Profile: Kanako Otsuji
Born in 1974 in Nara, Kanako Otsuji was elected to serve as a representative for Sakai city in the Osaka Prefectural Assembly on April 13, 2003. The August 2005 publication of her autobiography Coming Out: A Journey to Find My True Self marked the start of her new life as Japan's first out politician. In May of 2007, Otsuji was officially recognized by the Democratic Party of Japan as their representative candidate for the Upper House election. Ultimately, Otsuji did not secure a win, but she did became the first ever openly gay district assembly member to run for Parliament endorsed by a major political party. www.otsuji-k.com
【Link】 Interview with Kanako Otsuji
【Link】 Press Conference　
　

Profile: Naomi Matsunaga
Naomi Matsunaga graduated from Keio University's Graduate School of Letters with a Master of Arts in Literature. Currently, he lectures at the University of Geneva in Switzerland while publishing his plays and short stories. In 1999, Naomi Matsunaga's contemporary drama, Les ténèbres éternelles (The Eternal Darkness), was awarded an Honorable Mention to the Special Encouragement Prize for Fiction in Performing Arts by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs.
www.matsunaganaomi.com (Japanese text only)

--Do you think DPJ leader Ozawa will continue to show support for you, as he had during the 2007 run? 　

O:
Politics is a world where, though both principles and opinions are naturally important, realism prevails - as in how many votes you can bring and whether you can score a victory or not. Basically you'll be judged by your electoral rolls, your strategies, and the grounds on which you aim to win. As such - since I only pulled in 38,000 votes this time - if I were to try to run again in the next election, I couldn't expect to be taken up unless I were to give clear and realistic markers - like by showing, "Hey, I have my own rolls with over 70,000 names" or indicate "I could come through with hundreds of thousands of votes with the support of these certain figures." So, in other words, I could run as long as I were able to show that I've lined up the key ingredients for a win. This time around, we simply projected that since between three and ten percent of people in the world are gay, hundreds of thousands of votes 'should be' out there. But such rough math would never again hold water. Electoral rolls, backing parties, and other entities that can realistically demonstrate viability are absolutely necessary.

M:
Aren't there lesbian entrepreneurs out there? Starting their own companies?

O:
Those women tend to be even further in the closet. I get the feeling that the higher social standing someone has, the more in the closet they are.

M:
It would be great if we could utilize these corporate leaders and get their employees involved! (laughs)

--You may have just barely missed getting elected but the DPJ's endorsement of your candidacy has been carved in stone as historical fact. How do you think the DPJ will be handling LGBT issues from here on?

O:
That depends entirely on how each individual politician chooses to. But, when it comes down to it, unless the LGBT community conveys exactly what is troubling it and what it needs, then there's really not much that we could expect! It's a matter of turning the statement back on people and asking them, "Well then, what will you do?" Marginalized peoples must raise their own voices. When I met with the director of the Civil Liberties Bureau a while back, I asked him if he knew what problems LGBT persons faced in Japan. He hesitatingly responded, "In employment, I suppose..." So, here, we can see that even the head of the Civil Liberties Bureau, when asked, doesn't have a clue about the problems LGBT people face. But, in all honesty, LGBT people haven't yet articulated these problems for themselves yet. If we don't have a way to tell people "THIS is what we want changed and THIS is what we need to do, and here's HOW" then there's really no way to advance our cause. We haven't been trained in handling that level of discourse.

M:
Good point. Like in the case of the trans movement, people were able to come together and fight for change precisely because very familiar goals - such as the need to be able to change one's sex on passports and in city registers - existed. But for gays, it's hard to say whether we could smoothly gain any momentum simply by insisting that we be immediately allowed to have systems for gay marriage and same-sex partnerships. What with the current problem of declining birthrates, we may just get scoffed at for making such propositions!

O:
For instance, one place in which we could start would be education. I've said before that I want teachers to be educated about the issues. I'd like them to help me to present myself as a speaker. Right now in schools we're seeing growing numbers of students struggling with gender dysphoria. But children with gender dysphoria are not the only ones who feel out of place when it comes to gender - gay children also have their own issues.

M:
And there are a lot of children. Going by percentages, there should be an awful lot.

O:
Yes. And at the time I had also asked that the Osaka assembly look into how many students at each school were seeking help for troubles stemming from their sexual orientation. No one had even tried to get a grasp on those numbers before, and, sure enough, when we brought it all together there was a substantial number. That's why I do believe we, in the LGBT community, need to proceed with more well-defined items on our agenda.

M:
Sure enough, the people's consciousness is not something that can be changed overnight. So we have to keep in mind how we want the world to be by the time our children become adults and thereby see that we - as the adults of today - act on that vision now. That's why education is so important.

O:
Moreover, when dealing with local politicians, the electorate has a lot of power. Constituencies must remind those in power that they hold the votes. By impressing on politicians how these issues affect our families and our neighborhoods, we'd be that much more effective. Assembly members are very good at taking care of their local constituencies. If each of us works at coming out just wherever it's feasible, then I think that would make a difference.

M:
I agree. For one, I think that a lot of people out there would quit their jobs if they were exposed as gay at their workplace, but surely there's no need to quit. However, all the same, as much as we may insist that there's no law saying you must quit, people just feel they have to...

--Even if people are theoretically protected by the law, it's still hard to come out at work in reality.

O:
In the workplace, gay persons do face malicious harassment. Like getting assigned to another post, or being ordered to handle menial tasks.

M:
Supervisors would do that?

O:
Sure they do. They'll do that, but they'll never give the reason as being related to the employee being gay. More or less everybody has an idea of how wrong discrimination would be, so they come up with these other reasons for the changes.

M:
I didn't realize that this actually happens! I thought people who complained of that were just exaggerating (laughs).

O:
I can't speak for all cases, but I can tell you that there are a lot of workplaces like that.

M:
Shiseido and Fujitsu, unlike most Japanese companies, specifically offer systems of care for sexual minorities among their employees. It's written within their company policy that they will not discriminate against any employees based on sexual orientation. More companies need to do the same.

--What do you plan to do from here?

O:
I want to follow through on my original objective - I mean, just because I've run for the national Diet this one time and didn't make it doesn't mean I think I should give up! Fortunately, I'm still just 32 years old, so I don't think this loss will put an end to my political career at all.

M:
Of course not! It all starts from here!

O:
So, I don't know exactly when my next chance will arrive, but I want to be ready to grab it when it comes. And until then I want nothing more than to continue giving speeches and working, as both an activist and a politician.

--I think this year's election has given us a good idea of our challenges for the future and, more importantly, it has given us a better idea of how we can achieve them. It truly does all start from here, and we'll be rooting for you - all the way! 　
　

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