosexuals by the general public.  It was a word associated with artistic performance (like the geisha) and, therefore, had a transgender association.

1958: Japan’s Original Gay Boom (Gei Būmu) becomes a topic of interest in the media, with a focus on the gei bā, or gay bar. From 1957 to 1958, the number of gei bā Tokyo tripled from 20 to 60, as they expanded their clientele to heterosexual as well as homosexual patrons (McLelland 107).  (Unlike the U.S., neither homosexuality nor cross-dressing was illegal and homosexual meeting places were not raided by police.) The Shinjuku Ni-Chōme district—which had been a heterosexual red-light district before prostitution was criminalized—was taken over by gei businesses.

IDEOLOGY:

Japan’s defeat in WWII marked a time of confusion about national identity, about what it meant to be Japanese.  However, it was also a time when the strict moral codes the pervaded wartime ideology were somewhat loosened (McLelland 59).   Eroticism was seen as a symbol of liberation from wartime ideology, and women’s bodies were displayed in the media in ways that were both not permitted during the and, most often, degrading.

In (patriarchal) medical circles, joshi dōseiai (female homosexuals) involved in rezubianizumu (lesbianism)were seen as easier to “cure” than male homosexuals because female sexuality in general was seen as a spiritual, rather than a carnal, experience (McLelland 88).  The concept of iseai or “cross-sex love” was established against dōseiai to refer to heterosexual desire.  Ryōseiai (bisexual or two sex love) was discussed as an abnormal mixing of two antitheses (Pflugfelder 252).

Although queer desire was displayed in “perverse” press, there was not an idea of a singular “homosexual identity” because same-sex partner choice was not its defining characteristic (McLelland 72).  “Homosexuality” was seen as a pluralistic concept encompassing same-sex activities of a variety of gender expressions (active/passive/transgendered) and purposes (recreational/commercial).  Queer desire and gei businesses were a hot topic in media, and not subjected to censorship and raids as in the U.S.

Ideas of lesbianism took shape from magazine stories intended for a male heterosexual readership that displayed lesbianism as involving “masculinized” women and S-M play.  While “masculine” lesbians were seen as innate homosexuals, “feminine” lesbians were seen as acquired homosexuals.  Furthermore, heterosexual male authors of lesbian pornography sometimes depicted a same-sex loving women as an otokogirai, or man hater (McLelland 87).

TIMELINE:

1960s: Lesbian groups and spaces were established, though in far fewer numbers than homosexual male spaces.  A few bars featured female cross-dressers, such as Yumo no Shiro (Dream Castle) which opened in the early 1960s (McLelland 119).  However, like gei bā, these clubs catered to non-transgendered, largely heterosexual clientele.  Bars catering exclusively to women interested in women were far rarer, and most adhered to a strict tachi/neko (butch/femme) paradigm (McLelland 120; Chalmers 27).

IDEOLOGY:

The term rezubianwas established in the 1960s—changed from “lesbos love”—to represent female homosexuals in popular press.  However, this word was most often shorted to rezu, which had a pornographic connotation similar to the slang words “lez” or “lezzie” in English (McLelland 85).  “The connection of lesbianism with pornography is so strong that most women on first hearing or seeing the word rezu (lezzo) associate it with pornography…denying lesbians a psycho-sexual identity in which to claim a social space in which to move” (Chalmers 39).  Because rezubian had a negative connotation that did not make it a comfortable identity for many women, the alteration resubian gained popularity as an affirmative alternative.  Importantly, resubian was the first homosexual term to be politicized in lesbian feminist activism of the 1970s (McLelland 189).

The tachi/neko dichotomy adopted by many Japanese lesbians in the 1960s and 1970s has a history in theatrical performance, as well as more generally in heteronormativity (See “IDEOLOGY” in the 1900-1940s section).  Kabuki—a Japanese popular theatre developed in the seventeenth century—features male actors in both male and female roles.  Men who perform women’s roles are known as onnagata, while other actors are known for playing a male role, known as a tachi-yaku or otokoyaku (Mishima 181).  The work tachi has the connotation of performing a masculine role.  In the context of lesbianism, therefore, the tachi woman was seen as playing the male role complementing the neko or feminine role of her partner.  The connection between kabuki and lesbian terms of identity demonstrates the rich history of sexual and gender diversity in Japanese theatre, and the ideologies of (heteronormative) gender-bending performance that have impacted queer women’s experiences.

