1. SAME-SEX CULTURES IN TAIWAN
Fran Martin F.A.Martin@latrobe.edu.au
Masculinity and Pathology: The Corporeal Qiu Miaojin
This chapter focuses on the writing of Taiwan¹s most prominent and
controversial contemporary lesbian author, Qiu Miaojin (1969-95). It situates
her work in the context of both the remarkable rise of queer cultures in 1990s
Taiwan, and the tradition of problematic male bodies and masculine subjects in
twentieth century Chinese fiction. The stories in Qiu¹s first collection, The
Revelry of Ghosts (1991) construct narrators whose masculinities are defined,
on the one hand, by pathology and bodies in crisis and, on the other, by the
specter of an equivocal lesbianism. This paper analyzes the ambiguously
masculine narrators of Qiu¹s early stories to argue that these stories suggest
the emergence of a new mode of lesbian authorship based precisely on a critical
interrogation of hegemonic gender. Engaging with recent Taiwanese feminist and queer
scholarship, I argue that Qiu¹s lesbian textuality is constructed by citing and
reworking the modern Chinese literary tradition of pathological masculinities,
as seen in the writing of male May Fourth authors including Guo Moruo and Yu
Dafu. The work of Yu Dafuespecially "Endless Night"will be
considered in some detail, in order to elucidate Qiu¹s inscription of
comparable yet distinct forms of perverse and pathological masculinity for her
project of writing into being lesbian texts and bodies in the context of
late-twentieth century Taiwan. Thus the paper seeks to situate the work of this
important lesbian author within a particular literary-historical context, while
at the same time drawing attention to the contemporary, queer re-deployment of
a prominent, structuring theme in modern Chinese literature; in Xueping Zhong's
term, that of "masculinity besieged".
Jens Damm: jensdamm@gmx.net
Same-sex Desire and Society: Taiwan from 1945 to 1995
This paper deals with the discourses of same-sex desire in Taiwan during
the period from 1945 to 1995. It is divided into two main parts: first
of all, there is a more general discussion of the discourses of same-sex
desire which predominated in Taiwan between 1945 and 1995: the discourse
of hetero-normativity, which was considered to be traditional; a medical
and psycho-analytical discourse with "Chinese characteristics", a
politically-oriented tongzhi-discourse or "comrade"-discourse and
finally a glocalized post-modern ku'er-discourse (queer-discourse).
Using a poststructuralist, historical approach, the paper will show that
Taiwan - being on the one hand, a society with a strong, Chinese
cultural heritage, but on the other, a society which has developed a
strong sense of self-identity due to a history very different to that of
the Chinese mainland during the last century - can provide valuable
insights into the ways in which social developments, global interaction
and intercultural influences have changed the discourse of same-sex
desire. The second part of the paper focuses on questions regarding the
relation between tradition and modernity within the discourses, the
relation between indigenization and globalization, and the ways in which
global and local discourses interacted.
Song Hwee LIM s.h.lim@leeds.ac.uk
“Cool Kids”: How to be Queer in Taiwan
With the lifting of the martial law in Taiwan in 1987, many previously
suppressed communities (re)gained a voice and began to assert their identities.
The lesbian and gay community is one that has become increasingly prominent in
the new political climate, particularly in the fields of literature, film,
theatre, and the academia. Since then, the creativity, vibrancy, and confidence
of the lesbian and gay community has led to the circulation of two new terms
for referring to homosexuals: “tongzhi” (comrade), an appropriation of a
Chinese political form of address, and “ku’er” (literally ‘cool kid’), a
transliteration of the English word “queer.”
In this paper I explore the genealogy and deployment of the term
“ku’er” in the Taiwanese context, examining its use in both artistic creation
and social discourse. As the creation of the term “ku’er” is a form of
translingual practice, I will also interrogate how its manifestations in Taiwan
negotiate issues of local/global identities and cross-cultural politics. In the
final analysis, I want to raise, and hopefully answer, the following questions:
How does the term “ku’er” compare with other terms for referring to
homosexuals, including “tongzhi”? Does it offer new alternatives for imagining
and configuring sexual identities in the Taiwanese context? Is it a form of
intellectual posturing, political radicalism, or simply a matter of fashion? If
it is “cool” to be “queer” in Taiwan, what about those kids who are also queer
but uncool?
