Many challenges still hamper LGBTQ+ and Women in sports in Japan

Japan still has a long way to go to create a welcome space for gender minorities in both sport and society. But the young generation is improving awareness, according to the guest speaker of the online discussion “LGBTQ+ and Women in Sports in Japan,” which was held in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Organized by the International Christian University branch of Voice Up Japan, many of the questions to presenter Aya Noguchi were about how students can help raise awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ+. She encouraged them to talk about it, question the status quo, and change it.

“Understanding of gender and sexuality is very different for young people and old people. I think it is important to put your thoughts, doubts and uncomfortable feelings into words and to express them… and to continue to discuss them across generations.”

Things like toilets with non-binary designation are helping to generate conversation and understanding, and the empathy of young Japanese people to this issue means that overall comprehension is slowly improving.

“Why is it wrong for me to play soccer?”

Noguchi is a former professional soccer player and currently an assistant professor at Juntendo University’s School of Sports and Health Sciences. She specializes in issues of gender and sexuality in sports and is also a joint head of the non-government organization S.C.P. Japan, which aims to increase diversity and inclusion via sport.

Noguchi competed in semi-professional soccer in the U.S. for four years and in professional soccer in Sweden. She followed her big brother’s lead and started playing soccer at the age of three. Noguchi says she was always the only girl on the field. In junior high school, she asked to play on the boys’ team but wasn’t allowed to.

“From my own experience, I wondered, as a girl, why is it wrong for me to play soccer?” Noguchi said.

As the ad suggests, we really need to think about what we think and say.

Noguchi says that, in Japan, male athletes do not publicly identify themselves as gay. While a few homosexual female athletes talk openly about having a female partner, they do not call themselves lesbian. Therefore, it is clear that such labels are still negative for gender minorities in Japan, and that expression of LGBTQ+ is still somewhat taboo.

The history of sports as a means for training alpha males

The key to understanding why women and LGBTQ+ are marginalized in sports is an awareness of the history of modern sport. Noguchi explained that sports developed in 19th-century Britain as a way to train upper-class men to be leaders. In those Victorian-era times, homosexuality was illegal, and gender roles were clearly delineated; men were regarded as strong and independent, while women were seen as weak and dependent. Sports spread to continental Europe and then worldwide through colonialism. Along with it went the ideologies of Westernism, male dominance and heterosexism.

Women have been competing on a playing field based on men as the norm and this has deterred their participation in sports. A study on Sports and Gender Issues in Japan by the Sports Agency in 2017 found that, on average, women play sport less than men and make up only 27.5% of sports instructors and 9.4% of executive roles in sports organizations. Japanese sports authorities have since made progress in their efforts to create more female executives. However, the question of setting a quota of 40% was what sparked sexist comments from the former head of the Tokyo Olympic Games organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, that women talk too much in meetings.

As in other countries, the overwhelming majority of men in positions of power has contributed to problems of harassment, particularly within the athlete-coach relationship. Another issue that emerged recently in Japan is photos of performing female athletes being taken and posted on social media along with sexually explicit comments. Those images are sometimes image-edited, too. The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee has banned the taking of such photographs or videos at competition venues.

Transgender athletes in the spotlight

The binary structure of men as central in sport, and women as subordinate, has left little room for gender minorities. But the Tokyo Olympics will be the first to formally allow transgender athletes to participate. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will be one of them.

In late June, Japanese Women’s World Cup soccer star Kumi Yamamoto publicly came out as a transgender man. Yokoyama has been playing with Washington Spirit in the U.S. since December 2019. The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported that Yokoyama made the announcement to boost the acceptance of LGBTQ in Japan.

“In Japan, people would only ask me if I have a boyfriend or not, but [in the U.S.] I’d get asked if I have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Outside of Japan people tend to have big hearts and are more accepting of all gender identities,” Yokoyama said.

Creating new category criteria toward inclusivity

One participant in the Voice Up Japan online discussion asked about the idea of holding transgender-only sports events. While that might help break down the gender binary structure, Noguchi said that some athletes may not want to compete in such a category and that it risks excluding minorities rather than including them.

Noguchi suggested that categories could be renamed to either high or low testosterone, instead of male or female. The International Olympic Committee currently bases its sex criteria on testosterone levels.

Another approach would be to create categories based on the physical differences that affect the play of each sport. That would create a classification system similar to the one used for the Paralympics, which includes impairment types such as visual and mental impairment, leg length difference and short stature. Changing to categories based on physical ability, such as muscle mass, height and lung capacity, could create an equal playing field for all genders to compete against each other.

Why is Japan so far behind on LGBTQ+?

Another question posed to Noguchi was why Japan is so behind in LGBTQ+ topics compared to other G7 countries. It is the only one that does not recognize same-sex marriages. Noguchi said that gender equality in western countries is supported by political liberalism, but the politically conservative nature of Japan has stymied that.

In 2014, the Olympic Charter was amended to include non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. In line with that, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, which begins on July 23, some Japanese politicians and gender rights activists had pushed for the passing of a bill that specified not tolerating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But right-wing members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party rejected the proposal. Some of them were even reported to have made homophobic comments during the discussion, including that LGBT people go against “the preservation of the species.”

Media’s role in maintaining gender stereotypes

Another question asked of Noguchi was how to increase media representation of the LGBTQ+ sporting community. Noguchi said that part of their underrepresentation comes from most sports reporters being male and the working environment being very masculine. Hiring more women, or using more reporters from other beats, could help shift the focus of coverage.

Noguchi criticized the media’s role in maintaining gender stereotypes. The femininity of Japanese female athletes is often the focus, she noted. She singled out the term “mama athlete” as one she particularly dislikes. It refers to athletes competing after having had children. She said that the International Olympic Committee has deemed the expression inappropriate: the primary focus should be that that person is an athlete.

Do what you think is needed for betterment

Noguchi said that a question that she often receives, particularly from university students, is “what should I do?” to help end gender-based inequality. Her answer is to do what you think is needed. To try different things yourself and see what works. “It all starts with the thought ‘isn’t there something strange about this?'” she said.

With LGBTQ+ estimated to make up 8%-12% of the population, change will only happen if awareness among the majority changes first. “What is important is how many allies can be created among that 88% or so,” Noguchi said.

Sport as a reflection of society

What happens in society is reflected in sport, but because of the problematic gender binary structure of sport, there are areas in which it is not keeping up with social progress, Noguchi said. As Mori’s comments showed us, Japanese sporting bodies and representatives still haven’t understood women’s issues. They are even farther behind on LGBTQ+.

“How to ensure that transgender athletes, in particular, are able to compete from the youth stage, and what sports can do to help kids struggling with LGBTQ+ issues are topics that Japan will increasingly have to discuss in the future,” Noguchi says.