“Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance - CiteSeer

Journal of Lesbian Studies�
eHAWORTH®
Electronic Text is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind.
The Haworth Press, Inc. further disclaims all implied warranties
including, without limitation, any implied warranties of
merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire
risk arising out of the use of the Electronic Text remains with
you. In no event shall The Haworth Press, Inc., its authors, or
anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of
this product be liable for any damages whatsoever (including,
without limitation, damages for loss of business profits,
business interruption, loss of business information, or other
pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the
Electronic Text, even if The Haworth Press, Inc. has been
advised of the possibility of such damages.

“Lesbians” in East Asia:
Diversity, Identities,
and Resistance

Monographic Separates from the Journal of Lesbian Studies
For additional information on these and other Haworth Press titles, including
descriptions, tables of contents, reviews, and prices, use the QuickSearch
catalog at http://www.HaworthPress.com.
“Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance, edited by Diana Khor, PhD, and
Saori Kamano, PhD (Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006). “An innovative and compelling collection of writings
vibrant with the lives of lesbians in Japan, Korea, China, and Hong Kong.” (Susan Krieger,
author, The Mirror Dance: Identity in a Women’s Community)
Challenging Lesbian Norms: Intersex, Transgender, Intersectional, and Queer Perspectives, edited
by Angela Pattatucci Aragón, PhD (Vol. 10, No. 1/2, 2006). “An invaluable resource–keenly
argued and passionately felt. Some readers will hate this book, some will love it, but few will find
themselves able to stop thinking about it long after they put it down.” (Riki Wilchins, author of
Read my Lips and Queer Theory/Gender Theory; co-editor of GenderQueer)
Lesbian Academic Couples, edited by Michelle Gibson and Deborah T. Meem (Vol. 9, No. 4, 2005).
“The writers gathered here expose the underlying currents that allow them to flourish and continue
to grow—opportunity, activism, and great love: for their work, for justice, and for each
other.” (Chris Cuomo, PhD, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies, University of
Cincinnati)
Making Lesbians Visible in the Substance Use Field, edited by Elizabeth Ettorre (Vol. 9, No. 3,
2005). “This is the book that we in the substance abuse treatment and research fields have been
waiting for.” (Katherine van Wormer, PhD, MSSW, Professor of Social Work, University of
Iowa; co-author, Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective)
Lesbian Communities: Festivals, RVs, and the Internet, edited by Esther Rothblum and Penny
Sablove (Vol. 9, No. 1/2, 2005). “Important. . . . Challenging and compelling. . . . A fascinating
assortment of diverse perspectives on just what defines a lesbian ‘community,’ what needs and
desires they meet, and how those worlds intersect with other groups and cultures.” (Diane Anderson-Minshall,
Executive Editor, Curve Magazine)
Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships, edited by Jacqueline S. Weinstock and
Esther D. Rothblum (Vol. 8, No. 3/4, 2004). “Compelling. . . . In these heady days of legal gay
marriage, this book is a good reminder of the devotion lesbians have always had to the women
we’ve loved, and the vows we’ve made with our hearts, long before we demanded licenses. This
book is a tribute to the long memory we have of the women’s hands who have touched our most
vulnerable parts, and the invisible hands that outlast our divorces.” (Arlene Istar Lev, CSW-R,
CSAC, Author of Transgender Emergence and The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide;
Founder and Clinical Director, Choices Counseling and Consulting)
Lesbians, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis: The Second Wave, edited by Judith M. Glassgold and
Suzanne Iasenza (Vol. 8, No. 1/2, 2004). “This book is the first to set the tone for a lesbian psychoanalytic
revolution.” (Dany Nobus, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Psychoanalytic
Studies, Brunel University, United Kingdom)
Trauma, Stress, and Resilence Among Sexual Minority Women: Rising Like the Phoenix, edited
by Kimberly F. Balsam, PhD (Vol. 7, No. 4, 2003). Provides a first-hand look at the victimization
experiences that lesbian and bisexual women face as well as how they work through these
challenges and emerge resilient.
Latina Lesbian Writers and Artists, edited by María Dolores Costa, PhD (Vol. 7, No. 3, 2003). “A fascinating
journey through the Latina lesbian experience. It brings us stories of exile, assimilation, and
conflict of cultures. The book takes us to the Midwest, New York, Chicana Borderlands, Mexico, Argentina,
and Spain. It succeeds at showing the diversity within the Latina lesbian experience through
deeply feminist testimonials of life and struggle.” (Susana Cook, performance artist and playwright)
Lesbian Rites: Symbolic Acts and the Power of Community, edited by Ramona Faith Oswald, PhD (Vol.
7, No. 2, 2003). “Informative, enlightening, and well written . . . illuminates the range of lesbian ritual
behavior in a creative and thorough manner. Ramona Faith Oswald and the contributors to this book
have done scholars and students of ritual studies an important service by demonstrating the power,

pervasiveness, and performative nature of lesbian ritual practices.” (Cele Otnes, PhD, Associate Professor,
Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois)
Mental Health Issues for Sexual Minority Women: Redefining Women’s Mental Health, edited by
Tonda L. Hughes, RN, PhD, FAAN, Carrol Smith, RN, MS, and Alice Dan, PhD (Vol. 7, No. 1,
2003). A rare look at mental health issues for lesbians and other sexual minority women.
Addressing Homophobia and Heterosexism on College Campuses, edited by Elizabeth P. Cramer,
PhD (Vol. 6, No. 3/4, 2002). A practical guide to creating LGBT-supportive environments on
college campuses.
Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go, edited by Michelle Gibson and
Deborah T. Meem (Vol. 6, No. 2, 2002). “Disrupts the fictions of heterosexual norms. . . . A
much-needed examiniation of the ways that butch/femme identitites subvert both
heteronormativity and ‘expected’ lesbian behavior.” (Patti Capel Swartz, PhD, Assistant
Professor of English, Kent State University)
Lesbian Love and Relationships, edited by Suzanna M. Rose, PhD (Vol. 6, No. 1, 2002). “Suzanna
Rose’s collection of 13 essays is well suited to prompting serious contemplation and discussion
about lesbian lives and how they are–or are not–different from others....Interestingandusefulfor
debunking some myths, confirming others, and reaching out into new territories that were previously
unexplored.” (Lisa Keen, BA, MFA, Senior Political Correspondent, Washington Blade)
Everyday Mutinies: Funding Lesbian Activism, edited by Nanette K. Gartrell, MD, and Esther D.
Rothblum, PhD (Vol. 5, No. 3, 2001). “Any lesbian who fears she’ll never find the money, time,
or support for her work can take heart from the resourcefulness and dogged determination of the
contributors to this book. Not only do these inspiring stories provide practical tips on making
dreams come true, they offer an informal history of lesbian political activism since World War
II.” (Jane Futcher, MA, Reporter, Marin Independent Journal, and author of Crush, Dream
Lover, and Promise Not to Tell)
Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand, edited by Alison J. Laurie (Vol. 5, No. 1/2, 2001). These fascinating
studies analyze topics ranging from the gender transgressions of women passing as men in
order to work and marry as they wished to the effects of coming out on modern women’s health.
Lesbian Self-Writing: The Embodiment of Experience, edited by Lynda Hall, PhD (Vol. 4, No. 4, 2000).
“Probes the intersection of love for words and love for women. . . . Luminous, erotic, evocative.”
(Beverly Burch, PhD, psychotherapist and author, Other Women: Lesbian/Bisexual Experience
and Psychoanalytic Views of Women and On Intimate Terms: The Psychology of Difference in
Lesbian Relationships)
‘Romancing the Margins’? Lesbian Writing in the 1990s, edited by Gabriele Griffin, PhD (Vol. 4,
No. 2, 2000). Explores lesbian issues through the mediums of books, movies, and poetry and offers
readers critical essays that examine current lesbian writing and discuss how recent movements
have tried to remove racist and antigay themes from literature and movies.
From Nowhere to Everywhere: Lesbian Geographies, edited by Gill Valentine, PhD (Vol. 4, No. 1,
2000). “A significant and worthy contribution to the ever growing literature on sexuality and
space. . . . A politically significant volume representing the first major collection on lesbian geographies.
. . . I will make extensive use of this book in my courses on social and cultural geography
and sexuality and space.” (Jon Binnie, PhD, Lecturer in Human Geography, Liverpool, John
Moores University, United Kingdom)
Lesbians, Levis and Lipstick: The Meaning of Beauty in Our Lives, edited by Jeanine C. Cogan,
PhD, and Joanie M. Erickson (Vol. 3, No. 4, 1999). Explores lesbian beauty norms and the effects
these norms have on lesbian women.
Lesbian Sex Scandals: Sexual Practices, Identities, and Politics, edited by Dawn Atkins, MA
(Vol. 3, No. 3, 1999). “Grounded in material practices, this collection explores confrontation
and coincidence among identity politics, ‘scandalous’ sexual practices, and queer theory and
feminism. . . . It expands notions of lesbian identification and lesbian community.” (Maria
Pramaggiore, PhD, Assistant Professor, Film Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh)
The Lesbian Polyamory Reader: Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Casual Sex, edited by
Marcia Munson and Judith P. Stelboum, PhD (Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 1999). “Offers reasonable, logical,
and persuasive explanations for a style of life I had not seriously considered before....Aterrific
read.” (Beverly Todd, Acquisitions Librarian, Estes Park Public Library, Estes Park, Colorado)

Publisher’s Note
The Haworth Press is committed to the dissemination of ideas and
information according to the highest standards of intellectual
freedom and the free exchange of ideas. Statements made and
opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the
views of the Publisher, Directors, management, or staff of The
Haworth Press, Inc., or an endorsement by them.
For more information or to order
the Journal of Lesbian Studies,
visit http://jls.haworthpress.com
• or call (800) HAWORTH (in US and Canada) or
(607) 722-5857 (outside US and Canada)
• or fax (800) 895-0582 (in US and Canada) or
(607) 771-0012 (outside US and Canada)
For a list of related links,
visit http://jls.haworthpress.com
Urge your library to subscribe today!
With your library’s print subscription,
the electronic edition of the journal can
be made available campus-wide to all
of the library’s users!
ALL HARRINGTON PARK PRESS BOOKS
AND JOURNALS ARE PRINTED
ON CERTIFIED ACID-FREE PAPER

“Lesbians” in East Asia:
Diversity, Identities,
and Resistance
Diana Khor, PhD
Saori Kamano, PhD
Guest Editors
Journal of Lesbian Studies
Volume 10, Numbers 3/4
Harrington Park Press®
An Imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.

EDITOR
ESTHER D. ROTHBLUM, Women’s Studies Department, San Diego State University
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
ROSALIE ROBERTS, San Diego State University
EDITORIAL BOARD
KIMBERLY F. BALSAM, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Washington.
LISA BOWLEG, PhD, is a social psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI.
PAMELA BRAND, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Oswego State University (SUNY),
focusing on applied areas of social psychology.
DEB BURGARD, PhD, is a clinical psychologist whose (San Francisco Bay area) practice focuses
on women’s experience of their bodies: sexuality, eating, activity, health, body image, and
relationships.
LISA M. DIAMOND, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the
University of Utah, where she investigates the long-term development of sexual attractions,
behaviors, relationships, and identities of sexual-minority women.
SUZANNE DIBBLE, RN, DNSc, is Professor and Co-Director of the Lesbian Health Research
Center at the Institute for Health & Aging, School of Nursing, University of California, San
Francisco.
IZABELA FILIPIAK is a novelist, a poet, and a historian; presently she is an affiliated scholar at
Beatrice Bain Research Group, University of California at Berkeley.
NOREEN GIFFNEY, PhD, is Faculty of Arts Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s Studies, School of
Social Justice at University College Dublin, Ireland.
RUTH L. HALL, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and Professor of Psychology at The College of
New Jersey.
SAORI KAMANO, PhD, has a background in sociology and is a senior researcher at National
Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
DIANA KHOR, PhD, has a background in sociology and is a professor at Hosei University, Tokyo,
Japan.
VALORY MITCHELL, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and a practicing clinical psychologist with
research interests in women’s lifespan development and in lesbian couples and families.
BONNIE MORRIS, PhD, is an author and historian who teaches women’s studies at both
Georgetown and George Washington University.
KATHERINE O’DONNELL lectures in Women’s Studies at the School of Social Justice in
University College Dublin, Ireland.
SARAH F. PEARLMAN, PsyD, is Associate Professor in the Doctoral Program in Clinical
Psychology at the University of Hartford and the author of several articles and book chapters
on lesbian relationships.
TINEKE RITMEESTER, PhD, is a Dutch feminist activist in Duluth, where she teaches in the
Women’s Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, and lives in an
intergenerational communal lesbian household.