Peter Jackson Peter.jackson@anu.edu.au
Capitalism,
Urbanism and Homosexual Autonomy in Bangkok:
"Gay
Capitals" in Global gay History
In the past decade several analysts of same-sex and transgender cultures have observed that in the final decades of the 20th century apparently similar gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) identities and cultures emerged in widely disparate Western and non-Western societies. Dennis Altman has called this phenomenon "global queering". Some observers view “global queering” as an instance of non-Western societies “borrowing” originally Western, more precisely American, styled GLBT identities and cultures. Others emphasise indigenous processes of sex cultural differentiation in the context of globalisation. In this paper I explore Peter Drucker’s hypothesis on the role of capitalism in global homosexual history,
“The effects of European and
North American cultural influence are admittedly hard to disentangle from those
of domestic capitalist development and modernisation. But one could hypothesise … that even if outside cultural
influence were zero, economic development, modernisation and political openings
might lead to the rise of lesbian/gay identity anyway.” (Drucker 2000, p. 16)
I draw on historical case
studies of Bangkok’s gay culture which appear to support Drucker's hypothesis
that capitalist urbanisation may independently produce similar forms of sexual
cultures in widely separated locations.
I argue that some commodified forms of homosexual culture emerged
semi-independently in Bangkok in response to local commercial conditions and
that only subsequently did these Thai gay cultural forms come in contact with
similar phenomena in Western societies.
Nantiya Sukontapatipark g4236440@student.mahidol.ac.th
“Kathoey” and Passing from
“Male Body” to “Female Body”: Medicalization of Sexuality in Contemporary
Thailand
In this paper, I consider the relationship between the power of modern
medical knowledge/technology as evidenced in 'sex change' operations which rely
upon the idea that the physical body and expressed gender/sexual identity must
match each other. Specifically, I will demonstrate that such power is an
important factor in leading some male individuals who believe that they are
women trapped in male bodies, known in Thai as kathoey, to believe that they
can "become" women through medical intervention despite the fact that
they are seen as "invented" bodies or "unreal thing."
According to my informants, before the emergence of modern medical knowledge/technology
for sex change in Thailand, kathoey could "become" women in
appearance by dressing in women's clothes and copying some gender roles of real
women. Their “becoming” women were more related to their expressed gender
identity than their physical bodies. The psychologists and psychiatrists
regarded them as gender/sexual deviants and had to support them in adjustment
to having gender/sexual identity which match with their physical bodies.
However, both psychologists and psychiatrists could not do successfully.
Therefore, modern medical knowledge/technology was used to help these
individuals to change their physical bodies to fit their expressed
gender/sexual identities. Today, Thailand has become one of the leading centers
of sexual reassignment surgery, leading to the passing from a “male body” to a
“female body. This paper investigates the history of this development.
Therdsak Romjumpa teaptong@yahoo.com
The Construction of Homosexuality In the Journal Psychiatric
Association of Thailand, 1973
Following the 1965 murder in Bangkok of an expatriate American, homosexuality
became a public issue in Thailand. Seven years later, news of a successful
male-to-female sex change operation and a kathoey Beauty Contest again drew
Thai public attention on the issue of homosexuality. Such cases gradually led
to the recognition of the masculine homosexual male as being a different
identity from Thailand's widely known effeminate homosexual male or kathoey.
Nevertheless, the newly introduced gay group barely gained a voice in the Thai
mainstream discourse of homosexuality. because the Thai public perceived the
new identity as a variety of male prostitution for foreigners or else connected
it to with murder cases. In addition, the public often saw no difference
between the already known kathoey and the masculine homosexual male. In 1973 the Psychiatric Association of
Thailand Journal published an article about homosexuality which prompted a
reaction from local newspapers and academics. This was followed by the
publication of a range of translated articles portraying the homosexual as an
effeminate male who has a mental disorder. Based on Western scientific
approaches, it was assumed that homosexuality was a mental illness resulting
from an abused childhood and impaired sexual development. These articles also
postulated that with a proper psychiatric therapy the ailment could be cured.
