Consuming Trans in Japan—Beyond the Binary of Commodified vs. Politicized Identities

• In Event: East Asian Queer Cultures Part II: LGBT Politics, Queer Lives, and the Rainbow Market

Abstract

The 1990s and early 2000s saw a burgeoning gay and lesbian market in many Euro-American societies. This has led to warnings from scholars about the myth of this “pink economy”, which while appearing to affirm the sexual identities of gay and lesbian people, can also bring about new exclusions, for recognition is now dependent on one’s financial capacity to buy one’s way into the market (Bell and Binnie 2000; Richardson 1998; Wilson 2009). Within the context of Asia, however, where queerness continues to be policed and managed by the state, some scholars have pointed out that it is in fact consumption in the commercial scene that enables the formation of a “queer autonomy” (Jackson 2011; Yue 2011). In this presentation, I seek to extend this recently emerging scholarship on queer consumption in Asia by drawing on my research in the Japanese Female-to-Male (FTM) transgender scene. I argue that especially for those FTM transpeople who have been excluded from the official discourse of (trans) gender, consumption and commercialization—rather than signaling a form of depoliticization—can be a vehicle for materializing FTM cultures and communities. In doing so, I hope to show how the conflict between public/politicization and private/commercialization that seems to dominate current (western) literature on sexual and consumer citizenship may be problematized and, perhaps, reconciled.

Author

• Shu Min Yuen, National University of Singapore