The Harrington Park Press Imprint Team
Imprint Coordinator: Stacey Scarba, Senior Production Editor
Senior Production Editor: Julie Ehlers
Production Editor: Jennifer Edwards
Typesetting Manager, Senior Typesetter: Roxanne Cook

MARKETING DIVISION
Sandra Jones Sickels, VP, Marketing
Margaret Tatich, Sales/Publicity Manager
Paul Deamer, Assistant Sales/Publicity Manager/
Conferences and Exhibits Manager
Beth Arnold, International Sales Director
Becky Miller-Baum, Director, Office of Knowledge
Management
Christie Peterson, Advertising Manager
Michelle Savory, Society Liaison Manager
Timothy Bronstein, Internet Marketing Director
Marylouise Doyle, Cover Design Director
Sue Hoyt, Foreign Rights Coordinator
Janice Hoag, Art Production Manager
THE HAWORTH INFORMATION PRESS JOURNALS
Shelley Brutosky, Imprint Coordinator,
Senior Production Editor
Arleen Dallachiesa, Senior Production Editor
Tammy Enama, Production Editor
Patty Zoshak, Typesetting Support, MIS Liaison
THE HAWORTH PRESS JOURNALS
THE HAWORTH MEDICAL PRESS JOURNALS
Nancy Colpitts, Imprint Coordinator, Senior Production Editor
Diane Stauffer, Senior Production Editor
Stephanie Paladino, Senior Production Editor
April Schaefer, Senior Typesetter
Sheila Stauffer, Senior Typesetter
BOOK DIVISION
THE HAWORTH PRESS JOURNALS
THE HAWORTH PASTORAL PRESS JOURNALS
Patricia Brown, Editorial Production Manager
THE HAWORTH MALTREATMENT & TRAUMA PRESS
Rebecca Browne, Scheduling/Project Manager,
Naomi Fanning, Imprint Coordinator,
Book Division
Senior Production Editor
Robin Hall, E-Text Production Manager
Barbara Paladino, Senior Production Editor
Margaret Marr, Senior Book Production Editor
Sarah Godumski, Production Editor
Robert Owen, Contract Coordinator, Publications April Schaefer, Senior Typesetter
Amy Rentner, Senior Production Editor
THE HAWORTH PRESS JOURNALS
THE HAWORTH HOSPITALITY PRESS JOURNALS
JOURNAL DIVISION
BEST BUSINESS BOOKS JOURNALS
Zella Ondrey, Vice President of Publications
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PRESS JOURNALS
Karen Richardson, Journal Production Manager Cynthia Fedak, Imprint Coordinator,
Senior Production Editor
Diane Fidishin, Senior Production Editor
CHARTER ISSUES
Michael Picciano, Senior Production Editor
Shelley Brutosky, Charter Issue Specialist,
Patty Zoshak, Typesetting Support, MIS Liaison
Senior Production Editor
Roxanne Cook, Typesetting Manager, Senior Typesetter THE HAWORTH PRESS JOURNALS
HARRINGTON PARK PRESS JOURNALS
JOURNAL PRE-PRODUCTION
ALICE STREET EDITIONS
Linda Woolf, Pre-Production Coordinator
SOUTHERN TIER EDITIONS
Linda Mantush, Pre-Production Assistant
HAWORTH POSITRONIC PRESS
Thomas J. Mayshock, Art Coordinator
THE HAWORTH INFORMATION PRESS JOURNALS
Debbie Gattine, Data Conversion Specialist
Stacey Scarba, Imprint Coordinator, Senior
Production Editor
JOURNAL ADMINISTRATION
Julie Ehlers, Senior Production Editor
Jennifer Edwards, Production Editor
Danielle Wiley, Scheduling Manager,
Roxanne Cook, Typesetting Manager, Senior Typesetter
Senior Administrative Assistant
Lynn Ferry, Administrative Assistant
Denise Katinsky, Administrative Assistant
ADMINISTRATION
to the Vice President
Linda Pugliese, Office Coordinator
Bill Cohen, Publisher
Roger Hall, Senior Vice President
THE HAWORTH PRESS JOURNALS
THE HAWORTH MEDICAL PRESS JOURNALS
PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS PRESS JOURNALS
HAWORTH FOOD & AGRICULTURAL
PRODUCTS PRESS JOURNALS
S. Singh, PhD, Managing Editor
U. Singh, PhD, Imprint Coordinator, Senior Production Editor
Jeffrey L. Wagner, Senior Production Editor
Eric Kushmeder, Production Editor
Christy Strohl, Senior Typesetter

Indexing, Abstracting &
Website/Internet Coverage
Journal of Lesbian Studies
This section provides you with a list of major indexing & abstracting
services and other tools for bibliographic access. That is to
say, each service began covering this periodical during the year
noted in the right column. Most Websites which are listed below
have indicated that they will either post, disseminate, compile,
archive, cite or alert their own Website users with research-based
content from this work. (This list is as current as the copyright date
of this publication.)
Abstracting, Website/Indexing Coverage . . . . . . . . . Year When Coverage Began
• British Library Inside (The British Library)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
• Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Psychology
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts is a leading publisher of
scientific information in print journals, online databases,
CD-ROM and via the Internet) . . . . . . . . . 2006
• Contemporary Women’s Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1998
• EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service (EJS)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001
• Elsevier Scopus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2005
• Family & Society Studies Worldwide . . . . . . 2001
• Family Index Database . . . . . . . . . 2003
• Feminist Periodicals: A Current Listing of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• GenderWatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999
• GLBT Life, EBSCO Publishing
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
(continued)

• Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
• Google Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
• Haworth Document Delivery Center
. . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• HOMODOK/“Relevant” Bibliographic database,
Documentation Centre for Gay & Lesbian Studies,
University of Amsterdam (selective printed abstracts
in “Homologie” and bibliographic computer databases
covering cultural, historical, social & political aspects)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• (IBR) International Bibliography of Book Reviews
on the Humanities and Social Sciences (Thomson)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
• (IBZ) International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
on the Humanities and Social Sciences (Thomson)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001
• IGLSS Abstracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2000
• Index to Periodical Articles Related to Law
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• Internationale Bibliographie der geistes- und
sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur . . . See IBZ
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001
• Lesbian Information Service
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2003
• Links@Ovid (via CrossRef targeted DOI links)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2005
• MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
• Ovid Linksolver (OpenURL link resolver via CrossRef targeted
DOI links) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2005
• Psychological Abstracts (PsycINFO) . . . . . . . 2001
• Psychology Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999
• Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) International
(Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• PubMed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
(continued)

• Referativnyi Zhurnal (Abstracts Journal of the All-Russian Institute
of Scientific and Technical Information–in Russian)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997
• Scopus (Elsevier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2005
• Sexual Diversity Studies: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender
Abstracts (EBSCO)
. . . . . . . . . . . 2003
• Social Services Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1998
• Sociological Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Absracts)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1998
• Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1998
• zetoc (The British Library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004
Bibliographic Access
• Magazines for Libraries (Katz) (see 2003 edition)
Special Bibliographic Notes related to special journal issues
(separates) and indexing/abstracting:
• indexing/abstracting services in this list will also cover material in any
“separate” that is co-published simultaneously with Haworth’s special
thematic journal issue or DocuSerial. Indexing/abstracting usually covers
material at the article/chapter level.
• monographic co-editions are intended for either non-subscribers or libraries
which intend to purchase a second copy for their circulating collections.
• monographic co-editions are reported to all jobbers/wholesalers/approval
plans. The source journal is listed as the “series” to assist the prevention
of duplicate purchasing in the same manner utilized for books-in-series.
• to facilitate user/access services all indexing/abstracting services are
encouraged to utilize the co-indexing entry note indicated at the bottom of
the first page of each article/chapter/contribution.
• this is intended to assist a library user of any reference tool (whether print,
electronic, online, or CD-ROM) to locate the monographic version if the
library has purchased this version but not a subscription to the source journal.
• individual articles/chapters in any Haworth publication are also available
through the Haworth Document Delivery Service (HDDS).

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
GUEST-EDITED ISSUES
OF THE JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES
If you are interested in guest editing a thematic issue of the
Journal, please send a letter describing your topic of interest
and your own scholarship in that area. All thematic
issues of the Journal also appear simultaneously in book
form, published by Harrington Park Press (the book affiliate
of The Haworth Press, Inc.).
Finally, if you’re interested in reviewing manuscripts
and/or writing book reviews for the Journal, please let the
editor know your areas of expertise.
Contact:
Esther D. Rothblum, PhD
Editor
Journal of Lesbian Studies
San Diego State University
Women’s Studies Department
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92812-8138
erothblu@mail.sdsu.edu

FORTHCOMING
JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES
Lesbian Studies After The Lesbian Postmodern:
Toward a New Genealogy
A Lesbian-Feminist Journey Through Queer Nation
A Seat at the Table: Some Unpalatable Thoughts on Shame,
Envy and Hate in Institutional Cultures
Queer Paradox/Paradoxical Queer: Ann Garréta’s Pas un Jour
Being Faithful: The Ethics of Homoaffection
in Antonia Forest’s Marlow Novels
Fragmented Identities, Frustrated Politics: Transsexuals,
Lesbians ‘Queer’
Of Hyacinths
Rescuing Lesbian Camp
Feminist Theorizing as ‘Transposed Autobiography’
Post-Lesbian? Not Yet
Through the Looking Glass: A ’70s Lesbian Feminist
Considers Queer Theory
Rescuing Lesbian Camp
Refusing to Make Sense: Mapping the In-Coherences of Trans

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS
Diana Khor grew up in Hong Kong, received her doctorate in Sociology
at Stanford University in California, U.S.A., and is now a professor
in Hosei University in Tokyo. She teaches a variety of classes related to
race, class, and gender and does research related to the social construction
of gender, broadly conceived. She recently completed an analysis
of housework division among lesbian and gay couples in Sweden
(forthcoming, Journal of GLBT Family Studies), and is currently working
on a project on the development of Women’s and Gender Studies in
Japan.
Saori Kamano obtained her PhD in Sociology at Stanford University
with a dissertation entitled Same-Sex Sexual/Intimate Relationships: A
Cross-National Analysis of the Interlinkages among Naming, the Gender
System, and Gay and Lesbian Resistance Activities. Recently, she
has been working on papers and conference presentations on lesbians in
Japan on topics such as housework division of couples, the social construction
of “couples” in the community, the meaning of “coming out”
for individuals and couples, as well as how the social environment affects
daily lives of gays and lesbians in Sweden and Japan. She is a senior
researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social
Security Research in Tokyo, and her research interests are Families,
Sexualities and Gender.