Such a discourse, endorsed by Thai and Western medical science constructs,
positioned the homosexual person as insane and abnormal. This study analyzes
the Thai psychiatrists' propositions about homosexuality in the article and
investigates the background of the conflation of effeminate and masculine
styles of homosexuality in Thai culture.
3. ASIAN TRANSGENDER AND TRANSEXUAL CULTURES - I
YIK KOON THE ykteh@international.ucla.edu
MALE TO FEMALE TRANSSEXUALS IN MALAYSIA
The objective of this paper is to introduce a form of male-to-female
transsexual identity in Malaysia, known locally as mak nyahs, which has not so
far received much academic attention. This paper
is based on a research carried out on 507 mak nyah respondents who had to fill
a questionnaire containing about 236 items on the demography of the
transsexuals, their characteristics, their social life, their sexual practices,
the legal and religious aspects, their health and HIV/AIDS awareness.
Interviews were also carried out with the relevant authorites and some mak
nyahs.
The paper will first discuss the characteristics mak nyahs share with
other transsexual identities in the region and throughout the world.
The paper will then investigate specific factors affecting the status
and position of the mak nyahs in Malaysia. For instance, as the majority of mak
nyahs are Malays (70% to 80%), they are influenced by their religion, Islam –
the official religion in Malaysia.
Islam does not recognize transsexuals and, therefore, they are basically
non-entities in the Malaysian society.
As Islam is the official religion, the police and the Islamic authority
will enforce the religious edicts by catching Muslims who go against the
practice of Islam.
The remaining mak nyahs are mainly Buddhists, Christians or Hindus.
They generally could lead the life of a mak nyah, including going for the sex
change operation, although it may not be acceptable to their religion.. This is
because there are no official religious rulings, as there as among Muslims, to
enforce the prohibition. Occasionally, they
are caught by the police during their raids for indecent behaviour, which could
include cross-dressing, under the Minor Offences Act 1955.
As mak nyahs are generally not accepted by society, most of them have
difficulties getting a decent job. More than half of them are sex workers and
about 30% lived below or around the poverty line of RM500.
Karin Klenke: karin.klenke@web.de
Heteronormativity, queer identities, and the body in rural Sumatra
This paper is based on fieldwork carried out in Karoland, a highland plateau in Northern Sumatra, from March 2001 – March 2002. My project focuses on the struggle of local women to come to terms with new ideals of a “modern” female identity between contradicting local, national and global discourses. I argue that the scene of these struggles is the body. During the last couple of years, bodily practices like aerobic, going to “salons”, i.e. combined hairdresser/beauty shops etc. have become very popular and are considered to be modern. The body which once was a minor aspect in the social identity of a women is beginning to become it’s starting point.
Unlike other parts of Indonesia, there were no
traditional transgender roles in Karo society. During the last couple of years,
however, Karoland has seen a tremendous rise in the number of waria, i.e. male
to female transgendered people. Waria play a central role in the modern body
business as hairdressers, beauticians, participants in beauty pageants, aerobic
competitions etc. They are also the first local people to undergo minor
cosmetic surgery in Medan’s beauty clinics. While they are looked down upon as
morally dubious actors in the local entertainment industry, their talents as
beauticians and hairdressers are freely acknowledged and sought after.
In my paper, I explore the connections between
the warias’ personal and political strategies and the role they play in the
transformation of the local heterosexual gender system.
Sharyn Graham sharyngr@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
In this paper I examine the complexity of gender construction among Bugis of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, focusing on individuals who identify, and are identified, as calabai’. As a point of departure, I introduce a calabai’ called Santi. Santi is male-bodied, and yet s/he does not conform to any of the expectations placed on men. And yet, while Santi often appears feminine, s/he challenges what it means to be a woman. For instance, not only is Santi not female-bodied, but s/he wears short skirts, heavy make-up, and flirt outrageously with men – all things which women should never do. Through Santi it becomes evident that calabai’ cannot be thought of as transvestites (Santi does not cross-dress); nor transsexual (Santi does not wish to undergo surgery); nor as transgender (Santi is not moving from one gender (man) to the ‘other’ gender (woman)). Thus by examining the subjectivity of calabai’, I hope to make a contribution to knowledge of gender, and to highlight the diversity of gender identity.