While “gay” was used as a term of solidarity between male and female homosexuals in gay bar cultures in the U.S. in the 1960s, there was no term except the medical dōseiaisha to refer to both male and female homosexuals in Japanese, and queers did not use it as a self-referent.  Male and female queer spaces existed, for the most part, separately of one another.

Women crossing-dressing as men in the bar and entertainment industries were called “brother girls”—a female equivalent of the gei bōi (McLelland 116).  Like the gei bōi, “brother girls” were seen as primarily crossing-dressing entertainers working for a predominantly heterosexual bar crowd.  These women were also called onabe(pan)—a female equivalent of okama (pot)—which some translate as “drag king” bartenders (Welker 124).  The tachi/neko dynamic was very strong at both onabe bā and redisu bā (ladies’ bars) until the 1980s, so much that many women felt pressured to choose a role to perform upon entering lesbian communities (Chalmers 28).

From the 1960s to the 1980s, existing gei bā were for a heterosexual clientele, and were distinct from homo bā populated by homosexual men.  The term homowas used as a self-referent by masculine-identified homosexual men.  The use of the term nanshoku to describe male-male sexuality was replaced by the categories homo and gei bōi, referring to “active/masculine” and “passive/feminine” homosexual roles/transgendered roles respectively (McLelland 137).

TIMELINE:

1970s: Lesbians met publicly in bars, and (hetero)sexuality became a key topic discussed by Japan’s growing feminist movement.  Lesbianism was mostly constructed through rigid tachi/neko roles, wherein “masculine” lesbians were pushed to adopt dominant relationship roles and were not allowed the flexibility to move to more “feminine” roles, and vice versa.  This was also the decade when manga—written by women for teenage girls about male homosexuality—was popularized.

1971: The lesbian group Wakakusa no Kai (Young Grass Group) was started for women who identified as either tachi or neko by Suzuki Michiko.  While the establishment of this group marked a “turning point in terms of lesbian community building in Japan,” is was also under critique from ribu-kei rezubian (lesbian liberationists) for being a primarily social club (Welker 127).  This critique highlights a division of lesbian communities at the time in which some women preferred to use queer spaces for social ends and were satisfied with tachi/neko roles, while other preferred to use them as building blocks for political action for lesbian rights.  This is the same year that Barazoku (Rose Tribe) was established as the first commercial homo magazine (McLelland 33).

1976: Subarashii Onnatachi (Wonderful Women) was published by ten women as the first feminist-lesbian newsletter, or mini-komi (Chalmers 33).

1978: A feminist lesbian network letter called Za Daiku (The Dyke) began publishing, but soon disbanded as members divided over opinions of who constituted a “lesbian” and sought membership in other groups (McLelland 170; Chalmers 34).

IDEOLOGY:

With the emergence of the Japanese feminist movement, women’s lives—including their sexuality—became politicized as something deserving public consideration.  Although many organizing lesbians connected their identity to feminism, the mainstream feminist movement refused to include or engage with queer women’s concerns for the most part (Chalmers 34).  The feminist movement served to politicize some women who took on identities as lesbian feminists, and who sometimes challenged more socially-minded queer communities. Within and between lesbian spaces and communities, conflict arose between netivu rezubian (native lesbians) and women who chose lesbianism as a rejection of patriarchal culture, known as seijiteki sentaku no rezubian (lesbians by political choice).  These battles over who constituted a lesbian and on what grounds were part of the reason that many lesbian newsletters and groups of this era broke up quickly (Welker 128).  These divisions suggest that lesbian feminism was largely seen as too radical for both heterosexual feminists who were more preoccupied with male-female gender roles, as well as for some lesbians who preferred to see their identities as social rather than political.