“Lesbians” in East Asia:
Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Journal of Lesbian Studies
Volume 10, Numbers 3/4
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Diana Khor
Saori Kamano
The Research Pendulum: Multiple Roles and Responsibilities
as a Researcher 11
Denise Tse Shang Tang
Qualitative research on sexual identities has highlighted the use of oral narratives
to understand the lives of lesbians and gay men. Feminist ethnographers, sociologists
and queer theorists have further posed methodological inquiries to the issues
of insider/outsider, the possibilities of an erotic subject and the matter of
representation. Using interview data with Hong Kong lesbians, this paper discusses
a researcher’s multiple positionalities and its effects on both the researched
and the researcher. Being self-reflexive requires a researcher to test her or his own
boundaries and to take up social responsibilities as the interpreter of texts. This paper
calls for further dialogue between a researcher’s subject positions, research
processes and the final presentation of findings.
KEYWORDS. Qualitative research, oral narratives, Hong Kong lesbians, representation,
insider/outsider, feminist methodology
Beyond Identity Politics: The Making of an Oral History
of Hong Kong Women Who Love Women 29
Day Wong
Oral history has long been an important resource for lesbian and other underprivileged
groups in advancing identity politics. While there is an increased awareness
of social construction of identity and the impact of race and class on the experiences
of sexual identities, oral historians have yet to rethink their task in view of
poststructuralists’ and queer theorists’ critique of identity. This paper examines

the “Oral History Project of Hong Kong Women Who Love Women” as an attempt
to construct histories that respect difference and minimize normalization. It discusses
the project’s significance in terms of its subversion of the heterosexual/homosexual
binary and its queering of the notions of identity, community and coming
out. The critique unfolded is one of anti-assimilation and anti-minoritization.
KEYWORDS. Identity politics, queer, lesbian, oral history, Hong Kong
Beyond Pain and Protection: Politics of Identity and Iban Girls
in Korea 49
Ji-eun Lee
This study analyzes the complexities in the exploration of iban girls’ identities and
the various ways how girls appropriate varied sources such as popular culture to
examine the heterogeneousness of identity explorations and rethink the politics
of identities. Against the tendency in current discourse on homosexual youth in
Korea, protection discourse and pain discourse, the notion of identity itself will
be critically examined and the girls’ agency in destabilizing heteronormativity
will be discussed. This study also deals with the appropriation of popular culture
by the girls, suggesting that cultural critiques should reveal complex dynamics in
concrete experiences.
KEYWORDS. Popular culture, queer, iban, youth protection, identity politics
The Politics of “Disregarding”: Addressing Zainichi Issues
Within the Lesbian Community in Japan 69
Yuriko Iino
This article discusses the difference in positionality between Japanese lesbians and
Zainichi (literally, “resident in Japan”) Korean lesbians. The author first presents a
narrative written by a Zainichi Korean lesbian, in which she expresses her anger toward
Japanese lesbians. Setting her narrative as a starting point, the author retraces
the controversial incident that occurred during the second Asian Lesbian Network
(ALN) conference that was held in Japan in 1992. Through a re-reading of a series
of narratives with regard to the second conference, the author demonstrates how the
unequal power relations between Japanese lesbians and Zainichi Korean lesbians
operate in what she calls the politics of “disregarding,” where Zainichi Korean lesbians
are continuously omitted from the consciousness of Japanese lesbians.
KEYWORDS. Anger, narrative, positionality, power relations, disregarding,
Zainichi Korean, lesbians in Japan
Noras on the Road: Family and Marriage of Lesbian Women
in Shanghai 87
Lucetta Yip Lo Kam
During the past decade, we have witnessed the rise of Shanghai as a new metropolitan
centre in China. The city has also become one of the most vibrant sites of
lesbian community in the country. The author interviewed 20 lesbian women in the

city in 2005. It is found that almost all of the women interviewed are experiencing the
pressure of social conformity most severely from their immediate family, and the social
expectation of marriage. In this paper, the author demonstrates the conflicts of
family and marriage that many of the informants have encountered and how the hegemony
of heterosexuality is still securely reproduced and carried out through the
discourses of family and marriage in contemporary urban China, and finally, how
the informants deal with the controls enacted by the institution of heterosexuality.
KEYWORDS. Lesbians in Shanghai, family, marriage, homosexuality in China,
institution of heterosexuality
Lesbian Mothers in Japan: An Insider’s Report 105
Keiko Arita
This report introduces Remaza-Kansai, a lesbian mother group in Japan based in
the Kansai area, their activities, and the lives of some of the participants in the activities
based on interviews by the author. Remaza-Kansai organizes activities and
special events for lesbian mothers and their children. It also manages a website
and operates a bulletin board for lesbian mothers. In the interviews, it is found that
besides the lack of legal recognition of lesbian mothers not biologically connected
to the children, they also experience difficulties relating to schools. Another issue
requiring further inquiry is how lesbian mothers “come out” to their children.
KEYWORDS. Lesbians, lesbian mothers, lesbian mothers in Japan, children of
lesbian mothers, custody, children’s welfare
Lesbians in China’s Mainland: A Brief Introduction 113
Yaya Chen
Yiqing Chen
This paper describes and introduces lesbians’ lives and the relevant research in
China’s Mainland. The first part shows the slow development of lesbian culture in
the form of literature, films and documentaries. Although lesbians’ lives were reflected
more or less in modern literature, the “true” lesbian novel was published
only recently. Relevant films and documentaries were never shown to the public in
China. Lesbian culture is still unevenly developed and remains negligible. The first
part also describes lesbian research in the field of literature, psychiatry and sociology.
The relevant research in literature is relatively systematic and rich, while
that in psychiatry is fraught with discrimination and that in sociology is relatively
weak. The second part presents the observation and analysis of lesbian Internet
communities. It deals with lesbians’ self-identity, role differentiation, sentiments
and sexuality. Among them, role differentiation plays an important part in lesbians’
lives though few researchers have studied it. Most lesbian organizations
founded on the strength of Internet communication lack experience and resources
and have little influence on the masses. Some lesbians are accepted by the public,
but in return, they compromise to some popular values. This is extremely disadvantageous
to those who are unwilling to give in. At the end of the paper, the first author
expresses her future plan that she will continue her study on lesbian culture
under the help of Internet observation and various activities.
KEYWORDS. Lesbian, China’s mainland, lesbian culture, network, communities,
tomboy

Lesbian Discourses in Mainstream Magazines
of Post-War Japan: Is Onabe Distinct from Rezubian? 127
Ikuko Sugiura
This paper elucidates the changes in the meanings associated with the term
rezubian (the Japanese term for “lesbian”) through an analysis of its discourse in
magazines for general readership published in post-war Japan. The category of
“rezubian” first appeared in mainstream magazines in the 1960s as a generic category
that referred to both “masculinized women” and “women who engage in
sexual acts with other women.” Masculinized women, in particular, were called
“onabe.” At first “onabe” denoted “a tachi rezubian,” meaning a lesbian who
plays “top,” but gradually a distinction came to be made between “rezubian who
are onabe” and “rezubian who aren’t.” The early 1990s saw the differentiation of
“onabe” as a category distinct from that of “rezubian.” Focusing particularly on
this process of differentiation, this paper traces the transitions in the signifying
practices pertaining to the category rezubian.
KEYWORDS. Signifying practices pertaining to the category rezubian (lesbian),
onabe, FTMTS (female-to-male transsexual), post-war Japan, analysis of magazine
discourse
Possibilities and Limitations of “Lesbian Continuum”:
The Case of a Protestant Church in Japan 145
Yuri Horie
“Lesbian existence” is still invisible in Japanese society, although Japan is portrayed
as being “tolerant” toward homosexuality. However, there is strong activism
that tries to make lesbians visible. An example is Christian women’s activism
against homophobic discourses in the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ/
Kyodan) which is a denomination of Protestant Churches in Japan. This case helps
us analyse the positionality of lesbians in the discourses of Christianity in a non-
Christian society, Japan. Introduced to English-speaking audiences for the first
time, this case shows clearly that the forces which produce the exclusion of lesbians
and gays do not only have a religious origin but also a social background. This
particular religious-social context sets the gay men as the object of discrimination
but brings forth resistance activism by women-lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals.
Such women’s activism against homophobia is analyzed as an example of the
“lesbian continuum” (Adrienne Rich) and the possibilities and limitations of the
continuum are explored.
KEYWORDS. Lesbian existence, Christianity in Japan, lesbian continuum, solidarity
of women, inclusion/exclusion, invisibility
The Lesbian Rights Movement and Feminism in South Korea 161
Soo Jin Park-Kim (Park Tong)
Soo Youn Lee-Kim (Siro)
Eun Jung Kwon-Lee (Yuri)
The lesbians’ rights movement in South Korea has undertaken various projects for
solidarity with feminist movement groups for over 10 years. In spite of these ef-

BOOK REVIEWS
forts, lesbian issues have been blatantly excluded from all the agendas of women’s
rights. The same thing has happened in Women’s Studies. Some feminists express
homophobic thoughts without understanding the reality of lesbians, and other
young scholars take on a lesbian identity temporarily as a sign of being progressive
and liberated; in neither situation are they committed to dealing with
the oppression of lesbians or seeing lesbian rights as a feminist concern. In order
to further lesbian rights there are two strategies possible: forming a movement
only for lesbians or forming solidarity with feminists. In the latter case, a
concern about lesbian rights will help achieve the goals of a true feminism as patriarchy
is built upon heterosexism.
KEYWORDS. Lesbian rights movement in South Korea, Lesbian Institute for Lesbians,
Korean Women Sexual Minority Rights Organization Kirikiri, Lesbian counseling
center, feminist movement, women’s studies
Wild Woman: Natalie Barney Gives Up a Few Secrets:
Wild Heart, a Life: Natalie Clifford Barney
and the Decadence of Literary Paris, by Suzanne Rodriguez,
and Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho, and Art: The Lives
and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks,
by Diana Souhami 191
Reviewed by Mary Eichbauer
Directing Dangerous Damas: With Her Machete in Her Hand:
Reading Chicana Lesbians by Catrióna Rueda Esquibel 197
Reviewed by Sara E. Cooper and Rosa A. Martinez

Introduction
Diana Khor
Saori Kamano
In 2005, we did something very unusual: we attended two international
conferences in Asia, “Women’s Worlds 2005” in Seoul, Korea,
and the “First International Conference of Asian Queer Studies” in
Bangkok, Thailand. 1 It was unusual not only for us personally–conferences
we attended so far have been in the United States or Europe–but
also because both were first of their kind in Asia. It was the ninth time
the former has been held, but the first time in an Asian city; the latter is
obviously the first such conference for “Asian Queer Studies.” The timing
of these conferences could not have been better–we were just looking
for papers for this special collection on East Asia. However, more
than connecting us with academics, activists and academics-cum-activists,
the work of some of whom appears in this volume, the conferences
turned out to be a great learning experience for us, not only offering us
invaluable information and insights related to genders and sexualities in
Asia, but more importantly perhaps, prompting us to think more seriously
about the meaning of “Asia,” Asian scholarship and activism, and
genders and sexualities in Asian contexts.
Asia, even as a geographical entity, is not clearly delineated. There
are questions as to where Asia begins and where it ends. Further, Asia as
Diana Khor is Professor at Hosei University in Tokyo.
Saori Kamano is Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social
Security Research in Tokyo.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Introduction.” Khor, Diana, and Saori Kamano. Co-published
simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press,
Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 1-9; and: “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed:
Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 1-9.
Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service
[1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_01 1

2 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
a category and Asian as an identity are also constructed. For example,
Mary John, a feminist scholar in India, pointed out that while its
roots can be traced to a century ago, “Asia” is being promoted anew
in recent years, replacing its predecessor of “Third World” as an
oppositional category to “the West,” but which seems to be conceived
to include only “successful” countries (John 2005). Among these “successful”
countries are those grouped under “East Asia,” namely Japan,
Korea, China (including Hong Kong and Macau), and Taiwan. These
countries share geographical proximity and have an intertwined history
characterized by exchange as well as domination and subordination,
and many unresolved historical issues still affect the relationship between
countries and peoples. An example of such complexity is captured
in Yuriko Iino’s 2 work in this collection. She explores the
complexity of the camaraderie of Asian lesbians, particularly in opposition
to “the West,” the anxiety of Japanese lesbians about the position of
Japan (as oppressors during the war), and the anger of Zainichi lesbians
(Japanese residents of Korean descent) about their invisibility in the
Japanese lesbian community.
Why did we choose to focus on East Asia? We have personal reasons
for choosing this focus: both of us trace our roots to East Asia. We also
have academic, and perhaps political, reasons also. Feminists in Asia
who are active in the academe are mostly Western-educated in their
home countries, or more likely, in the United States and Western Europe.
Such a pattern no doubt testifies to the long history of the exposure
of these countries to the West, as well as the hegemony of the West in
the production of knowledge. Having extensive experiences in the West
and returning to our roots, many of us are, to use Patricia Hill Collins’s
(1991) term, “outsiders within,” as Denise Tang explores in depth in her
work in this collection on doing research on lesbians in Hong Kong. At
the same time, it also indicates valuable resources that can be tapped to
build a more equal contribution to shared knowledge about Asia by researching
and writing about Asia and publishing and presenting the
work in English. As Kazuko Tanaka, a feminist educator in Japan, has
said at a talk on starting a Gender Studies at a university, 3 instead of just
bringing Western scholarship to Asia, scholars and academics in Asia 4
are ready to disseminate scholarship on Asia to “the West.” This is not a
one-way passage, however. English is a common language among
Asians as well. Many Asian academics and activists are better in English
than in other Asian languages; indeed, some Hong Kong Chinese,
as Cantonese-speakers, use English in communicating with Mandarinspeaking
Chinese in Taiwan and China! Needless to say, almost all our