4. ASIAN TRANSGENDER AND TRANSEXUAL CULTURES - II
Mark McLelland m.mclelland@uq.edu.au
Transgender identities and popular culture in modern Japan
Transgender identities have played a significant role in Japanese
popular culture since the development of large-scale urban centres in the
middle of the seventeenth century. The development of transgender sexual subcultures
and discourse about them was interrupted by Japan's descent into militarism
only to rapidly re-emerge during the Occupation (1945- 1952) when Geibā
('gay' bars) staffed by geibōi (transgendered males who served as
hostesses, entertainers and often, prostitutes) appeared. In the 1950s, some
geibōi made the transition to the mainstream stage. There are currently many transgendered
'talents' on the Japanese screen and stage whose media careers began in the 50s
and 60s. In the 1980s geibōi was replaced in the media by an Anglicised
neologism - newhalf - which referred to transgendered men who had gone further
than cross-dressing and had developed (through hormones or surgical procedures)
female attributes such as breasts. Popular TV shows regularly featured a
newhalf segment where transgenders from the bar and prostitution world were
able to display their talents to a mainstream audience. Newhalf is now the most
visible transgender category in Japan and newhalf are the topic of hundreds of
magazine and newspaper articles and TV documentaries. This presentation looks
at the transformations in transgender identities in Japan over the last
century, focusing upon the enabling role that popular culture has played in
promoting their visibility as well as the limitations that 'transgender
celebrity' has placed upon persons who do not wish their transgender status to
be marketed as a commodity.
Wim Lunsing: wim0wim@hotmail.com
Okama and Onabe: shifting meanings in terminology regarding
homosexuality and transgender phenomena in Japan
When Shūkan Kinyōbi printed an article under the title
‘Senden no okama Tōgō Ken’, Itō Satoru attacked it for using
discriminatory language, namely the word ‘okama’. The magazine offered Itō
the possibility to print his critique, which upset a large number of gay people
because they felt misrepresented by Itō. Fushimi Noriaki organized a
symposium about the term, which concluded that it was not necessarily
discriminating.
‘Okama’ is given varying meanings. Most eclectic is Tōgō Ken
who maintains that it stems from the Sanskrit karma and that this means love.
The generally accepted meaning is that ‘okama’ refers to the anus and
implicitly those whose anus is penetrated when having sex. Gay men may use it
similarly to gay men calling each other ‘faggot’ in English but in Virgin, a
bar frequented by transvestites, okama refers exclusively to transvestite men.
The meaning of the female counterpart of ‘okama’, ‘onabe’ also varies.
While some women thought cross dressing and loving women made them onabe,
others regarded it as an occupation, as with the people working in New Marilyn.
The staff of another club, Apollo, however, maintained that New Marilyn was not
a real onabe place, as, unlike themselves, they did not desire a full sex
change. Apart from okama and onabe other terms refer to similar, yet different
phenomena, which are commonly confused by foreign scholars and Japanese alike.
This paper also discusses meanings of nyūhafu, misutā redii, gei
bōi, rezubian, homo, etc., grounded in anthropological fieldwork.
Prempreeda Pramoj na Ayutthaya preedapramoj@hotmail.com
Internal dynamism of “Kathoei’s Sexualities” in modern Thailand
Identities and sexualities are culturally constructed through processes
of socialization. In Thai society, homosexuality has not been accepted except
in the sex and entertainment industry where performers are allowed a variety of
sexual and gender expressions. Pattaya is a tourist city that supports a
variety of lifestyles and which also offers public spaces for people with
different sexual identities, particularly, for kathoei who work in ‘Cabaret
Shows’. Kathoei themselves do not have fixed identities but should be studied
in relation to their 'performances' both on and off stage. Kathoei are not just
'women trapped in male bodies' since among the kathoey, some prefer to maintain
their penis and prefer to cross-dress only for work. Kathoey should not be
explained in terms of biological science but rather through the roles and
identities made available in spaces such as Pattaya as well as factors such as
class background.