The division between Japanese lesbians in the 1970s also centered around whether bisexual and married women could be included in their spaces.  The tachi/neko dichotomy placed many lesbian women in a heterosexual-like relationship structure that allowed them a sexual, but not a gender, freedom of expression.  Other lesbian spaces included monthly dances, workshops, and clubs where women could meet other queer women—often for the first time—and confront their own negative stereotypes of lesbians (Chalmers 41).  While many of these spaces excluded bisexual women or married women or divided around definitions of a lesbian and a woman, they have served two important historical roles for queer Japanese women: “First, they have filled a cultural void for both the women who attend and for those who simply employ the knowledge of their existence as a reference point.  And as a result of this, a second generation of lesbians has emerged who already have a loose network in place” (Chalmers 135).  Lesbian weekend retreats gave queer women of the 1970s and 1980s a place to receive support and escape heterosexual expectations, and have provided a foundation of community for later women.

The 1970s saw a separation of homo from gei culture, and neither were seen as having much to do with lesbian communities (McLelland 154).  While gay men had the male economic privilege to move in public space and frequent homo bars, lesbian women had less access to the financial and social means to seek out other same-sex loving women.  The predominance of gay male spaces and media at this time meant that many queer women sought community and affirmation in male homosexual press, including boys’ love manga.  When most available female-female comics were pornography created for heterosexual male pleasure, gender-bending boys’ love manga (yaoi) provided an outlet of identity for queer women that was at least homosexual (Welker 130).

TIMELINE:

1982: The Rezubian Tsūshin (lesbian newsletter) was created.  The term nyūhāfu replaced gei bōi as a signifier of a transgender performer (Chalmers 34; McLelland 155).  This year also marked the beginning of “women only” parties at the gay bar Matsuri that were held for lesbians, as opposed to heterosexual clientele interested in cross-dressing performers (Welker 125).

1983: The Space Daiku (Space Dyke) bar opened in Tokyo, although it has since closed and been replaced by many others.

1984: A branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) was founded in Osaka (McLelland 174).  The adoption of nyūhāfu as a replacement word for a transgendered person coincided with the use of the term gei in the phrase rezubian to gei (lesbian and gay) in Japanese press.  This new conceptualization of gei as a general male homosexual category and as connected to rezubian in granting a shared sexual minority status served to politicize homosexuality as a social category.

1985: Regumi Tsūshin newsletter began and continues today as a space for queer Japanese women to express their experiences through autobiographical writing, book and film reviews, and love stories.  Part of the motivation for this newsletter came from the International Feminists of Japan conference held in June 1985 (Chalmers 34).  Frustrated by lack of support and inclusion from heterosexual feminists, Japanese lesbians broke off to hold a separate conference which marked the beginning of regular “lesbian weekends” outside of Tokyo.  Ribonne and Mars Bar also opened in this year as the first lesbian bars to operate without drag king staff in Shinjuku Ni-Chōme (Welker 125).  This is an important difference because it marks a key event in the transition from entertainment spaces marketed to heterosexuals to community spaces created for and by queer women.

1986: A youth contingent of ILGA called the Association for Moving Gays and Lesbians (also known as OCCUR) was formed (McLelland 176-177).

1987: Bessatsu Takarajima published Onna wo ai suru onnatachi no monogatari (Stories of Women Who Love Women), which was the first book of its kind to give personal stories of lesbians from a female, queer-positive positionality.  This book “has been described as a ‘bible’ for a generation of lesbians and bisexual women…[for whom] reading this book was the first time they were aware of the extent of the lesbian community—and for some, its existence” (Welker 131).

IDEOLOGY:

Japanese press began discussing homosexuality outside of the entertainment paradigm for the first time.  The idea of homosexuality became politicized with the beginning of an organized rezubian to gei movement.  In a sense, the terms “gay” and “lesbian” were re-imported into Japan in the 1980s in competition with the established terms “gei” and “rezu” (McLelland 174).  “Gei” was a term used widely in Japanese media twenty years before “gay” was as well established in English.  Apart from being homophones, “gay” and gei were not synonymous until the 1980s when Japanese queer communities came into contact with international gay and lesbian movements.  However, they are still not exactly synonymous, as gei has never been used as an umbrella term inclusive of female homosexuals in Japanese.

While the 1980s marked the beginning of a politicized homosexual identity and gay male activism on a wide scale, Japanese lesbians had begun seeing their identities as political almost a decade earlier with the rise of the feminist movement.  While homosexual men had received constant media focus from mainstream Japanese press, homosexual women still received little media attention outside of male pornographic fantasies.