Introduction 3
correspondence for this collection has been conducted in English. Putting
this special collection together facilitates communication among
Asian activists and academics.
Many contributors to this volume do not generally publish in English,
and yet the work they do and the experiences they have as activists
can contribute so much to extant research and politics in the West, and
we feel privileged to have this chance to bring in their work in a form
that is accessible to an audience who use English. We do feel a special
responsibility in presenting, and hence also representing, “Asia Lesbian/Queer
Studies” to the West and also to Asia. Denise Tang concurs
in her piece on methodological issues related to her multiple
positionalities vis-à-vis the participants in her research on lesbians in
Hong Kong, noting the far-reaching possible positive and negative consequences
in view of the limited scholarship in the area compounded by
the globalizing potential of presenting the current work in English. At
the same time, we believe that the more Asian academics and activists
speak, the more diverse the voices we can hear, the less the responsibility
and burden on anyone or any one book having to represent all. Indeed,
by compiling this special collection on East Asia, we are not
trying to show what is “unique” about Asia, or what “Asia” has in common
with the West. We try to avoid a “regional” comparison or fall into
the trap of classifying “Asian knowledge” as specific knowledge (as
“Area studies”), which would imply accepting research developed from
the West, and the United States in particular, as “generalizable knowledge”
that has no need for contextualization (Oyewumi 1998). Instead,
we consider it more important to appreciate the complexity and to see
points of connection, for example, in how coalition and cooperation are
possible across cultures, within Asia and between Asia and other regions
of the world.
The papers in this collection are based on research or are about activities
taking place in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. 5 The
foci of the papers are diverse, but a few themes or issues emerge. Rather
than previewing the papers sequentially, we’d like to tease out certain
threads that run through these papers to illustrate shared concerns as
well as diverse perspectives and contexts.
It is realistic not to expect easy lives for lesbians in Asia, or elsewhere.
6 In a joint paper on lesbian rights and feminism in Korea with
Soo Youn Lee-Kim and Eun Jung Kwon-Lee, Soo Jin Park-Kim reports
that a sizeable number of the 561 lesbians surveyed in Seoul and Busan
in Korea have suffered emotionally in family, work and school contexts
and found it difficult to come out. About half have experienced “self-

4 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
denial.” In Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen’s analysis of Internet exchanges
in China, there are also lesbians who feel that they should keep
a low profile and others who disdain a lesbian lifestyle. In her study of
the “lalas” in Shanghai, Lucetta Kam points out that gender inequality
makes it difficult for lesbians to be economically self-sufficient. Further,
the strict societal norm of marriage that essentially makes marriage
a pre-requisite to adulthood, on top of social and economic liabilities,
renders “singlehood” (i.e., not being attached to a man) a stressful existence,
especially when parents take it upon themselves to enforce the
norm of marriage as state control diminishes. Writing as an activist in a
lesbian mothers’ group in Japan, Remaza-Kansai, Keiko Arita shows
the isolation of lesbian mothers and the unsupportive legal and school
environment in which they and their children find themselves.
All the evidence of discrimination and hardship notwithstanding, the
larger environment is not overtly hostile. Soo Jin Park-Kim asserts that
rather than hostile, Korean society is ignorant about homosexuality and
homosexuals. That discrimination against lesbians is frequently not obvious
and hence harder to address is conveyed in the much touted “tolerance”
of Japan towards homosexuals, which Yuri Horie debunks as a
mere failure to name homosexuality 7 and a focus on gay men to the neglect
of lesbians. In some way, it is also similar to the larger context of
Mainland China Lucetta Kam describes, where a lesbian way of living
is concealed beneath severe marital norms and at times hidden in heterosexual
marriage, suggesting perhaps silencing rather than tacit approval.
While lesbians might be invisible in the public discourse about discrimination
and inequality, there are public representations of lesbians,
with positive and negative effects. Ikuko Sugiura traces the
“signifying practice” that marks “rezubian” in mainstream magazines
in post-war Japan: the representation of lesbians gives them visibility,
and the stereotypes are also open to intervention by lesbians themselves,
as happened in the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, a sympathetic
representation in the mainstream society could also have a
“pathetic” edge to it, leading to patronizing rhetoric emphasizing the
pain homosexual youths suffer and the need to support them, as happened
in Korea, according to Ji-eun Lee. Similarly, Day Wong warns
against the “othering” of “non-conventional” members of the gay and
lesbian community as one effect of a strategy adopted by Hong Kong
activists that emphasizes the comparable respectability of gays and lesbians
to heterosexuals. Ji-eun Lee further cautions that representation in
the popular press or popular culture also risks turning homosexuality

Introduction 5
into something that can be “consumed,” as is the case of fiction about
love between boys in Korea. Soo Youn Lee-Kim notes that
“academicalization” could have the same effect, turning lesbian issues
into topics for narrow academic theorization of sexual politics and lesbians
into a symbol of sexual liberation, in total disregard of the life circumstances
of “real-life” lesbians.
The distinction between “representation” (by others) and “self-representation”
(identification) is not necessarily clear-cut. Differences, diversity,
and identity/identities are important issues for our authors. At
times, differences are seen in terms of oppositions by the authors or by
the parties involved, as “old-fashioned (role-playing) rezubians” vs.
“new (non-role-playing) rezubians” in Ikuko Sugiura’s analysis of the
representation of lesbians, “lesbian-feminists or political lesbians vs.
lesbians” or “four-year-lesbians vs. lesbians” in Soo Youn Lee-Kim’s
analysis, or “fanfic iban vs. authentic iban” in Ji-eun Lee’s analysis. At
times the differences are rooted in history, as Yuriko Iino notes with respect
to the tension between zainichi lesbians and Japanese lesbians,
who are differentially positioned in a power relationship rooted in a history
of ethnic inequality. On a different level of analysis, Denise Tang
notes the different positionalities of the researcher vis-à-vis the participants
in her research, which are related to economic status, the power
relationship embedded in research, and the different roles the researcher
takes on in the research process.
It is impossible to discuss diversity without entering into a discussion
of identity, and when identity is discussed, the issue of identity politics.
In addition to “lesbians” and “queers,” other categories of identities
based largely in the local languages have evolved in Asia and a
few authors have taken up and analyzed the implications of these terms.
Terms change over time and can “clarify” identity categories. Ikuko
Sugiura analyzes how the “onabe” changes from a “sub-category” of
masculinized rezubians to a category distinct from rezubians in the
mainstream media, hence changing the characterization of rezubians.
Identity categories could be liberating and/or oppressive, depending on
contexts and how they interact with other forms of inequality and oppression.
There are gender categories like T’s and P’s, but also a
bufen–non-classified–category, as Lucetta Kam observes in Shanghai.
Comparable identity categories like TB, TBG, and “pure” are also
found in Hong Kong, but Day Wong notes that these categories are consciously
redefined and challenged, as shown by one interviewer who
identifies as a tomboy and yet has long hair and wears lipstick. Yaya
Chen and Yiqing Chen tell us that gender categories of “Tomboy” and

6 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
“Po,” “popular” among younger lesbians but not among older ones in
China, are fluid identities that can change within the same person over
time. On the other hand, women in relatively powerful positions can
also usurp a minority identity like “lesbian,” as Soo Youn Lee-Kim suggests
with respect to “four-year lesbians” in college who see and display
the “lesbian” label as a mark of sexual liberation.
It is indeterminate as to whether an identity is used constructively or
abused. However, regardless of the positive or negative implications,
some authors have expressed their skepticism about politics based on
identities. Day Wong argues that exclusion is created/built in once an
identity is made and claimed: the “us-queers” vs. “you-non-queers” opposition
still keeps our thinking binary and does not allow for any ambiguity
in between. Similarly, Ji-eun Lee criticizes how young iban
distinguish themselves as “authentic,” apart from ibans who are merely
into popular homosexual fiction or who dress up as the characters in it.
She argues that such distinction continues the oppressive binary division
between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Further, the same ostensible
“identity” does not capture the diversity of experience: there is
no one single lesbian identity narrative but plural ways of
contextualizing one’s experiences using the term iban or lesbian. Ji-eun
Lee offers an alternative of exploring the multiple experiences that are
connected to the iban identity. Day Wong, on the other hand, highlights
the strategy adopted by the Hong Kong oral history project to be inclusive
by naming itself the oral history project of “Women Who Love
Women,” hence giving voice to self-identified lesbians and at the
same time respecting differences and minimizing the normalization of
any one identity. Indeed, she points out that heterosexual women who
acknowledge their desire for women could be subversive, emphasizing
treating women’s desires as “ordinary feeling,” without losing
sight of the differences among women. In a different way, the quotations
Lucetta Kam cites from her interviews illustrate the strong emotions
embedded in familial ties and provide a context in which to
understand the difficult choices each woman makes whether to marry
heterosexually or not, and whether to come out or not, regardless of
their identities. Similarly, Keiko Arita is adamant about recognizing
lesbian mothers as a diverse group, including women of various marital
experiences, partnership status, methods of conceiving children, living
arrangements, and so on.
These discussions of identity politics both among individual women
and through the work of these researchers lead us to consider the issue
of resistance. In particular, the possibility of coalition with gay activists

Introduction 7
and feminist activists is explored in quite a few papers. Some of the activities
of Keiko Arita’s Remaza-Kansai are modeled after those of gay
and lesbian family groups, even though it is a lesbian mothers’ group
without gay men’s involvement. Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen, Yuri
Horie, Soo Jin Park-Kim and Eun Jung Kwon-Lee all note the problems
of cooperating with gay activists in their particular contexts, referring to
the inequality between women and men in a patriarchal society. Their positions
regarding coalitions with feminists and other women vary. Yuri
Horie emphasizes the solidarity of women while recognizing the differences
among them, using the concept of the lesbian continuum in
women’s resistance movement against sexism and homophobia in the
United Church in Japan. Her idea of solidarity of women through an affirmation
of lesbian existence resonates with Soo Jin Park-Kim and Eun
Jung Kwon-Lee in their vision of a stronger, more embracing feminism,
and in Soo Youn Lee-Kim’s refusal to uncritically classify “lesbians” as a
“sexual minority.” They relate negative experiences and conflicts in Korea
between lesbian activists and feminists, especially feminist academics,
and express anger against mainstream feminism and women’s studies
for their lack of understanding of lesbians and turning lesbianism into
posh politics or academic discourse only. That “anger” can be turned into
positive energy of resistance is emphasized by Yuri Horie in discussing
women’s mobilization against sexism and homophobia in the United
Church, and also by Yuriko Iino in her hope that the incident involving a
zainichi lesbian who was angered by their unconscious exclusion in the
“Japanese lesbian community” could be turned into an opportunity for
communication and coalition, citing Audre Lorde that “anger between
peers births change.” Similarly, Eun-Jung Kwon-Lee also holds out a
hope for feminism’s incorporating lesbian issues into their agenda, but
she does not rule out the possibility or coexistence of “separatist” (our
term) lesbian politics, referring to the success of Ewha Womans University
as a model.
Our discussion here does not do justice to the work in this collection, as
readers will no doubt find out very quickly. Readers will encounter many
new terms, including rezubian, onabe, iban, lala, Tonzhi–largely translatable
into “lesbians”–not to mention terms denoting gender roles such as
tachi, neko, t (tomboy), p (po), TB, TBG, bufen, pure, and so on. Each has a
history and a context, and each has nuances that might be lost in a direct
translation. Importantly, these are not just terms and names but frequently
attempts to form a community without inadvertent exclusion built into it
and effort to affirm diversity without lapsing into meaningless pluralism.
Through the individual papers, we are sure that readers will understand and

