QAC 61 – Non-Binary Gender Identity Disorder (GID) & HRT in Japan | The T Files #001
after years of whining and moaning about it, i’m finally doing it; i’ll be starting HRT soon– and in Japan, no less. 2014 Vesper, who made an entire video about NOT “transitioning” in Japan, is eating their words. what’s made me change my mind now? how does one start HRT in Japan? as a non-binary person?? Gender Identity Disorder??? in this video, i talk about all the above, as well as recap the “highlights” of my recent appointment with a psychologist to get diagnosed with GID; a necessary first step to [legally] starting HRT from scratch in Japan. [ cw: vague sex mention @ 11:27 ~ 11:55; reproductive body stuff ] …took me long enough to get this video up, geez.
re: one step forward, zero steps back?
queerascat: so, after going to an appointment with my psychiatrist and blabbering about how much being around my family fucks me up whenever i go “home” for the holidays, which i’d be doing in less than a month’s time, causing him to be like “but what if you relapse??? consider upping your meds before you go???” and me being like “at least i’m on meds at all this time around so lolololol nah”– i felt the need to just…. really DO something yesterday. so i did the something. and the something will happen 4realz for realz tomorrow. so yeah, Anxiety word vomit blogging at 9:35pm at Starbucks. over the past three weeks or so i’ve been emailing a clinic that had been recommended to me by a friend re: starting HRT. after three weeks of no response to said emails, i decided to sneak out of work yesterday (because the clinic is seemingly…
one step forward, zero steps back?
so, after going to an appointment with my psychiatrist and blabbering about how much being around my family fucks me up whenever i go “home” for the holidays, which i’d be doing in less than a month’s time, causing him to be like “but what if you relapse??? consider upping your meds before you go???” and me being like “at least i’m on meds at all this time around so lolololol nah”– i felt the need to just…. really DO something yesterday. so i did the something. and the something will happen 4realz for realz tomorrow. so yeah, Anxiety word vomit blogging at 9:35pm at Starbucks. over the past three weeks or so i’ve been emailing a clinic that had been recommended to me by a friend re: starting HRT. after three weeks of no response to said emails, i decided to sneak out of work yesterday (because the clinic is seemingly only…
Ash Hardell’s “The ABC’s of LGBT+” in Japanese!
…..annnd look what i randomly* stumbled across at the bookstore tonight. Ash Hardell’s “The ABC’s of LGBT+” in Japanese! even Amazon Japan doesn’t seem to have it yet, but somehow Kinokuniya has it? which makes absolutely no sense, but hey! not complaining. it’s a complete translation of Ash Hardell’s book, including a lot of ace and non-binary terminology such as aceflex, quoiromantic, genderfluid and maverique transliterated phonetically into Japanese approximates.** even the [English] pronouns section is translated into Japanese, which i kinda have feelings about as to how helpful that and / or phonetic translations will be for Japanese people who will be approaching this book from a cultural and linguistic context that is not the same as that of a native English / germanic or romance language speaker. that said, at a glance, there does seem to be added explaination of English grammar to help non-English speakers better understand gender…
on coming out to my psychiatrist
※ cw: dysphoria, genitalia mention ….so, in typical me fashion, i ended up coming out as non-binary to my psychiatrist the other day. i’d had no intention of coming out to him, but at the same time i had no intention of making any effort to not come out to him, so. *shrugs* i’d already come out to him as queer / bi / ace during my first appointment, so i already had some means of gauging what his reaction might be like. also, this is the same guy who is overly focused on “results” and “remission” to the point of being laughable / uncomfortable at times, so i already had reservations about the guy from the start.
