Queer and normal:dansō(female-to-male crossdressing) lives and politics in contemporary Tokyo

Abstract

Though dansō—female-to-male crossdressing—has been historically embedded in Japan as tradition, performance, and entertainment, in the last fifteen years it has fractured and increasingly become commercialized, adopted by young people—a phenomenon I call “contemporary dansō culture.” One example this article explores are dansō café-and-bars—establishments where employees dress as another gender—which since the mid-2000s have emerged in Nakano, Ikebukuro, and Akihabara, areas in Tokyo where anime, manga, and game fans gather. How do dansō individuals understand their practices and everyday lives? Based on field research, this article explores how dansō individuals’ rejection of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) identity and politics can provide a starting point for rethinking queer theory’s relationship with normativity. Taking a queer anthropological approach, I contend that dansō individuals’ politics simultaneously lies in their turn from “LGBT” and alignment with the “normal,” compelling us to reconfigure queer and norms in the Japanese context.

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