8 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
feel the meanings of these diverse ways of capturing “women who love
women” in diffferent cultural contexts without leaping to a quick translation.
We have learned that the identity category of “lesbian” has to be
problematized. Similarly, the category of “East Asia,” or more generally
“Asia,” also needs to be problematized. This is not to say that it is meaningless
to refer to such categories or use such categorizations. It is that we always need
to keep questioning what we mean by “lesbian” and “Asia” so as not to institutionalize
these categories and inadvertently exclude areas and issues that are
important and relevant. Significant in this connection is also the fact that
most of the contributors to this collection are activists-cum-academics. What
they have written are based as much on vigorous academic research as on experiences
outside of the academe. They beseech us to take our responsibility
seriously as researchers and to contemplate the implications of our research
and writing, the impact they have on the people we study, namely “lesbians in
East Asia” in the present case. We hope that this collection will not just stay
as a volume that offers an “international” (i.e., “non-U.S.,” or “non-Western”)
perspective but will connect scholarship and activism of and about “lesbians”
in diverse contexts beyond the “East-West” division.
We’d like to end with a personal note. We’d like to thank Esther
Rothblum, the editor of the Journal of Lesbian Studies, for giving us
this chance to edit this collection. We felt privileged that we could bring
together interesting and thought-provoking work on lesbians in East
Asia that is little known outside of the local contexts, and, rare for editors,
we even had the privilege of meeting many of the contributors,
however briefly.
NOTES
1. The full name of the first conference is “Women’s Worlds 2005: 9th International Interdisciplinary
Congress on Women” and was held at Ewha Womans University, Seoul,
Korea, from June 19 to 24, 2005. It was the first time this conference was held in Asia. The
second conference is “Sexualities, Genders, and Rights in Asia: 1st International Conference
of Asian Queer Studies,” held in Bangkok, Thailand, from July 7 to 9, 2005.
2. Names in the introduction, as well as the content and title pages, are given in the
English convention of first name(s) followed by last name(s). This is a pragmatic decision
on our part to avoid confusion, but readers should note that many authors adhere to
their local convention of last name followed by first name(s) in the citations in their papers.
3. “Nichibei no daigaku kyouiku to jendaa” (University Education and Gender in Japan
and the United States), hosted by the GenEP Project in Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, on
December 7, 2005. Professor Kazuko Tanaka, the Director of the Center for Gender Studies
at International Christian University, Tokyo, was one of the invited speakers.
4. We are aware that there is a distinction between Asian scholars or academics and
scholars or academics in Asia. Suffice it to point out that at this historical juncture, we

Introduction 9
consider it most urgent and meaningful to introduce the work of Asian academics and
activists that is not available in English or known in the West.
5. Hong Kong ceased being a British colony and was “returned” to (the People’s Republic
of) China in 1997 and was given the status of a “special administrative zone” under
Chinese sovereignty. China proper is usually referred to as “Mainland China,” or as
our two Chinese contributors prefer, “China’s Mainland.” It is a pity that we did not
manage to solicit any contributions from Taiwan (The Republic of China), where studies
of sexualities have advanced a lot in the past decade. North Korea is the other country
in the region not “represented” in this volume.
6. Reporting on a large-scale survey conducted in 2005 in Hong Kong, Connie Chan
notes that about 39% of the 680 lesbian and bisexual women respondents have suffered
violence or harassment due to their sexual orientation from strangers, family members
and people in school or at work. The report is available through the Internet at http://
bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/papers.php. Comparable surveys have also been conducted
in Japan of 310 “non-heterosexual women” in the 1990s (Seiishiki Chousa Guruupu
1998) and of 234 “lesbians” in the 1980s (Hirosawa 1987).
7. In an earlier work, we also explored the consequences of naming or the lack of naming
of same-sex intimate relationships cross-culturally (see Kamano and Khor 1996).
REFERENCES
Chan, Connie. 2005. “Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Hongkong.” (http://
bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/papers.php).
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1991. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological
Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Pp. 35-59 in Beyond Methodology:
Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research, edited by M. M. Fonow and J. A. Cook.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hirosawa, Yumi. 1987. “Rezubian ripooto” (lesbian report). Pp. 149-285 in Onna wo
Aisuru Onnatachi no Monogatari (Stories of Women Who Love Women: The First
Lesbian Report in Japan Containing First-Hand Accounts of 234 Women),
Bessatsu Takarajima 64. Tokyo: JICC.
John, Mary E. 2005. “Women’s Studies in India and the Question of Asia: Some Reflections,”
International Symposium for 10th Anniversary of AJWS: Theorizing the
experiences of Asian Women’s Studies in Globalizing World, Ewha Womans University,
Seoul, Korea, June 22.
Kamano, Saori and Diana Khor. 1996. “Toward an Understanding of Cross-National
Differences in the Naming of Same-Sex Sexual/Intimate Relationships.” National
Women’s Studies Association Journal, 8: 124-141.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 1998. “De-confounding Gender; Feminist Theorizing and Western
Culture, a Comment on Hawkesworth’s ”Confounding Gender”, Signs: Journal
of Women in Culture and Society, 23 (4): 1049-1062.
Seiishiki Chousa Guruupu (Group Surveying Sexual Attitudes). ed. 1998. 310 nin no
Seiishiki: Iseiaisha dewa nai Onnatachi no Ankeeto Chousa (Sexual Attitudes of
310 People: Survey of Women Who are not Heterosexuals). Tokyo: Nanatsumori
Shokan.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_01

The Research Pendulum:
Multiple Roles and Responsibilities
as a Researcher
Denise Tse Shang Tang
SUMMARY. Qualitative research on sexual identities has highlighted
the use of oral narratives to understand the lives of lesbians and gay men.
Feminist ethnographers, sociologists and queer theorists have further
posed methodological inquiries to the issues of insider/outsider, the
possibilities of an erotic subject and the matter of representation. Using
interview data with Hong Kong lesbians, this paper discusses a researcher’s
multiple positionalities and its effects on both the researched
and the researcher. Being self-reflexive requires a researcher to test her
Denise Tse Shang Tang is a doctoral candidate at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
(E-mail: Denise.T@polyu.edu.hk or denitantan@yahoo.com). Her research interests
include queer pedagogy, lesbian spaces in Hong Kong and media culture. She is
the Festival Director of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2004 and 2005.
Since 1994, she has been working with marginalized populations in community-based
organizations (Vancouver, BC, Seattle and San Francisco) in the fields of violence
against women, youth, aboriginal, mental health, substance use and HIV/AIDS. In her
last position, she was the Director of Community Services at Asian & Pacific Islander
Wellness Centre (www.apiwellness.org), a non-profit HIV/AIDS organization located
in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, CA.
The author would like to express her warmest gratitude to the editors for their valuable
insights and feedback.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “The Research Pendulum: Multiple Roles and Responsibilities as a
Researcher.” Tang, Denise Tse Shang. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington
Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 11-27; and: “Lesbians” in
East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press,
an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 11-27. Single or multiple copies of this article are available
for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). Email
address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_02 11

12 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
or his own boundaries and to take up social responsibilities as the interpreter
of texts. This paper calls for further dialogue between a researcher’s
subject positions, research processes and the final presentation of findings.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_02 [Article copies available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Qualitative research, oral narratives, Hong Kong lesbians,
representation, insider/outsider, feminist methodology
Research can be a lonely exercise. No matter how serious I swear my
loyalty to feminism is, no matter how astute I claim my participant observations
to be, or how intrigued I have been by my interview data, I remain
in solitude with the interview data I have collected. I have come to
believe that any intimate engagement with research methodology strips
oneself down to the bare bones. It questions a researcher’s basic intentions
in conducting research and holds the researcher accountable for
the data collected. It puts a researcher’s position under scrutiny, and to a
certain extent, exposes the study for closer investigation. It is an
inevitable step and an urgent matter.
Qualitative research on sexualities has gradually developed from a
clinical approach with classifying and stigmatizing homosexuals to a
narrative approach of presenting marginalized voices. Early pathological
studies on homosexuality have resulted in the Kinsey studies
which pushed discussions of sexualities into a new realm of public interest
by trying to normalize sexual practices such as homosexuality,
adultery and premarital sex (D’Emilio 1983; Gamson 2000). We have
also seen studies in the early seventies addressing the homosexual as a
stigmatized individual yet nonetheless a strange fellow (Reiss 1961;
Humphreys 1970). Representations of gay and lesbian subjects and
voices of ethnic minorities and women have emerged out of social
movements such as the feminist movement, the Asian American movement
and the civil rights movement. Qualitative research on gays and
lesbians have taken on a political value and contributed to the emergence
of oral narratives as legitimate texts. However, the legitimacy of
voices has also faced the postmodern challenge of whether a text can
truly represent without contestation or a close interrogation of the researcher’s
power over the researched (Denzin and Lincoln 1994; Kong,

Denise Tse Shang Tang 13
Mahoney and Plummer 2002; Kong 2004). Feminist methodologies
have repeatedly confronted the traditional epistemological stance of research
as distant, scientifically objective, apolitical and void of power
differentials (Jaggar 1983; Stanley and Wise 1983; Fonow and Cook
1991; Smith 1987; Stacey 1988; Reinharz 1992).
This paper presents a discussion on methodological issues that are
concerned with research processes, representation of marginalized
voices and multiple positions embodied by the researcher. My current
research project involves interviewing Hong Kong women who identify
themselves as having same-sex desires for other women. I sought to collect
life stories with interviews ranging from one and a half hours to
three hours. Twenty-four women were interviewed for the first set of interviews.
The second set of interviews will feature six to ten interviews.
For the purpose of this paper, only the first set of interview data was
used. Participants were identified through personal contacts and referrals
from individuals whom I have gotten to know through my community
involvement with local organizations. All interviews were taped
and consent forms were signed. I used sociologist Arlene Stein’s notion
of “self stories” to conduct the interviews. Stein (1997) explains, “A self
story is literally a story of and about the self in relation to an experience,
in this case the development of a lesbian identity, that positions
the self of the teller centrally in the narrative that is given” (p. 7). Similar
to Stein, I was interested in the daily negotiation, mapping and construction
of lesbian identities as articulated by the participants
themselves, and as situated within their everyday lives. By asking general
questions regarding their backgrounds, I followed where they led
me in the narratives, be it concerning love, intimacy, work, family, social
relations, discrimination, sex, aging, health and outlooks on life.
In this paper, I will discuss certain issues that came up for me as a lesbian
researcher conducting ethnographic research among lesbians living
in Hong Kong. I will first bring up how a researcher alternates roles
during the research process. Then I will examine my own reluctance in
talking about a sensitive topic–sex–during the interviews and conclude
with a discussion of a researcher’s responsibilities to represent lesbian
lives within the larger framework of lesbian research.
OSCILLATING BETWEEN ROLES
Similar to many scholars engaged in queer studies, my research interests
are closely tied with personal politics and community involvement

14 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
with marginalized populations. Doing research may not be a purely academic
affair for many who are also involved in gay, lesbian and queer
movements. My early interests in queer studies originated in my participating
in university student politics and more specifically, a commitment
to feminism in both academic and activist circles (Gamson 2000).
Feminist ethnography has alerted us that research processes are laden
with power differentials and subjectivities. Self-reflexivity is a way of
minimizing the power imbalance. Arlene Stein (1997), in her interviews
with lesbians born between the years 1945 and 1961 and living in the
United States, warns us that the researcher is “an active participant in
shaping the world she or he is observing” (p. 203). Through conducting
interviews with informants and interpreting the interview data, a researcher
has control over the description of lesbian worlds. Nonetheless,
I have found that being self-reflexive during the research process
can help to expose one’s intentions and the power differentials embedded
in the process. I would constantly remind myself of the importance
of locating my research within a larger schema of social change
and better understanding of Hong Kong lesbian issues. In other words,
what can I do as a researcher to join the fight against discrimination? It
might be naïve at times to imagine one’s research as taking part in enacting
social change, yet I feel strongly that it is a researcher’s responsibility
to make better use of one’s research data and to explore further
possibilities along the line of social justice and popular education.
More often than not, I found myself oscillating between roles, a researcher,
a friend, a festival director, a peer counsellor, a workshop organizer
and a “foreigner,” as someone who has spent years away from
Hong Kong. 1 These roles are often linked to my past work or community
histories and the current impressions that the interview participants
might have had about me. I look upon these roles as positions that I perceived
the interview participants to read me as occupying. The oscillation
of roles may not be from a complete left or right, but more like
straddling in-between, signifying both being hesitant or embracing of
the roles that participants might have allocated for me. These roles do
overlap one another and conjure up a multiplicity of selves during the
research process. At times, I have also built myself a safety net by taking
on multiple roles during the interviews. A safety net of multiple
roles simply means that I was aware of the roles that I have allowed myself
to be in and I have the agency to switch in between roles if necessary
or to remain straddling in ambiguity. Perhaps embedded in these
roles are a distinction between insider and outsider positions and how
the issue affects the research process.

