The assimilated secret: Understanding as silence in Japanese LGBT discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACT As discussion of LGBT issues has become mainstream in Japanese society and politics, numerous didactic media materials aim to cultivate public “understanding” of LGBT. But what precise understanding is sought? Through analysis of four books released in 2021, this article examines a recurring rhetorical strategy in which calls for acceptance define “LGBT” through invisibility and unknowability. LGBT individuals are depicted as primarily desiring the maintenance of nonrecognition, thus requiring the advocacy of tolerance-building media publications. Advocacy for (and often through) anonymity is replicated in the works’ content, which minimizes depictions of romance or sexuality. Invisibility is further prioritized by repeated warnings against outing others, described in language broad and sensational enough to cast all discussion of non-normative sexual/gender identities in a threatening light. The definitional status afforded to unknowability frames “understanding LGBT” as the acknowledgment of perpetually hidden minorities within Japanese society. By deploying this political ethic in transmedia tolerance-building content, consumption is promoted as the only method by which to interact with a fundamentally unreachable Other. As content creators promise to reveal secrets – only to exhort even stricter secrecy – the LGBT subject is constructed through the allure of mystery.