“What is it like traveling as a trans person in Japan?” people have asked me.
I am not necessarily qualified to answer that question, certainly not on behalf of other trans people. It’s complicated, because I don’t necessarily “look like” a trans person. The main vibe I got from people I met in Japan is 5they saw me as primarily a white person—a tourist or English teacher, and secondarily, probably assumed I am a woman. So I can’t comment from experience on what it’s like to be identified as a trans person in the places in Japan where I visited.
Traveling in Japan, I was trying to fit in with my androgynous clothing, covering my arms and legs more than I would in the summer in the US. I wasn’t dressed all that differently from many people I passed in the street or saw on the train. My hair was reasonably short.
I wore a binder, a chest-flattening undergarment, for aikido classes and not otherwise.
I did not receive negative feedback or any comments whatsoever on my gender or gender expression, actually, far less than I sometimes do in the US.
I was accepted as a woman in subtle ways, in aikido classes with mostly or all male students, and in the public bathhouse, or sentō.
This lack of visibility is interesting. It feels safe. If people had called me out for not looking or acting correctly, if they were uncomfortable with me, I would have felt unsafe.