The Outsider Within
Denise Tse Shang Tang 15
The debates on insider and outsider positions are not new to feminists,
sociologists and ethnographers alike (Smith 1987; Collins 1990,
1991; Naples 2003). Researchers have heated discussions about
whether being an insider with common experiences can provide deeper
insights into the researched community. Commonality can be defined
by racial/ethnic, class, health status, sexuality, age and other social
background factors that might help a researcher to develop a closer
understanding of the researched.
Feminist theorists Dorothy Smith (1987), Patricia Hill Collins (1990)
and Sandra Acker (2000), for instance, have been concerned with the insider/outsider
issue. Dorothy Smith (1987), in her groundbreaking feminist
project on problematizing our everyday lives, claims that women
have historically been excluded from sociological discourse. As a result,
Smith (1987) suggests that women’s standpoint is “designed in
part by our exclusion from the making of cultural and intellectual discourse
and the strategies of resorting to our experience as the ground of
a new knowledge, a new culture” (p. 107). Positioning women back
into the sociological discourse is not to take a woman’s standpoint as
the origin for all analysis. It is more about filling a gap where women’s
voices have been neglected and situating these voices within the context
of their everyday worlds. Patricia Hills Collins (1990) developed
an “outsider within” position to describe Black women working as domestics
within White families. Placed inside families as domestics yet
exploited by the dominant society, Black women have a distinctive
view of how power and authority is manifested. Similarly, Collins described
Black academics as “outsiders within” since they operate within
an environment where Black feminist voices have often been excluded
in scholarship yet they are situated within academic institutions.
For my research positioning, I have found myself being comfortable
as an “outsider within.” While I identify both as a person raised in Hong
Kong and a lesbian, I have left Hong Kong when I was seventeen and
returned to the city when I became thirty-one years of age. The fourteen
years’ absence has put me in a position of an outsider to the local lesbian
happenings or politics. I have often described my own coming out experience
as a very North American account immersed in lesbian feminism
and the women’s movement. In other words, my exposure to lesbian
cultures in North America has provided me with some insights into lesbian
and gay politics in general, yet my absence from Hong Kong has
made me a stranger to local issues. This “outsider within” position en-

16 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
ables me to look at the interview data with curiosity, familiarity, and
passion.
In my role as a lesbian researcher, I was expecting interview participants
to ask me about my own coming out processes. True enough, I
became both a lesbian “expert” and a sounding board for feedback. I
have been asked numerous times about my personal experiences and
in return, my views on their accounts. This is where the insider position
comes in useful and the outsider part might have lent interview participants
a sense of security since I have no previous histories with them. 2
Participants might have assumed that I have had similar difficulties with
family, peers and colleagues as a lesbian. On another note, they also
want to hear if I have had positive experiences of coming out. There are
many differences in social factors and political beliefs, and relations to
systems of oppression between myself and the participants. Sherry
Gorelick (1996), in her research on Jewish feminists’ responses to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shares a similar story. Using a Marxist
framework on oppression as “complex of many determinations” (Marx
1970:206), Gorelick (1996) comments:
That might be because I am myself very much like them and subject
to some of the same social forces, some of the same distortions
and limitations. There are hidden determinants in my life also, and
I am both the worst and the best person to uncover them. (p. 39)
She reminds us that since as researchers we are also embedded within
oppressive structures, we are prone to forget that we have various relations
with oppression as well. I had to be continuously aware of my
class assumptions in everyday life. The fact that I have been educated
abroad also points to a privileged economic status. 3 What do I have in
common with the participants other than self-identifying as a lesbian?
Apart from a common language, what other traits would help to facilitate
the research process better? Even if my Cantonese conversational
skills can make up for these interviews, I still have a lot of catching up to
do in terms of local knowledges.
In an interview, a participant described her university life in Hong
Kong and how excited she was being involved in student organizations.
Participant: Think of it, when you first got into university, it’s really
exciting with many new things and new friends that attracted you right
away. But for the first entire year, I went home right after class to
Sheung Shui to be with her. I did that for the whole year everyday.
When I got into second year, it was time to “sheung chong,” 4 right?

“Sheung chong” made me super busy. I think it’s after orientation camp,
we as “chong yuen” have some misunderstandings. But actually as
“chong yuen,” we are pretty close friends but . . .
Interviewer: What are “chong yuen”?
Participant: “Chong yuen” refers to committee members! Are you a
foreigner? You don’t even know these terms?
Interviewer: I really don’t know. I left Hong Kong fourteen years
ago.
Participant: Really? I see. Anyway, we were happy at that time to organize
student activities together but it was not a good thing when they
turned out to ruin our friendships . . .
Being a Cantonese-speaking lesbian who was brought up in Hong
Kong might have granted me some insights into the local culture, yet I
remain in motion somewhere between an insider and an outsider. I have
certainly used it to my advantage when I asked for clarifications from
participants on unfamiliar issues or community politics. As a result, I
find myself learning about the place and its people with a renewed sense
of interest. My being away from Hong Kong for most of my life has
proved to make me more concerned about what actually goes on in this
city. I have relied on being a lesbian as an introductory warm handshake
I can give to participants. As Sandra Acker (2000) puts it aptly,
Our multiple subjectivities allow us to be both insiders and outsiders
simultaneously, and to shift back and forth, not quite at will,
but with some degree of agency (p. 205)
The Counselor and the Researcher
Denise Tse Shang Tang 17
In regard to taking on roles during interviews, Janice L. Ristock, in
her research on abuse among lesbian relationships, has often found herself
being the counsellor in her interviews. She describes,
But tensions often rose between my role as interviewer and the
temptation to take on the power of the counsellor’s role. This was a
fine line to walk. Women were telling me stories that many had
never told anyone before. (Ristock and Pennell 1996: 75)
I recalled an interview where the participant’s eyes would swell up
with tears often when she talked about her relationship with her parents.
She would repeatedly apologise while I handed her tissue paper to wipe
her tears. I found myself consoling her and feeling the need to allow her

18 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
as much space as possible to release her emotions. It was second nature
to me to take on a peer counselling role since I have previously worked
as a peer counsellor on rape crisis hotlines or HIV/AIDS communitybased
organizations. The shifting back and forth of my role between a
researcher and a peer counsellor denotes a necessary methodological
approach when researchers work with marginalized populations. This is
not to say that as researchers, we are responsible for the emotions that
were brought up during interviews; however, it does mean that certain
situations might arise where we need to be emotionally attentive.
By including the importance of my interview participant’s silence inbetween
responses and her sad emotions as valid data, I run counter to
positivistic values that treat emotions and subjectivity as detrimental to
research. As feminist philosopher Alison Jaggar (1989) argues, “far
from precluding the possibility of reliable knowledge, emotion as well
as value must be shown as necessary as such knowledge” (p. 157).
Jaggar (1989) further asserts that whereas we cannot treat all emotions
as uncontested knowledge, feminist researchers can develop a “critical
reflection on emotion” (p. 164). By taking emotions seriously, we can
justify self-reflexivity as theorists and turn our critical eye towards ourselves.
More so, Jaggar urges us to “examine critically our social location,
our actions, our values, our perceptions, and our emotions” (ibid).
WARY OF APPROACHING A SENSITIVE TOPIC
Asking questions about sex in the interview may not be the easiest
thing to do but tiptoeing around it does not help either. Identifying as a
lesbian researcher might have been more convincing for participants
that I was “qualified” to broach the topic, yet I cautioned myself against
treating sex as a uniform practice. As a former safer sex educator for
HIV/AIDS organizations and feminist groups in Vancouver, British
Columbia and San Francisco, I am aware that discussions on safer sex
have never been a priority among government-funded organizations for
lesbian populations. Since governments rarely give out funding for lesbian
health research to community organizations, it is common for lesbian
health to be second priority for mainstream health organizations.
Therefore, my community and work experience in discussing lesbian
sex is inevitably limited. Similarly, researchers have slowly ventured
into the area of sex and erotic matters but not without certain wariness.
Travis Kong, Dan Mahoney and Ken Plummer (2002) offer the
following insight on approaching sex,

Denise Tse Shang Tang 19
Here we turn to the hidden dimensions of romance, passion, and
sexuality that must impinge on some, maybe much, research, even
if rarely spoken about. It is curious, not to say disingenuous, to
find that most research is written as if such experiences quite simply
never happen in people’s lives. From fieldwork to interviews,
as people come and go, nothing much ever appears to unfold in
erotic mold. Just where is it? (p. 251)
Key questions remain: How far should I go in asking about their sex
lives? How different should I imagine a participant’s sexual experience
from mine? Am I ready if a participant discloses abuse and traumatic accounts?
Would I be responsible for the consequences afterwards? How
personal should I get from my side? Would a disciplined amount of selfdisclosure
be necessary for a conversation of certain reciprocity? How
should I proceed?
The following interview demonstrated some of the difficulties I had
in approaching a sensitive topic with a participant I had met for the first
time.
Interviewer: How are your sex relations with your girlfriends? Sex
life?
Participant: It’s OK.
Interviewer: What do you mean by OK?
Participant: I don’t know how to answer you if you don’t ask more
specifically.
Interviewer: Let me rephrase the question. In your first relationship,
your girlfriend came over to give you a hug and then she kissed you.
You mentioned that you were much younger then. After she initiated
her kisses to you, did you initiate to have sex with her?
Participant: No.
Interviewer: Did you have sex with her eventually?
Participant: Yes, I think my first experience with her should be after
three or four months into the relationship. I initiated having sex with her
that time.
Interviewer: Can you recall how you knew what to do sexually?
Participant: I cannot really explain it. It’s inborn, similar to how boys
do it with girls since civilization began. I didn’t take anything for reference.
I really don’t know.
Interviewer: Did you feel that it’s very natural?
Participant: Seemed like it. But I’m not sure if it really was. I’m not
sure if I looked at something and hid it subconsciously and pulled it out

20 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
when I needed to use that information, but I didn’t do any research or
look for any references.
Interviewer: I see. What did you exactly do when you initiated sex?
Participant: Used my hand at that time.
Interviewer: Do you mean using your hand to insert?
Participant: No.
Interviewer: Just to caress?
Participant: Yes, mutually.
Our conversation continued along the lines of sexual practices and
the participant volunteered more information on specific sex acts as the
interview continued. Although the participant has struck me as abrupt in
her answers, I have also found myself not coping well, not being as direct
as I could have been. It only dawned on me later that I should have
noticed my own discomfort in the interaction. If I had actually been as
direct with her as she had been with me, the interview process might
have been more participatory. Interviews are not guaranteed to be cordial
and open if rapport is not easily established in the first place. Kong,
Mahoney and Plummer (2002) remind researchers,
There are times during the interview process when subjects do
not respond well to an empathic, interactive process, or may not
be willing to explore feelings and emotions. There also may be
clashes of personalities between the interviewer and interviewee,
making the construction of an interactive context impossible.
(p. 253)
In another interview, I was cross-examined by a participant.
Interviewer: Is talking about sex embarrassing for you?
Participant: Embarrassing? It’s okay to talk about it.
Interviewer: You seemed fine talking about it but it’s hard for some
people. No matter how I tried or used examples, they still would not talk
about it or could not talk about it but you seemed fine.
Participant: I can talk about it but maybe slightly embarrassed. And
you?
Interviewer: Me?
Participant: Will you talk about . . .
Interviewer: Will I be embarrassed? I think I won’t be.
Participant: Two things, do you think it’s because you’re not embarrassed
about it, that is why you can talk more about it or do you think it’s
the more you talk about it, you’ve become less embarrassed?
Interviewer: Can you say that again?