Q&A: “what does Xジェンダー mean?”
anonymous said: Heya! Sorry to bother you, but what does Xジェンダー mean? Is it literally the Japanese translation of non-binary? Or has the same meaning? Thanks according to 「Xジェンダーって何?」, Xジェンダー (”x gender”) is: 性自認を表す言葉の一種で、出産時に割り当てられた男性もしくは女性の性別のいずれに二分された性の自覚を持たず、自己の性別に関し、男女どちらでもない、あるいは男女どちらでもある、さらにはそれすらもどちらでもないっといった認識を自己の性に対してもっている人々のことを指す日本独自の呼称です。 a word that refers to a gender identity; a term unique to Japan to refer to people who do not identify as either of the two genders, male and female, that are assigned at birth, but rather self-identifies as neither male nor female, both male and female or as a different gender entirely. while i don’t have any sources to link to at the moment, i’m fairly certain that Xジェンダー was coined in Japan completely independent of “non-binary” in the English language. in fact, i’m also fairly certain that it was coined before usage of “non-binary” in reference to gender in English, but again, no source links because i’m too tired to dig for them. either way, Xジェンダー is…
Q&A: “I just saw how to say you’re non-binary in Japanese and it was super exciting for me…”
anonymous said: Hi. I just saw the ask you answered about how to say you’re non-binary in Japanese and it was super exciting for me to see. I’m a non-binary teen living in Japan, and it’s amazing to see that because it’s a sign that there is an active community of non-binary people that is large enough for these words to exist. It’s wonderful. ( re: this post ) hello, anon. thanks for stopping by to drop me this ask because it’s exciting for me to hear that my post was able to reach someone like you. awesome! while awareness of Xジェンダー people still has a long way to go in Japan (as it does for non-binary people around the world), there definitely are active Xジェンダー people in Japan. in Japanese, many describe themself as MtX, FtX, Xジェンダー or any of the other terms i mentioned in the post that you…
Q&A: “Would you mind telling me some basic LGBT vocabulary in Japanese?”
hush-hush-little-heart said: Hi! I just found out about your blog, and I’d like to ask you something. I’m part of the LGBT community, and next year I’m going to study a Japanese Philology at the university. Would you mind telling me some basic LGBT vocabulary in Japanese? Just so I can understand and talk a bit about it, please ♡ (I’m a trans boy, and pansexual btw :3) oh also! (sorry i forgot to write it in the other ask) Do you know anything about getting hormones (testosterone, in my case) in Japan? Is it easy? Just in case, because I’d like to have a job/live there in a future, at least for some time hi. 🙂 sorry for taking so long to get to your asks. regarding LGBT terminology in Japanese, it’s a little hard to answer that question because it’s so broad…. so instead, i’m going to…
Q&A: “I showed a friend your post about how to say you’re nonbinary in Japanese, but he’s a demiboy…”
anonymous said: I showed a friend your post about how to say you’re nonbinary in Japanese, but he’s a demiboy and there wasn’t anything for demiboys specifically on the list. I was trying to figure out what would work (barring katakana), and I came up with 半男、やや男、and 男の一種. Which of these would be better (or is there already a Japanese term?) (re: this post) sorry for taking so long to respond to your ask! i’m afraid that i haven’t come across a Japanese equivalent (or even approximate) to “demiboy” (or to demigenders in general). the closest thing that i can think of is the commonly used: FtMよりのXジェンダー / FtM yori no x-gender /(an) FtM-ish non-binary (person) 男よりのXジェンダー / otoko yori no x-gender /(a) mannish non-binary (person) ………mmmm, yeah. *cough* as i said, these phrases are commonly used in Japanese, but your friend may not feel comfortable using them. understandably so. i would caution…
Japanese gender / queer theory, anyone?
…so i randomly went to Book Off (used bookstore) today after work and happened to find two used books on gender studies / gender theory that not only ① explicitly discuss binarism and how society ignores those who are neither of the binary genders (male / female) nor either of the binary sexualities (gay / straight)– there’s also ② explicit mention of asexuality and the alphabet soup where the acronym LGBTIAQ is used and I is defined as “Intersex”, A as “Asexual” and Q as “Queer”. notably, these books were published in ① 2013 & ② 2006 and are original works by Japanese authors rather than books imported into Japan and translated into Japanese. below are super rough (because i’m starving, exhausted and need to go to bed damnit) English translations for the above snippets.
