GID as an Acceptable Minority; or, The Alliance between Moral Conservatives and “Gender Critical” Feminists in Japan

Abstract

This essay articulates how feminist, queer, and trans politics in the early aughts have become a precondition for the rise of feminist transphobia in Japan now. On the one hand, mainstream feminists in that period overlooked transphobia in the gender backlash from moral conservatives. On the other hand, a 2003 law on gender recognition for people with GID (gender identity disorder) endorsed the patriarchal system in which only some transsexual people would be recognized. The author argues that these backgrounds allow “gender critical” feminists to oppose what they see as the transgender ideology, forging an implicit alliance with moral conservatives while portraying themselves as being tolerant of people with GID.