Sam Winter sjwinter@hkusua.hku.hk
Language and identity in transgender: the case of the kathoey
In Thailand transgendered males are called kathoey. Estimates of the
number of kathoey vary, but range from 10,000 to 300,000. Our research
indicates up to 170,000. Even the lowest of these figures would place the
incidence of transgender way above that for western societies. This paper
begins with an introduction to kathoey and the social and cultural context in
which they live. It moves on to a discussion of the way in which identity and
language are interwoven, both for the kathoey themselves and for Thai
observers. Particular attention is focused on the way in which both parties use
language to express and re-affirm notions of the kathoeys’ gender identity and
sexual preference.
5. MALE SAME-SEX CULTURES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE ASIAN-AMERICAN
DIASPORA
Russell H.K Heng russell@iseas.edu.sg
Gay Citizens and the Authoritarian Singapore State: The Dynamics of
Coalition Governance
This paper continues where an earlier article “Tip toe out of the closet…”
(Journal of Homosexuality. Vol 40 No 3/4. 2001. 81-97) left off. The former
traced social and policy changes on homosexuality up to 1998, concluding on a
tentative note about the future of gay activism within an authoritarian
Singapore state. Since then, major changes have taken place, which taken
collectively represent a significant reconfiguration of state policy on
homosexuals.
This paper examines the changes through three empirical cases: a raid on a gay
sauna, a high profile National Day gay party that may grow to rival Sydney’s
Mardi Gras, media canvassing the view that a reinvented creative Singapore
needs its vibrant gay community. These developments are put within a conceptual
framework of “coalition governance”, a term that sums up how a marginalized gay
community has been able to inscribe its political interests on the official
agenda. “Coalition governance” borrows its essence from the term “coalition
government” where fringe interest groups become members of a government and are
thus able to lobby for its interests. The state of Singapore dominated by one
party has no coalition government but coalition dynamics have become part of
its governance as the three case studies will illustrate. The conclusion
highlights a process of empowerment that is somewhat different from how gay
liberation movements in the West.
Douglas Sanders sanders_gwb@yahoo.ca
THE CRACKDOWN ON GAY BARS IN BANGKOK IN THE SUMMER OF 2001
Bangkok is distinctive in the number of public commercial gay
venues. The most sensational are host
bars, with go-go dancing and sex shows.
These institutions are embarrassing to Thai elites, but have continued
for many years. In the late summer of
2001 a crackdown occurred on gay host bars, and to a lesser extent on gay
saunas and on the sale of gay beefcake magazines. Around twenty bars were closed for different periods of
time. The crackdown was apparently in
response to a series of television programs showing video footage of
performances in the host bars. It
focused on nudity and sex shows.
Puzzling features of the crackdown were the fact that it was not
accompanied by any statements of policy by politicians or the police, and the
lack of coverage by the press. The
crackdown led to new licensing patterns for gay bars. The crackdown on the gay venues slightly preceded the “social
order” campaign of Interior Minister Purachai, which, after some intra-party
fighting, had the public support of Prime Minister Thaksin. The “social order” campaign focused on
closing hours, minors and drugs. The
crackdown on gay venues ended after six weeks.
The “social order” campaign continued, but did not treat gay
establishments differently than heterosexual venues. The larger campaign has led to new zoning legislation, which
came into force in June, 2002. The only
apparent change that can be observed by late summer, 2002, is the strict
attention to closing hours and minors.
This paper documents the two campaigns and tries to explain the factors
which led to them.
William McCarthy mccarthyw@uncwil.edu
Selective distaste: the history of non-bakla homosexuality in the
Philippines
Spanish colonizers brought
with them to the Philippines a professed horror of male-male sexual
intercourse. Spaniards thought of this as a vice that was beneath them,
particularly as Christians. They lumped
it together with the other shortcomings of the infidels as a sufficient reason
for oppression and conquest. When they came to the they observed male
homosexuality among the Chinese, who resided in the Philippines in some
numbers. Spaniards accused the Chinese
men of spreading the vice among indigenous Filipinos. For the Spaniards, then
and now, the idea of a man acting the woman’s part in the sexual act was
repugnant. Any man who would submit
himself to that situation was worthy of their scorn, and worse. This scorn did not apply as strongly to the
man who played the active role in intercourse, but Spanish men nonetheless kept
reports of such activities to themselves. This describes fairly accurately the
situation in the Philippines in modern times.
