We discuss the state, looking at it
from the perspective of foreign residents, of the LBTQIA+ community in Japan,
along with our own experiences with those inside and outside the community.
Some discussion of sexuality and sexual history.

Content Note

Discussion of childhood sexual
assault

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking
about the differences and, for me, of being part of the LGBTQIA+ community in
the United States versus in the Japan – in “the” Japan, in Japan, not the
Japan.

C: Well, there’s only one of them.

K: Yeah, but it’s made up of 200
islands.

C: Yeah?

K: Yeah. Japan is made up of 200
islands.

C: I didn’t know it was so many.

K: Yeah, there’s- okay, now I’m not
sure. Oh man, we don’t google stuff on this show so good ahead and – we’re coming
out the gate with go ahead fact check me and hit us up on social media, tell us
if I’m wrong, I don’t know, but in my reality Japan is made up of 200 islands.

C: The people might like something
to do.

K: (laughs) 

C: I know there are a lot of
islands.

K: Yeah, and I know, you know, our
peeps – everybody who is part of the Musick fam, and I consider everyone who
listens part of the Musick fam, they do like to send us tweets about things
I’ve gotten wrong or things, more often in my reality, you’ve gotten wrong.

C: So feel free to send us tweets
about things we’ve gotten right, too.

K: Yeah, no, we love the positive
reinforcement on Twitter, but I’m really super happy with our twitter life.
They’re super supportive. Which, check out this, circling back around

C: Okay.

K: I feel like we have a large
following that are part of the LGBTQIA+ community at large. Globally.

C: Yeah, I feel like we do.

K: So for me the difference – for
me, being part of the community was a political act in the United States more so
than it’s a political act here in Japan. And I think that has to do with the
time of year that it happened. So, in the United States, all of- I didn’t
really march, before we decided to move. I think I had stopped marching. I
think since you and I got married, I stopped marching, but I used to go- prior
to our marriage, I used to go every year to gay pride and live it up in San
Francisco. And here in Japan, I don’t do any of that stuff for two reasons:
one, the Japanese summer is brutal and I’m sick for 62 days from the beginning
of July to the end of August, and I’m just crawling through the days trying to
survive because of my lupus and HCP. And because I just don’t feel – and this
might be because of the language or what have you, but I just don’t feel like
there is an LGBTQIA+ struggle here in Japan. It doesn’t feel like they’re
fighting for rights.

C: No, it’s definitely because of
the language.

K: Okay.

C: I’ve had coworkers – I had a gay
coworker who definitely was part of the struggle for rights. It just takes a
different form in Japan. Like, the San Francisco pride parade thing of making a
lot of noise – while they happen here, are more about community celebration
than political advancement. And I think that’s true now for the pride parades
in the U.S. is that often they’re just for community celebration and not aimed
at advancing political agendas.

K: And that’s where you’re wrong.
So, both pride parades in United States and here in Japan are marches for
rights. And so they are marches. Like, there’s a parade and celebration
connected to the march. And so some people march, and some people just do the
parade. And in the United States, they combined the march with the parade, but
the march sis a public statement and is very, very political. 

C: I knew it was a public statement
of “look how many people we are. Look at how much support we have.”

K: But it’s