The queer festival returns as Asia’s largest pride event yet.

Cover photo: Participants march during the Tokyo Rainbow Pride parade, celebrating advances in LGBTQ rights and calling for marriage equality, in Tokyo on Sunday, Shibuya City, Tokyo, Japan (2023). Via Reuters and Japan Times (color-corrected).

Intro

After four quiet years, Japan’s premier queer festival returned bigger and brighter than ever. This past weekend, April 22nd and 23rd, approximately 240,000 people attended Tokyo Rainbow Pride, surpassing Taiwan Pride’s 2019 record of 200,000.

Tokyo Rainbow Pride (TRP) is both a protest and celebration for the LGBT+ community, estimated to account for 7 to 10% of Japan’s population. The festival dates back to 1994, finally established as an annual event in 2012, set in Shibuya City’s iconic Yoyogi Park.

Festival & Parade

The main plaza was filled with over 220 booths, representing foreign embassies, non-profit organizations, local vendors, and multinational corporations.

Many booths featured photo-stations and message boards while offering flags, pins, badges, stickers, and more. Spotify presented a curated queer-music playlist, Amazon advertised their original Boys Love series More Than Words (モアザンワーズ), and illustrator Fuyuki Kanai (カナイフユキ) was in attendance promoting a collaboration with British shoe brand Dr. Martens.

Nike gave away free copies of the new children’s book Colors for Everyone (みんなのいろいろ), about gender and sexual diversity in sports, developed in collaboration with artist Bunta Shimizu (清水 文太), graphic designer MACCIU (マチュー), and soccer player Shiho Shimoyamada (下山田 志帆). The staff were kind enough to give me extra copies, which I was excited to bring to my junior high schools. The story is also available to read online in Japanese and English.

I took photos with drag queens and gogo boys, tried some Givenchy makeup, and practiced calligraphy. I also wrote a letter to Hirofumi Takinami (滝波 宏文), my local representative in Fukui, requesting he support marriage equality.

There were also countless queer resources available, including legal information about workplace, housing, and healthcare discrimination. Health professionals presented services such as STD testing, PrEP medication access, support groups, help hotlines, and counseling. Pride House Tokyo Legacy — Japan’s first permanent LGBTQ center, opened in 2020 — was also represented.

The main stage featured a variety of talented performers including a mesmerizing show by the dance group Tokyo Gegegay (東京ゲゲゲイ), lead by artist Mikey (マイキー).

The weekend included multiple auxiliary events centered around the area, with many parties held in Shinjuku Nichome (新宿二丁目). Home to some 400 bars within a few blocks, the district is considered to be “the world’s most densely packed gay neighbourhood.” I have never seen the area so crowded! At the official afterparty in Aisotope Lounge, I could barely move.

While temperatures dropped throughout Saturday, the weather was better by the following day. The sun arrived in time to shine on the Pride Parade, which saw some 10,000 people march around Shibuya.

I was both surprised and moved to see the tremendous scale of the event and the size of the Japanese queer community. My friend Taylor Maxey, an American assistant language teacher (ALT) who has lived in Fukui Prefecture for ten years, tells me, “[Japan’s] prides are getting prouder.”

History & Culture

Japan is different from much of the world in that the island nation has practically no history of religious opposition to homosexuality or anti-sodomy laws. Same-sex relations — known as nanshoku or danshoku (男色) amongst men — were long condoned among Buddhist monks and the samurai class.

The Edo Period (1603-1867) saw the rise of wakashudo (若衆道), a practice similar to ancient Greek pederasty. Surviving depictions of such homoerotica date back as recently as the early 18th century. Even Oda Nobunaga (織田 信長), Japan’s greatest warlord, is said to have had an intimate relationship with his young vassal, Mori Ranmaru (森蘭丸).

Modern queer icons include the acclaimed late author Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), drag queen and TV personality Matsuko Deluxe (マツコ・デラックス), Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama (リナ・サワヤマ), and Kanako Otsuji (尾辻 かな子), the nation’s first openly gay politician, elected in 2003.

Human Rights

As the nation values conformity over individuality, Japanese culture has maintained an attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell” around sexuality. According to a 2021 survey, just 7% of Japanese people know someone who is openly queer, compared to the global average of 42%. This invisibility has left the local community unprotected.