Whether Filipinos learned to practice sodomy from Chinese or Spaniards,
or engaged in the practice independently, the modern conception remains that it
is shameful to act the bakla, or the feminized man. The bakla remains by and
large an outcast.
In very recent times, bakla have gained some renown and acceptance as
hair dressers or make up artists, and some literary and social activists have
begun to celebrate the practice of male homosexuality in the Philippines.
During Spanish times in the Philippines, it is very likely the case that most
men did not identify as something we would call gay. In modern European societies, with the appearance of the term
homosexual in the mid-nineteenth century, and the identification and
self-identification of introverts, pansies and queers in the twentieth century,
the road has been open to argue for (or against) the existence of categories of
object-driven sexual orientation. The
Philippines also participates in the Asian (and Spanish) traditions in which
the secrecy of such activity has been the major feature of its existence. The Philippine case provides a look into the
combination of a society that features machismo, secrecy, and the undying
tradition of the bakla.
January Lim jylim@ualberta.ca
Speaking in Tongues: On Identity and Difference in Chay Yew's A Language
of Their Own
A Language of Their Own concerns the gay male relationships of Asian
Americans, mapping the complexities and experiences of its characters onto the
larger political world of contemporary America, a polyglot terrain where
language competence, nation, race, sexuality, and the circuit of power
relations are interconnected. Through the performance of these conflicts,
struggles, communications, miscommunication, and pressures, the play gestures
to language as a site in which racial differences are still under negotiation
and diasporic identities are contested and redefined. Meditating on the
material history and social development of America at the close of the
twentieth century, the play troubles the issue of American Standard English by
incorporating non-white characters who "speak wildly in tongues," a
diversity
of voices that traverse the borders of race and culture, into the national
imagined community--an incorporation that resonates in ways with Bakhtin's
notion of language as dialogic and Homi Bhabha's concepts of mimicry and
hybrid agencies that "deploy the partial culture from which they emerge to
construct visions of community" ("Culture's In-Between"
58). In so doing, the
play not only engages in an interrogation of race and skin color, it also
plays to and subverts the notions of whiteness, a symbol that connects a
discourse aligned with linguistic mastery, articulacy, racial superiority, and
power. Strategically invoking the determining elements of expressivity and
silence, _A Language of Their Own_, I suggest, presents the ways in which the
constructions of race, gender, and sexuality are interimplicated and, in the
process, brings into relief questions of power, identities, and embodied
subjectivity.
6. FEMALE SAME-SEX CULTURES IN
EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Bev Curran bcurran@gol.com
A.
For centuries, Western cultural imagination has twinned the East and
eroticism. Places as distant and disparate as Turkey and Japan conflate in a
mythic sexualized topos, which is female, obedient and eager to please her
master, the geographical equivalent of the stereotypical Geisha girl. Yet it
has been noted that Japan has been far from passive in "selectively
adapting
for domestic and often dominant purposes institutions and terminologies that
were first established and coined outside of Japan" (Jennifer
Robertson). Early
borrowings are from the Chinese, and from the sixteenth century, Europe.
In
the late nineteenth century, Euro-American loanwords started to make their
appearance, and by the early 1900s, some of these loanwords and Japanese
neologisms, such as rezubian (lesbian) and garuson (garçon: butch) were in
general circulation. In other words, the erotic gaze was not a unilateral
one, and the Japanese looked westward for words, information, and critical
and creative writing to further elaborate "lesbian" in Japanese. This
presentation will consider some examples of lesbian writing translated into
Japanese and suggest ways in which they have had an impact on the
representation and enactment of the lesbian in Japan as well as how these
borrowed texts have simultaneously been resisted in order to articulate a
local lesbian.
James Welker: jwelker@gol.com
Beautiful, Borrowed and Bent: Boys Love as Girls Love in Shoujo
Manga
Widely acknowledged for establishing a gender-bending tradition in
shoujo manga (girls comics), early shounen ai manga (boys love comics)
clearly
belong to what might be called the "lesbian manga canon"--and are a
part of the lesbian manga tradition that has culminated in a strong lesbian
presence in the worlds
of Sailor Moon and Utena. Beautiful, gender ambiguous, ostensibly male
characters allow women to go stretch beyond voyeuristic enjoyment of the
bishounen (beautiful youths), beyond even mere liberation from the strictures
of the traditional male-female "romantic" paradigm, and invite
readers
who are so inclined to consider other romantic possibilities, including lesbian
love.
