In Japan, it is legal to being LGBT and 54% of the population are thinking the society should accept LGBT community in 2013 (Pew Research Center, 2013). However, some people still think LGBTs are sexual minorities in Japan, and there are bullying like violences, exclusions, ignored, making fun of, and avoid. About 33% of the population feel unpleasantness toward LGBTs, in fact, there were several cases happened in Japan for LGBT people. The most remarkable news was a male graduate student was committed suicide in 2015 because of the psychological harassments he had from other students because of his friends who exposed the sexuality he had into public. Another case was happened in 2000, a group of people attacked/murdered some amount of homosexuals. But the most horrified thing was one of the perpetrators said it would not be a case to attack homosexuals (Nagayasu, 2016).

From this brief introduction of the LGBT community in Japan, you will have some sorts of fears toward Japanese society. However, most of the things in the world have their own reasons. So the questions were how and why do Japanese start to think in this way? What about the past and what is the current condition in Japan?

“In the Shinto creation story, sex precedes the birth of a nation and her people.”, “Nanshouku, male homosexuality” (Koichi, 2015)

It is an interest fact for now that back in the past, homosexuals are normal and unlike now, people were very open with it. Why? The question can be found in the article called “The Gay of The Samurai“. This article was published in September 30, 2015, written by Koichi. The article gives the history of people’s positive behaviors toward homosexuals and how the idea changed into now.

It is a significant item for this website is because it explains everything that you want to know in LGBT community back in the history. It has gives you the cultural, historical, and behavioral reasonings for the community. So you can get the idea easily with full understandings. In addition, it would also give you a comparison between LGBT community in the past of Western. The article also set up a cushion for the community in modern society in Japan.

“Suicide-Related Events Among Transgender People” (Katsuki, 2019)

The graph came from “Things to Know About the LGBT Community” published in March 20, 2019 written by Harima Katsuki, a director of the Harima Mental Clinic. The article talks about the reality of the current society in Japan and the serious problem of the numbers of transgenders who committed to suicides due to the malicious attitudes from outsides and “internalized homophobia”, which blaming themselves as abnormal by outside resources, such as televisions. The article appeals to the society to change the behaviors toward the sexual orientation.

After reading the first article, “The Gay of The Samurai”, you might think the acceptance of the LGBT community is not as very bad as other countries, because the article is focusing on the history more than modern. However, the truth of Japan society is not like that. This article is an important article to shows you one of the perspectives of the modern LGBT community in Japan.

Recent activity for supporting LGBT in 2019|Photo taken by Ryusei Takahashi (Tanaka, 2019)

There is a news, “With spirits high, the LGBT community and supporters marks Tokyo’s 25th pride march“, came out last month, April 28, 2019. The author, Chisato Tanaka, wrote about a current event happened in Japan for the rights (human rights and marriage rights mostly) in the LGBT community. In the article, the author interviewed the organizer of the activity and some participants who are considering themselves as LGBT. It gives you some common perspectives from the community, and you will find the status of the LGBT community in the current society in Japan.

It is another significant item because it provides the most recent event and the perspective of the LGBT community in Japan. Since it published in April 28, 2019, which is quiet new. It is important to know about the history of LGBT community, but it is also important to know about the current community. So that you can get a full perspective of Japan community and easier to find the differences from other countries.