Here, 47% of LGBT+ teenagers have experienced bullying at school and 48% have considered committing suicide, numbers similar to those in the United States (52% and 45%, respectively). The Japanese government has allowed schools to address bullying on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity since 2017, but only 11% of teachers have since broached the subject in class.

According to a 2021 study by the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Japan ranks next to last in “legal LGBT+ inclusivity” among ‘developed’ nations; Japan is the only G7 (Group of 7) nation that does not recognize same-sex unions, and the country offers few legal protections for sexual minorities.

Motivated by the nation’s stalled legislative progress, the theme of this year’s TRP was “Press on Till Japan Changes.” The 2023 logo is a lucky rainbow fan designed by France-based Japanese calligrapher Maaya Wakasugi (マーヤ・ワカスギ). He says, “I hope that the current situation of LGBTQ+ rights in Japan will improve soon.”

Without marriage equality, same-sex couples face housing discrimination and foreign partners cannot apply for family immigration. Couples are denied joint income tax benefits, mortgages, and pensions. They are also deprived of inheritance, guardianship, and adoption rights, as well as spousal consent or visitation in health emergencies.

Since 2015, around 300 local municipalities — covering some 65% of Japan’s population — have introduced systems to recognize same-sex partnerships, but these certificates are largely symbolic and not legally binding.

“Japan’s lack of LGBTQ+ protections makes it a less attractive option [for individuals and businesses],” argues the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. In the absence of national legislation, companies have adopted their own policies of equality. As the population shrinks and the labor market tightens, inclusiveness is vital for talent recruitment and retention.

Furthermore, according to a 2020 survey, Japan’s queer community has a combined purchasing power of 5,416 billion yen (approximately $50 billion).

Today, 72% of Japanese people support same-sex marriage — up from just 41% in 2015 — yet despite popular democratic support and widespread corporate backing, national equality legislation failed to pass ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021.

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed Japan with virtual monopoly since 1955. This gerontocracy is captured by “the party’s small but vocal ultra-rightwing members,” concludes journalist Mari Yamaguchi (山口 真理).

Influenced by Euro-American nations — specifically Victorian England — homosexuality was medicalized as mental illness during Meiji Modernization (1868–1912) and considered “abnormal sexual desire” by Japan’s leading psychiatric body until 1995.

Just last year, members of the LDP shared materials describing homosexuality as a disease, akin to addiction. Politicians have called the queer community a threat to Japan’s declining population. Within the last few years, various lawmakers have decried LGBT+ people as “unproductive” and “against the preservation of the species” with the potential to usher in ‘national collapse.’

Future

Back in February, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (岸田 文雄) fired a senior aide over homophobic comments, but he remained vague about the future of LGBT+ rights, describing marriage equality as “an issue that must be examined extremely carefully.”

In 2023 Japan assumes the rotating presidency of the G7, with the main summit to be held in Hiroshima this May. Takako Uesugi (上杉 崇子), a lawyer and director of the nonprofit organization Marriage For All Japan, argues, “We must say Japan is not fit to lead the G7 summit if we leave the situation unaddressed.”

Ahead of the meeting, on March 30th, LGBT+ activists from around the world gathered in Tokyo for the inaugural Pride 7 Summit. The group urged the Japanese government to pass anti-discrimination laws. The final communique read, in part, as follows.

Even though in 2023 the world will celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people around the world, in and out of the G7 countries, face violence and inequality— sometimes torture or death — because of who they love, how they look and express themselves, or who they are. The G7 governments should stand as global leaders and ensure their laws, policies, and practices meet international human rights standards to protect LGBTQIA+ people, and take robust actions to address abuses and harassment around the world.

The United Kingdom passed the Buggery Act in 1533, punishing sodomy with death, and later exported similar laws through colonialism. Of the nations where homosexuality remains illegal today, two-thirds were once controlled by the empire.

While British police officers were arresting suspected homosexuals in parks and bathrooms throughout the 1950s, Shinjuku’s Nichome was transforming from red light district into a gay refuge.

Given the nation’s soft power, sex-positive culture, and accepting history, Japan has unique potential to be a human rights leader, not only in Asia, but on the world stage. Together, we must press on.