Denise Tse Shang Tang 21
Participant: That is, you are open to this topic but not because you
have to talk about it all the time?
Interviewer: Yes, I think so. It depends . . .
Participant: Do you not mind talking about this topic or is it because
you have to deliver seminars and share with others all the time that has
led you to become less embarrassed?
Interviewer: I think it’s interesting because if I talk about it during
seminars, it feels like work. When it’s work, I feel less embarrassed
about it.
Participant: But when you are in seminars, you can talk about yourself,
too.
Interviewer: Yes, but I can also treat it as work but if maybe I’ll be
different in private conversations.
Participant: So are you in a private conversation now or are you
working?
Interviewer: This feels more like work.
Participant: So wait till next time when it’s off record. Because I can
feel that you are a bit different, so let’s find another day to chat.
I was a bit caught off guard by the participant when she asked me
about my level of comfort in talking about sex. I remembered looking
down and then after having caught myself doing that, I immediately
looked back up at her and answered her questions directly. This exercise
of cross-examination was evident of my attempt to distance myself
from further discussion on sex by blaming it as work, hence avoiding
the topic itself. In hindsight, I failed to pull the participant closer for a
more in-depth interview, and therefore contradicted my feminist notion
of ensuring the interview to be a participatory process. Maybe the personal/research
divide became deeper for me when it came to a topic
such as sex. What it implies for future research is to prepare myself as a
researcher to be more ready for topics that might be sensitive for me. In
addition, it is crucial to be honest with my level of discomfort and explore
the possibilities of sharing my uneasiness with the interview
participant. It might result in a more engaging conversation about a
delicate issue.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND REPRESENTATION
Many feminist scholarships have emphasized the importance of
women’s oral narratives in providing accounts of what it means to live
as marginalized subjects (Anzaldúa 1999; hooks 1990; Reinharz 1992;

22 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Kennedy and Davis 1993). Filling the missing gap in historical and intellectual
discourse, women’s voices emerged both in academic scholarship
and within community activism. Narratives of sexual minorities,
racial subjects, poor people and the disabled, on the other hand, challenged
the traditional epistemological understanding of research as objective
and impartial. Joshua Gamson (2000) comments,
The lesbian or gay itself, given voice through interviews, ethnographies,
autobiography, and historical re-creation, while plainly
resting on claims of authenticity, gave the lie to objectivity. (p. 351)
Although lesbian and gay voices have started to gain sociological interests
in “the West” in the seventies and early eighties, other scholars
have started to question the essentialist lesbian or gay subject embedded
within such research. Authenticity has its own set of limitations. Just
whose voice are we representing and whose voice was not heard?
Michel Foucault (1978) reminds us sternly in The History of Sexuality
that sexualities are socially constructed discourses with political relations
attached. As the late eighties approach, the influences of
poststructuralism and queer theory have come forward to challenge sexual
identities as fixed categories or categories that reflect a homogenized
gay subject who is urban, middle-class, European and ablebodied.
Although these theoretical strands have their own differences,
they have pointed out sexual identities as fluid, unstable, diasporic and
incongruous at times. Therefore, our search for marginalized voices has
to include those who we might perceive as ambiguous, undefined and
unexpected.
Reflecting on the research I am conducting with lesbians living in
Hong Kong, I have also struggled to find a diverse pool of participants
in the name of representation. Having eyes like a hawk, I was always
hunting for the best story. Apart from community activists or lesbian
group founders, I was also trying to locate “everyday” women for interviews.
I was looking for women who do not have “lesbian” written all
over them and those whom I might have missed in my own partiality.
By no means do I think my sample is representative of the Hong Kong
lesbian population, but my goal was to bring up issues that are relevant
for Hong Kong lesbians. Current participants range from fifteen years
of age to fifty-one years and with various educational and occupational
backgrounds. Some appear masculine while others have more
of a feminine or androgynous disposition. Family backgrounds differ
from single-parents to traditional nuclear family structures, lower in-

Denise Tse Shang Tang 23
come households to middle-class families. All participants identify as
ethnically Chinese with one participant identifying as of Portuguese and
Chinese descent.
My urge to capture good accounts led me to performing an impatient
act as a researcher, when I was caught rushing to my own agenda. During
the beginning of an interview with a participant, we were chatting
about her career and when she started to think about opening a lesbian
café. After her brief description of why she wanted to open a lesbian
café, I jumped right into asking her a question of her attraction towards
women.
Interviewer: Let’s see. You said you’ve wanted to open up a café
since you were very young. Did you then want to open up a café in general
or a lesbian café?
Participant: It wasn’t a trendy thing to open up cafés during those
days. Not like nowadays. Actually I’ve thought of opening up a coffee
shop, not like an upstairs café. But if I told my family about this idea
then, they would say that it’ll be closed down. It’s not a fashionable
thing to do then, no one have thought of it, which is when I was in Form
4 back in the year of eighty something, around early nineties, no one has
thought of opening cafés in the upper floors of a building. Realistically,
how can a street level café make do just by selling coffee? Think of how
many cups of coffee you’ll have to sell? So this is not easy.
Interviewer: When did you know you that you have attraction for
women?
Participant: Wow, suddenly jumped to this question?
Interviewer: (let out a nervous laugh) Ha.
Participant: When did I know? Actually I was quite a bit older when I
started dating girls, actually I was already in Form 7, but how did I
know? I don’t know how I knew, I did not do it on purpose, and it felt
like a natural process.
Fortunately, I reckoned that the participant knew me earlier from being
a regular patron and a festival organizer. In return, she was willing
to answer my question without many qualms. I cannot imagine the response
I would get if I had done the same thing with other interview participants
who have not met me before. I wanted to get to the core of the
interview so badly that I was not listening.
What it means to have a worthy account of being a lesbian in Hong
Kong is in itself overloaded with many assumptions. I remain troubled
by the fact that conducting lesbian ethnography in Hong Kong bears
heightened responsibility. Since there is limited scholarship in this area
in both Western and Asian contexts, I felt responsible to present find-

24 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
ings with honesty and to a certain extent, validity. This paper as an English
text would also mean globalizing queer research (Altman 1997).
This is not to say that validity does not have its own problems but it is
more about being aware of the research that one produces have farreaching
potential, both positive and negative. I find Gayatri Gopinath’s
(2005) theorization of a queer diasporic useful in describing current
emerging queer scholarship outside of Euro-American geographies:
A queer diasporic formation works in contradistinction to the
globalization of ‘gay’ identity that replicates a colonial narrative
of development and progress that judges all ‘other’ sexual cultures,
communities, and practices against a model of Euro-American
sexual identity. (p. 11)
As a former British colony, Hong Kong’s postcolonial development
and its eventual handover to China have troubled Hong Kong lesbian
and gay activists on how to localize gay and lesbian issues without
adopting the Euro-American gay visibility models. Are pride parades
necessary in Hong Kong? How do we go about educating the public
about lesbian and gay issues when asserting one’s sexual identity in
public is still stigmatized and highly contested among lesbians and gay
men alike? For someone like myself who has spent most of my adult
years in North America, I need to come up with an analytical framework
that would take into account the socio-cultural specificity of Hong
Kong lesbian issues without engaging too much of a Euro-American
perspective. It is definitely not an easy task yet it is imperative to
creating more local knowledges.
If academic research is nonetheless a demonstration of power and
privilege, what can we do as researchers to minimize the power imbalance?
Susan Krieger (1983, 1991) advises us to acknowledge a researcher’s
responsibility to situate herself in the research process.
Almost a decade ago, Judith Stacey (1988) has warned us of the potential
exploitative nature of feminist ethnography and even summarized
her engagement with feminist ethnography as a “loss of ethnographic
innocence.” Feminist ethnographers have stressed the importance of research
as a reciprocal process, an emotional encounter and a learned experience
for both the researcher and the researched. Stacey suggests that
such intimacy with research objects can potentially places research subjects
at “grave risk of manipulation and betrayal by the ethnographer”
(Stacey 1988: 23). I constantly remind myself of the potential harm that
my research can do to the interview participants. As much as I have tried

Denise Tse Shang Tang 25
to alter their profiles beyond simple recognition of real living persons, it
is inevitable that someone might be exposed through the study. Representation
of subjects and interpretation of data in research findings remain
the property of a researcher’s text. Self-awareness and downplaying of
idealism inherent in feminism might prove to be useful for feminist ethnography
(Stacey 1988).
CONCLUSION
I have brought up many methodological concerns in this paper: a researcher’s
changing roles and positions, the discussion of sensitive topics
during research, the issue of representation and the significance of
local scholarship. Many of those have been dismissed, contested, partially
resolved but nonetheless taken seriously by feminist researchers,
ethnographers and sociologists alike. The solitary exercise of data interpretation
and theorization may well be done in a quiet corner, but what
is important for me is to take up the social responsibilities of a researcher,
to cross-examine my multiple positionalities within structures
of oppression and to present findings with integrity. As Jewish peace
activist and scholar Sherry Gorelick (1996) puts it, “thus our relationship
to oppression, as either privileged or oppressed, has implications
for the quality of our research, but our relationship to it is contradictory,
complex, and, to some degree, up to us” (p. 40).
NOTES
1. All interview participants took me as a researcher conducting research among lesbians
living in Hong Kong. Some of them have known of my past community work in
North America with HIV/AIDS organizations and queer groups. During the years 2004
and 2005, I have also helped to organize the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film and
Video Festival as well as coordinated a local workshop focusing on lesbian issues such
as relationships, activism, safer sex and film representation. I have explained to many
interview participants that I have spent the last fourteen years living in North America,
and as a result, it is not a surprise for informants to treat me as a foreigner to the local
culture or local lesbian scenes. Of course, I am not a total stranger to Hong Kong since I
can speak the language and can relate my earlier upbringing to the current political and
social situation of Hong Kong. Yet, my language betrays me as I learn to catch up on
ever-evolving colloquial phrases.
2. I did not know the interview participants prior to my return to Hong Kong. I came
to know some of them through the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film and Video Festival
and local community group gatherings. Some of them were introduced to me by other
participants. Closer friendships were developed after the interviews were conducted.