In fact, shounen ai manga and tanbiha (cult of [beautiful boy] estheticism)
magazines have played a significant role in the lives of many lesbians,
not inspite of the fact that the characters are boys, but rather because of
the fact the characters are not really boys. The influence of shounen ai
on
lesbians is evident in their own testimony, as well as the fact that several
tanbiha
magazines were actually used as a major means of communication in the late
1970s and early 1980s for women seeking women.
Further, these early seminal works, such as works by Takemiya Keiko, Yamagishi
Ryouko, and Hagio Moto, set in another world--generally pre-20th century
Europe--are in many ways emblematic of the proliferation of cultural borrowing
that has constructed the contemporary Japanese lesbian. In this paper, I will
explore possible lesbian readings of seminal shounen ai manga; use an interview
of influential people among the Japanese lesbian media and cultural scene,
along with surveys conducted among members of the community, to demonstrate the
influence of shouen ai manga; and talk about the external cultural influences
that have shaped the lesbian identity.
Noriko Kohashi nkohashi@earthlink.net
Tolerance toward gay people, especially toward lesbians, in Japanese
society
Two gay men were beaten with a baseball bat and a metal pipe in West
Hollywood, California in the U.S. in September 2002, leaving the one seriously
injured. Meanwhile, Japanese society is
said not to have such physically violent attacks against gay women and men, and
to be more tolerant toward them. But
does this perspective reflect the reality gay people in Japan face in everyday
life?
This paper focuses on the case of lesbians. The paper examines and analyzes newspaper articles and letters
since the 1990s, when more voice from sexual minority groups began to be heard
in Japanese society. In the paper, the
author discusses how and why Japanese people see and feel about lesbians, and
whether and how there are any differences in their perceptions of lesbians by
age, gender, and lifestyle such as marital status, having of children and
occupation. Moreover, she demonstrates
what forms of discrimination lesbians face in everyday life. Some pieces of literature show
discriminatory practices against lesbians in the media. But this paper focuses more on how people
lesbians interact in daily scenes such as workplaces, neighborhood, government
offices act to them, and how lesbians think they will act.
In order to be supplementary to limitations by only examining
newspapers, the author plans to conduct interviews with a few lesbians and to
add to this paper the analyses of their experiences on how to be treated.
Lorna Quejong Israel lorna1@edsamail.com.ph
BEYOND THE HOMO/HETERO BINARY: A GENEALOGY OF SEXUALISATION OF FILIPINO
LESBIANS
The gay and lesbian community in the Philippines has lately been very
visible in influencing the socio-political direction of the country without
interrogating the heterosexuality underpinning it. This paper argues that the
concept of identity politics espoused by the Filipino lesbian community is not
exactly poised to challenge the existing hetero-social order. This can be gleaned from its critique of
existing laws on homosexuality (which is illegal in the Philippines) and its
demand to be given the same (heterosexual) privileges like marriage or forming same-sex
families.
Using the concept of a genealogy of subjectification, I will trace how
the lesbian body has been (hetero)sexualised in official records and documents,
how she has been (hetero)sexually encoded in public spaces, and how lesbians
are required to describe in heterosexual terms their ‘lesbianism.’ The paper will conclude with a critique of
the politics behind the term 'lesbian' for it fixes the lesbian as
historically-static and thus ahistorical.
To counter this, a genealogy of subjectification makes central the
premise that individuals have a historical relationship with their selves that
can be located in their investment of meanings in their experience – which is
derived from vocabularies, authorities and technologies within an assumed hetero-social
order. In the case of the Filipinos,
instruments of sexual subjectification include ideas, practices and
personalities abroad as well the existence of a relatively free political
atmosphere in the Philippines. The
liberal political situation of the Philippines deeply conceals its homophobic
tendencies, lulling everybody into thinking that a space can be obtained for
homosexuals. Without scrutinising how this political space promotes
heteronormativity, Filipino lesbians might fall into the trap of replicating
what they seek to subvert.
