It has been alleged in many countries around the world that queer identities and issues are “imported ideologies.”
For example, in Ghana earlier this year, sweeping legislation was implemented that severely restricts the rights of LGBTQ people —criminalizing them and their allies—under the rhetoric that homosexuality is a foreign import.
In Japan, politicians in far-right political party Sanseito have compared transgender identities to contagious diseases, have alleged LGBT ideologies are used to spread extremist and violent foreign ideologies, and have been one of two elected parties (the other being the Democratic Party For The People, or Kokumin Minshu-to) to be against legal acts that would protect or even simply promote understanding of LGBTQ individuals in Japan.
Yet, as local activists will point out, the evidence that queerness is any more imported than homophobia is is scant. As long as human civilizations have existed, people have been queer.
We Exist「私たちの居場所」is a documentary that doesn’t spend time in the weeds arguing that point, and rightfully so. Instead, the energies of filmmakers Felicity Tillack and Tiffany Rossdale are directed toward what matters the most: giving a platform to the ideas, stories, and personalities of queer people throughout Japan.
It’s a documentary in the true sense of documentation, making it impossible to deny the existence of queer people in Japan as they struggle and succeed in turn to live their day-to-day lives as themselves.
One common thread in the documentary is how important the nightlife industry is, and this is explored in multiple ways. Nightlife establishments and bars are safe spaces for the community to meet and gather, but because many traditional workplaces can be restrictive for queer people, they are also where queer people are able to work while living as themselves. Throughout the documentary, Rossdale—who has worked in nightlife herself—interviews people at these establishments, who emphasize again and again how important it is for the communities they serve for these places to exist.
Queer community spaces in the nightlife industry are more likely to flourish in numbers in urban areas. As a result, queer representation often focuses on Tokyo, and if not Tokyo, then Osaka. In smaller, rural, and/or conservative areas of Japan, it may be difficult for queer people to find community, and for them, it may in turn become difficult for them to come out as LGBTQ.
In We Exist, Rossdale takes the audience out of Tokyo and into Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, where she meets Hiroyuki Watanabe, a transgender woman who was elected for a spot on city council. Though it is the biggest city on Shikoku Island, Matsuyama is a smaller city within Japan with under 500,000 people living there. Watanabe was facing an uphill battle when she ran for office, doing street speeches into what felt like the void of passers-by on the shopping streets. But her strength was finding ways to connect on an interpersonal level with both voters and coworkers as a dedicated public servant, a skill she picked up on in part due to her experience in nightlife. Thanks to this, she was re-elected by the people of Matsuyama. In addition to her work in usual scope of city government, she was also able to successfully bring legislation to recognize same-sex partnerships in Matsuyama.
In Japan, the lack of even widespread same-sex partnerships and of same sex marriage makes it difficult for couples to be recognized publicly as such. This affects the legal rights of couples, and in the case of one gay couple interviewed by Rossdale, even affects the decision for one of the men to come out to his family and to stop keeping their relationship a secret. Allowing partnerships at the very least is one actionable change that can be made to allow couples to exist in the eyes of the legal system the way they exist in every other way that matters, and signals to the general public that queer relationships are legitimate relationships, and that LGBTQ rights are worth making common practice in Japan.
In the documentary are street interviews with Japanese people, who Rossdale asks about LGBT issues. They are more accepting than one would expect, saying they want people to be able to live without fear and with confidence as themselves. They express a desire for greater understanding within Japan.
At the September 19 screening of the documentary on the Tokyo University main campus, Rossdale was present for a Q&A session with the audience.
Rossdale is a Manila-raised, Tokyo-based speaker, podcaster, and actress who works in LGBTQ advocacy. During the Q&A session, she said that as a trans woman coming from the Philippines, and having traveled around the world, she has felt remarkably safe in Japan. However, she still experiences some discrimination which she attributes to a lack of education and of formal protections.
Explaining the title, Rossdale’s answer was simple: queer people have always been everywhere in the world, natively. Before the acronym LGBT ever came about, there have people in Japan who exist in the way we now consider non-normative, and the vocabulary to describe them has existed as well. Rossdale and Tillack have taken it upon themselves to add to the evidence in the current day to push back against misinformation against the community with their work, including We Exist.
We Exist is part of an ongoing documentary series, funded through crowdfunding efforts. Episode 2 of the documentary, focusing on the positive relationships queer people have with their families, will be coming out next year.
AloJapan.com