Same-Sex Marriage in Japan

Abstract

Despite its apparent gay friendliness, Japanese society has witnessed few public debates or social movements in support of same-sex marriage. It seems that Japanese scholars and activists are only just beginning to advocate the legal protection of homosexual couples. Although Japan has witnessed a few recent developments toward same-sex marriage, an anti-same sex marriage perspective seems to dominate, even among Japanese scholars and activists who are gay and lesbian themselves.In order to understand Japans slow progress toward same-sex marriage, this article examines the legality of same-sex marriage in Japan, Japans apparent lack of the political and historical progress of same-sex marriage in the West, and Japanese societal and cultural features including gay adoption, invisibility and heterosexism at work and in academia. This article also compares the current debates on the legal protection of same-sex couples in Japan and Japanese feminist criticism of the Japanese family, to explain the prevalence of the anti-same sex marriage position. Further, with the notion of familial homophobia by Shulman (2009), the traditional Japanese family is defined as the grounds for homophobia. Lastly, the possibility of legalizing same-sex marriage in Japan is discussed.

Marriage counterfactuals in Japan: Variation by gender, marital status, and time

“…Our study is set in Japan in the period between 1994 and 2009, which for several reasons is an important sociohistorical context for such a research topic. First, while some marriage and family trends in Japan are similar to those in Western countries (e.g., increasing delays in marriage and rates of lifetime singlehood) (Jones 2005;, others, especially those related to alternatives to traditional marriage (e.g., cohabitation, single-parenthood, and same-sex marriage), are quite dissimilar from those seen in Western countries (Raymo, Iwasawa, and Bumpass 2009;Rindfuss et al 2004;Tamagawa 2016). Thus, our paper is important for comparative purposes.…”

Queer Desire in Japanese TV Series

“…For example, a possible change to marriage laws, which currently only allow for the marriage of opposite-sex partners, was discussed in various media. The idea of a legal change to allow same-sex partners to marry is also under controversial discussion by queer scholars and members of LGBTIAQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, queer and other sexual orientations) communities (see Taniguchi 2015;Tamagawa 2016). Since the 1990s, there have been attempts by different groups to enhance protections against discrimination, often by emphasising belonging to sexual minority groups and therefore being a tōjisha 当事者 (a person concerned).…”

Coming Out of the Closet in Japan: An Exploratory Sociological Study

“…Quiet (otonashii) homophobia vs. familial (uchi) homophobia There are two distinct kinds of homophobia in contemporary Japanese society. They are quiet (otonashii) homophobia and familial (uchi) homophobia (Tamagawa, 2016). In the workplace, for example, for tatemae (public stance), which corresponds to what Goffman called "working consensus" (McVeigh, 2013, p. 54), a person is "expected to suppress his immediate heartfelt feelings, conveying a view of the situation which he feels the others will be able to find at least temporarily acceptable" (Goffman, 1959, p. 9).…”

“…Despite the "myth of mono-ethnic Japan," Japan is a multi-ethnic nation. Some of the recent major ethnic minority groups in Japanese society include the Nikkeijin (people of Japanese ancestry) from Latin American countries (Yamanaka, 1996) and Asian migrant workers (Lie, 2004 Of note, same-sex marriage is not legal in Japan (Tamagawa, 2016). One participant said that she obtained a marriage certificate outside Japan.…”

“…At the same time, the home is where Japanese people feel comfortable and express their true inner feelings (Lebra, 1979;McVeigh, 2013;Nakane, 1967) including homophobia. In other words, the Japanese home is the locus of homophobia (Tamagawa, 2016).…”