“Why me? I’m sure you could make another friend in the community who would be happy to meet someone to start the process with. You know other trans people. I’m just one woman, Akira.”
It took them time to answer as they chewed through what remained of their food. She sat within her own mind, nervously tapping her heel against the seat as she relentlessly watched them shift and move.
Their final answer was simple. They said, “Because it’s you.”
there's no way I'd rather be, my fic about Akira and Akechi navigating transness in modern Japan is done and up! It features a detailed bibliography of several articles that I'm going to include here, in case you're interested in learning more about the nuances and issues of transness in Japan!
Age of majority in Japan is still technically 20, but the qualification for many things that were once limited to 20 or above changed to 18 in the year 2022. It was initially revised in 2018, so these two would know about it already. This involves the ability to rent, getting loans, and changing one’s gender marker. The right to vote at 18 came after 2016.
It has been noted that HRT is considered to improve quality of life and reduce depression among transgender patients, making it a form of healthcare and literal life saving care.
As of 2019, almost 10k people have petitioned to change their gender marker since 2004, which was when the law allowing such provisions came into use.
The Koseki literally translates as “family registry” and is the primary system of Japanese legal documentation. It features information such as your parents, siblings, legal sex/gender (seibetsu), marriage, divorce, and adoption. It is a remarkably unpopular system, however, and effectively upholds many cisheteronormative systems. It causes issues for married couples who want to have different family names. Children born out of wedlock are marked on the koseki as such, which is frequently a blackmark and places the parent and child under the threat of discrimination (something Akechi would have experienced). It is also the core issue around the question of legal sex and same-sex marriage and something that faces pushback to be dismantled.
More than half of the Japanese population believe trans people should be legally recognized and only 12 percent of Japanese people believe surgery should be required for legal gender change. However, it is still a broadly invisible struggle, and has historically been something that many people struggle with in the country.
However, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that required sterilization surgery is unconstitutional. Despite this, it upheld the issue of gender affirming surgery/SRS, which in the case of many transgender people would still lead to sterilization surgeries.
As of 2025, a lower court ruled that SRS/gender affirming surgery is an unconstitutional issue in the matter of being able to legally change one’s gender marker. The law states that changing one’s gender marker requires “genitalia that closely resemble the physical form of an alternative gender.” A 2024 ruling goes so far as to state that the utilization of hormone therapy already aids in meeting that requirement, but this 2025 ruling states that even that is an unconstitutional expectation of citizens.
With all of this said and done—Japan's relationship with transfemininity is complex, as the experience of cross-dressing, sex change, and more are rooted in a variety of issues. There are deep connections to nightlife and sex work as a whole, and the nuances are something that both differ from and reflect other countries transfeminine subcultures. There is a complexity in terms of the differentiation of how the pathologization of transness is perceived in comparison to these subcultures, with some of those identified with “Gender Identity Disorder” disconnecting from subcultures which engage with sex and gender as something mutable and fluid.
Multiple sources describe the importance of nightlife subcultures to the transgender community, however, and it is relevant as ever to recognize the fact that it is something that has been imposed worldwide upon transfeminine people as one of the only ways they have been able to engage with their identities in affirming ways, albeit complicated by the commodification and objectification of their bodies. Entertainment and gender fluidity have been of vital relevance in Japan for centuries and it has only continued into the modern era.
Dale, S. P. (2012). An introduction to X-Jendā: Examining a new gender identity in Japan.
This article, of which you can download a free PDF online, explains the nature of x-gender identities within Japan and the complexity of the utilization of the term. It is interesting to note that it uses the loan word “gender” in a similar way as how transgender has become a useful loan word in Japan for the descriptor of transgendered identities. However, it is important to consider that it has its unique realities that are still capable of contrasting with other countries’ engagements with nonbinary gender identities, due to how heavily pathologized transsexuality and transgenderism are within the country, as official documentation of mental illness (Gender Identity Disorder aka GID) is required for the methods of transition.
The book, Queer Voices From Japan, details a wide variety of queer Japanese narratives, but of particular relevance is a chapter predicated around that of a transgender man and the course his life took. However, it is of relevance to consider that even chapters centered around homosexuality also bely experiences about gender nonconformity in the country, due to how heavily connected with transgenderism to a core notion these identities can be, even without people directly relating themselves as being transgender. “Transgendered experiences” are still relevant and meaningful regardless of what identities are applied.
And further, it is always important to consider how transness is deeply rooted in a pathological belief of it being an illness first and foremost within the country, something that is at once both alienating to some members of the community and uplifting to others. There are some trans people for whom being informed that they have an illness that can be treated meaningfully is a salve to wounded bodies. However, for many it is a cudgel, something that demonizes and places transness as a sickness rather than first and foremost an identity experienced beyond the realms of ciscentric notions of society. This article is a meaningful breakdown and analysis of this issue within the country.
the other castings for my persona theatre au if anyone is interested (nobody):
futaba as cosette (she's the youngest other than sumi and i have Plans for sumi)
yusuke as marius (hes also costume dept but there were Circumstances and he was a good enough actor so they just casted him whatever)
ryuji and ann as the thénardiers (they are also funny + just a Duo in my mind)
haru as fantine (she has the aura)
makoto as eponine (she has a rivalry with akechi who will be set up as a second cosette outside of the theatre aspect and she ALSO has the aura)
shuake as valvert, i think this is a given, but they will also be gay enough that there will be marius/cosette elements to the two of them outside of the play
mishima is tech
hifumi is costume dept with yusuke
maruki is teacher director alongside kawakami
shido is shido
yu (narukami) is ren's older brother from home
i think that's it for now
enjolras and the rest didnt stick out to me when i watched the play so theyll probably stay uncasted, or ill stick a confidant in there later
