UC Davis

This dissertation aims to develop a critique of gay liberation based on an ethnographic study of LGBT movements in contemporary Japan. Tensions within the so-called LGBT community in Japan appear to grow along with intensifying debates about marriage equality, which is increasingly becoming a barometer for national development and fought for in the name of anti-homophobic resistance in today’s globalizing world. Against this backdrop, this dissertation examines the distance between two primary groups—a non-profit LGBT organization Tokyo Rainbow Pride and one segment of their audiences, Tokyo amateur gay volleyballers—by asking the following questions: (1) Is gay liberation necessary in Japan? (2) How do divergent ways of living a queer life unfold in Japan? (3) What does the existence of diversity among LGBTs do to the Euro-American(ized) notion of gay liberation? Based on long-term participatory fieldwork in Tokyo (2018-20) and by braiding together queer studies, Japan scholarship, and social-movement research, I argue that disagreements over what constitutes gay liberation complicate the very cause in family-oriented Japan. More specifically, Japan demands the suspension of anti-homophobia in intersectional analysis and in the politics of gay liberation, as the existence of anti-homosexual discrimination is as fragile as the state of an anti-discrimination foothold among sexual minorities in the nation. At present, it is difficult to gauge the prospect of Japanese LGBT movements given the whims of the Japanese government under international pressure. In short, this context-sensitive, comparative, and policy-relevant study of gay liberation contributes to discussions about sexual inequality, nation-state formation, and social activism in the discipline of anthropology.