Appendix 1

Responses of ‘Interviews’ conducted with young Japanese lesbians.

 

The following ‘interviews’ were conducted via E-mail and the Internet over a 3-month period from July 2000.  All names used below are pseudonyms. 

 

 

Michiko is an 18-year-old girl living in Chiba prefecture of Tokyo.

She writes:

Being a lesbian in Japan is difficult.  It [homosexuality] is hardly understood by other people. 

It is introduced as a social problem, or a homosexual is treated on television as a laughingstock. But lesbians are not shown on TV, only gay men.

Michiko worries most about her parents wanting her to marry.

Mayami is a 23-year-old woman from Gifu.

She first realised she liked women when she was about 12 years old, and thinks a lot about her sexuality.    

Her parents have not yet encouraged her to get married, she thinks this is because she has traveled overseas for a while; but she worries they will, because she does not want to.

When asked about what society thinks of lesbians, she replied:

               They are interested.

               Reading and watching people can't understand about us. [Sic]

Jen, a 27-year-old woman from Nagoya.

She has not yet come out to anyone.  She wants to visit her local lesbian scene but says it is closed to outsiders, and no one will talk to newcomers.  

She subscribes to newsletters such as Regumi Tsushin however has to be careful as she still lives with her parents.  She has had girlfriends in the past, however 2 of them left her to become engaged to men.  

She wrote:

I think some lesbians are scared that their lovers will leave them for men.  Often their lovers’ parents are suspicious and make them marry.  So these women love other women, and still want to have girlfriends, but they will soon marry.  So I think that these women get a bad name. 

Hiroko is 25 and currently living in Fortitude Valley, although she comes from Sapporo originally.  

She is very boyish, and described how when she was younger, was constantly fighting with her mother about things like wearing dresses and climbing trees.  She says she knew she was ‘different’ to the other girls since she was around 7 years old.  

She describes first falling in love at the age of 12, with a schoolmate.  The two girls were very close friends for 4 years, even sleeping in the same bed, however her friend ended it, saying she only wanted to have a ‘normal friendship’.  

Hiroko thinks that it is difficult to find a long-term lover because so many women’s parents get suspicious of their relationships and pressure them to date men, so sometimes it becomes too much for the lesbians and they give up their girlfriends.   

Naomi is 22 and lives in Tokyo.  She spent two years in America during high school.  She wrote:

I think it's hard to generalize something like this [lesbians] coz I'm sure there're
various types of people in Japan who have different identification about their sexuality. Some 

may not even try to identify. I don't know that many Japanese lesbians in person but I know 

a couple of people who consider themselves as bisexual. But I feel that they simply label themselves 

"bisexual" because the pressure of getting married and having kids is so strong (from family, friends, 

coworkers, employers, etc) and they feel the need to follow what is expected of them. They may want

to identify themselves as lesbians, but the society doesn't allow them to do so. I've also heard one of 

my friends say that Japanese society don't care if you're a gay man or lesbian as long as you get 

married and have children.

 

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