26 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
3. In my interviews with women from working class backgrounds, I kept reminding
myself to use simple Cantonese as well as staying away from academic terms or North
American references.
4. “Sheung Chong” is a colloquial term used by university students in the nineties to
denote a university student joining student’s organizations and being an active organizing
member in the organizations.
REFERENCES
Acker, Sandra. 2000. “In/Out/Side: Positioning the Researcher in Feminist Qualitative
Research.” Resources for Feminist Research 28 (1/2):189-208.
Altman, Dennis. 1997. “On Global Queering.” Australian Humanities Review (2) http:/
/www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-July-1996/altman.html
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1999. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco:
Aunt Lute Books.
Collins, Patricia H. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and
the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
______. 1991. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of
Black Feminist Thought.” Pp. 35-59 in Beyond Methodology:Feminist Scholarship
as Lived Research, edited by M. M. Fonow and J. A. Cook. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
D’Emilio, John. 1983. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonne S. Lincoln. 1994. “Introduction: Entering the Field of
Qualitative Research.” Pp.1-22 in Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N.
K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Fonow, Mary Margaret and Judith A. Cook, eds. 1991. Beyond Methodology: Feminist
Scholarship as Lived Research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. New York: Random House.
Gamson, Joshua. 2000. “Sexualities, Queer Theory, and Qualitative Research.”
Pp.347-365 in Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman K. Denzin and
Yvonne S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Gopinath, Gayatri. 2005. Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public
Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gorelick, Sherry. 1996. “Contradictions of Feminist Methodology.” Pp. 23-45 in Feminism
and Social Change: Bridging Theory and Practice, edited by H. Gottfried.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
hooks, bell. 1990. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End
Press.
Humphreys, Laud. 1970. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago:
Aldine.
Jaggar, Alison. 1983. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman
and Allanheld.
______. 1989. “Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology.” Pp. 145-
171 in Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowl-

Denise Tse Shang Tang 27
edge, edited by A. M. Jaggar and S. R. Bordo. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
Press.
Kennedy, Elizabeth L. and Magdeline D. Davis. 1993. Boots of Leather, Slippers of
Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge.
Kong, Travis S.K., Dan Mahoney and Ken Plummer. 2002. “Queering the Interview.”
Pp. 239-258 in Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method, edited by J.
F. Gubrium and J. A. Holstein. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Kong, Travis S. K. 2004. “Queer at Your Own Risk: Marginality, Community and
Hong Kong Gay Male Bodies.” Sexualities (7):5-30.
Krieger, Susan. 1983. The Mirror Dance: Identity in a Women’s Community. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
______. 1991. Social Science and the Self: Personal Essays on an Art Form. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Marx, Karl. [1859] 1970. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow:
Progress Publishers.
Naples, Nancy A. 2003. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and
Activist Research. London: Routledge.
Reinharz, Shulamit. 1992. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Reiss, Albert J. 1961. “The Social Integration of Queers and Peers.” Social Problems
(9):102-120.
Ristock, Janice L. and Joan Pennell. 1996. Community Research as Empowerment:
Feminist Links, Postmodern Interruptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Dorothy E. 1987. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Stacey, Judith. 1988. “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” Women’s Studies International
Forum 11:21-27.
Stanley, Liz, and Sue Wise. 1983. Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist
Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Stein, Arlene. 1997. Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation. Berkeley:
University California Press.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_02

Beyond Identity Politics:
The Making of an Oral History
of Hong Kong Women Who Love Women
Day Wong
SUMMARY. Oral history has long been an important resource for lesbian
and other underprivileged groups in advancing identity politics.
While there is an increased awareness of social construction of identity
and the impact of race and class on the experiences of sexual identities,
oral historians have yet to rethink their task in view of poststructuralists’
and queer theorists’ critique of identity. This paper examines the “Oral
Day Wong is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
Her research interests include sexuality, gender issues, Foucault, and Postmodern
theory. She has published in journals such as Women’s Studies International Forum,
Violence Against Women, Philosophy Today, and is the co-editor of Masculinities and
Hong Kong Cinema (Hong Kong University Press, 2005).
Address correspondence to: Day Wong, Department of Sociology, The Hong Kong
Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong (E-mail: daywong@hkbu.
edu.hk).
An earlier draft of the paper was presented in the 1st International Conference of
Asian Queer Studies in July 2005. The author benefited from the stimulating responses
of the participants and particularly from Fran Martin for her thoughtful and encouraging
feedback. The author received constructive suggestions and useful comments from
the editors. The author is also grateful to Jennifer Tam and Joanna Law for their valuable
research assistance.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Beyond Identity Politics: The Making of an Oral History of Hong
Kong Women Who Love Women.” Wong, Day. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies
(Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 29-48; and: “Lesbians”
in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park
Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 29-48. Single or multiple copies of this article are
available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
(EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_03 29

30 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
History Project of Hong Kong Women Who Love Women” as an attempt
to construct histories that respect difference and minimize normalization.
It discusses the project’s significance in terms of its subversion
of the heterosexual/homosexual binary and its queering of the notions
of identity, community and coming out. The critique unfolded is one
of anti-assimilation and anti-minoritization. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_03
[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:
1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
Website: © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All
rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Identity politics, queer, lesbian, oral history, Hong Kong
Oral history is more than a research method; it has democratized the
study of the past by recording the experience of people who have been
hidden from history. Ordinary people are no longer statistical aggregates;
they are given the right to write their own history (Thompson
1998). Today we hear voices of people on the margins, be they the very
poor or the minority groups defined on the basis of racial origin or sexual
orientation. Oral history has provided a rallying point for activists to
advance identity politics. However, in light of the recent debates centered
around identity and difference (see, for example, Phelan 1989,
1994; Fuss 1989; Seidman 1993; Young 1990; Connolly 2002), oral
historians may need to rethink carefully their task. The present paper,
based on an oral history project focusing on “Hong Kong women who
love women,” is an attempt in this direction.
In the lesbian-feminist movement of the 1970s in the United States, the
attempts to draw on women’s first person experience of same-sex relationships
were mainly to create a vision and a reality of lesbian community.
In many of the collections of lesbian personal narratives, the
emphasis was on sameness and commonality of lesbians. The stories represented
an attempt to build their communities out of what they perceived
to be their common experiences, shared visions and beliefs. Critical responses
soon came from the social science literature which highlighted
the tensions between individual identity and lesbian identity, between the
need for autonomy as individuals and the need to remain intimate as a
community (Krieger 1982). Other critics queried whether lesbians can be
assumed to speak in the same voice and share a unified identity. They
criticized the predominance within the texts of stories of white, mostly

Day Wong 31
young, middle-class, university-educated women, and held that class and
race differences crosscut simple or simplistic notions of lesbian unity
(Zimmerman 1984). In the 1980s, there began to have an expansion of
collections of personal life stories to include those of working class lesbians
and women of color. 1 The empirical basis of lesbian politics was extended
to encompass the personal experience not just of lesbians per se
but of black lesbians, Chicana lesbians, Jewish lesbians or Japanese-
American lesbians (Zimmerman 1984).
However, the development of a differentiated concept of identity
cannot adequately answer the challenge posed by poststructuralism and
postmodern theory. It is necessary to reconsider identity as a product of
social construction, rather than as reflecting any internal, authentic,
fixed essence. When individuals do not progress through stages in an
orderly sequence, we cannot simply treat them as deviants. Rather, it
points to the need to reconceptualize coming out as a process of describing
one’s social location according to the social constructs or categories
of meaning that are available within a changing social context (Stein
1997; Rust 1993).
The radicalism of poststructuralist perspectives lies in its call for a
permanent critique of identity. The emergence of specific groups as a
result of the emphasis on diversity points toward a politics of difference
which still relies on group identity to serve the basis of action.
Poststructuralists argue that the perpetual return to identity is accompanied
by a ceaseless conversion of difference into otherness (Fuss 1989).
Foucault (1979a; 1979b) demonstrates how modern forms of normalizing
power operate through the constitution of identity-bearing subjects.
In constituting and identifying ourselves as the rational, the normal, the
sane, the nondangerous subjects, we have to identify the irrational, the
abnormal, the insane, the dangerous, and exclude or condemn them as
the ‘Other.’ In short, identity requires difference in order to be, and it
turns difference into otherness, into evil, in order to secure its own selfcertainty
(Connolly 2002).
Postmodern feminist Butler (1994) holds that all sexual norms, not
just heterosexuality, are tenuous. In rendering desire exclusively, one
creates a whole set of positions that are unthinkable from the standpoint
of one’s identity. She opposes the normalizing effects associated with
lesbian specificity, that if I am a lesbian I have to desire in a certain way.
Identity categories are inherently restrictive, for they inevitably reify
erotic praxis (Butler 1991). In Franzen’s (1993) study of the New Mexico
lesbian community in Albuquerque during 1965-80, we could see
how the feminist lesbians (the new immigrants, the middle class, edu-

32 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
cated Anglo women) confronted the bar-going lesbians (mainly the
longtime New Mexicans, women of color and of working class) over
who defined “real” lesbians. In demanding other lesbians to “clean up
their acts,” the feminist lesbians had turned difference into otherness for
condemnation and exclusion.
In Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, Kennedy and Davis (1993) show
how working-class lesbians in Buffalo built solidarity and expressed pride
in being lesbians in the 1940s and 1950s. Though the researchers were sensitive
to the class difference among lesbians, their reliance on a notion of
group identity led them to define “lesbian” and “who counts.” An example of
the repercussion of this identity-oriented approach was their unwillingness to
interview women who were no longer living as lesbians. As admitted by
Kennedy (1998) later in her work, the assumption was one had to be gay
‘through and through’: what needed to be constructed was a history of survivors–those
who were brave and brazen and could survive the stigma. As a result,
the researchers missed interviewing many women who did not remain
gay but had been fems in the community in the 1940s and 1950s. Their perspective
also leads to an exclusion of those who never felt comfortable in the
bar community due to the prominence of butch-fem roles. The authors are
successful in pushing forward the notable argument that rebellious ‘tough
bar lesbians’ exhibited a pre-political consciousness that was resistant to
rather than complicit with male and heterosexual dominance. Nevertheless,
in citing visibility and signifiers of erotic difference as the key to butch-fem
culture, butch lesbians often become representatives of the performance of
visible difference. This marginalizes those who do not bear the signifier of
difference. As Walker (1993) discusses, the femme’s sexual style is often
perceived as expressive of her subjection to heterosexual definitions of femininity
while the butch’s ‘masculine’ style proves that she has escaped her initial
programming. The femme is invisible as a lesbian unless she is playing to
a butch; a femme is not a queer without her butch.
Postmodern theorists and poststructuralists warn us against the normalizing
and marginalizing effects of community-building and identity-making.
They oppose basing a politics on any unitary, stable,
coherent, and essentialist notion of identity. The mission of historians is
not simply to recover the multifaceted histories of the underprivileged,
but to take seriously the notion of difference in the writing of the past.
How to reconstruct histories that respect difference and resist an
essentialist interpretation remains a challenging task and it is this challenge
that the project reported in this paper sets out to confront.
The focus of this paper is a project entitled “Hong Kong Women
Who Love Women Oral History Project,” which I will use as an exam-

Day Wong 33
ple illustrating the theoretical debates over identity, difference, and
community. The oral history project recognized the fact that in Hong
Kong there is a tendency that lesbians are made invisible in both the social
movements and the larger society. Some local female activists believe
that lesbians do have a history and that history must be written. As
one of the recruited members of this oral history project, I will discuss in
this paper how we engaged in the making of an oral history which aimed
to enable voiceless women to speak for themselves. While acknowledging
the importance of an oral history in a community that needs to create
alternative identities and guidelines of living, the project organizers were
aware of the fact that women who have same-sex desires cannot be
treated as a unitary group who share the same lesbian identity. By naming
the project an oral history of Hong Kong women who love women,rather
than an oral history of Hong Kong lesbians, the organizers decided to include
the personal experiences of not only self-identified lesbians, but
also those who, despite admitting to same-sex desires, were unprepared
or unwilling to adopt a lesbian identity. I argue that unlike oral histories
which aim at cultivation of lesbian consciousness and community-building,
this project represents an attempt to move beyond identity politics by
focusing on difference and destabilization of identity.
This paper tells the critical story of the oral history project. It begins
with an introduction of the project, followed by an outline of the pertinent
issues. Specifically I shall discuss how local activists’ construction
of sexual identities in the equal rights movement tends to play down differences.
The oral history project can be seen as a form of cultural
contestation which serves to counterbalance the homogenizing effects
of identity politics. In the second part, based on the interview conducted
with the core members of the project and a textual analysis of the published
booklet, I attempt to show how this project helps us reconsider
questions of community and identity. Community is reconfigured as a
terrain for diversity and fluidity of identities. The last part concerns
members’ projection of the second phase of this project. I will discuss
my conception of the politics we are engaged in and how the project
points toward a subversion of the heterosexual/homosexual binary.
HONG KONG WOMEN WHO LOVE WOMEN
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
The oral history project reported in this paper and mentioned above
was initiated by three organizers of the Women Coalition of Hong Kong

34 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
(WC). Established in 2003, WC pledged to promote gender, sexual and
identity diversities. It is a group which welcomes women who love
women, women who are feminists and women who support sexual minorities.
Six volunteers, including the author, were recruited to become
the core members of the oral history project. Together with the three organizers,
this 9-person core group discussed the major contents and directions
of the project. A series of workshops were organized from June
to August 2004 to discuss topics such as lesbian and gay movements,
coming out, identity, love relationship, sexuality, religion, oral history,
and so on. More volunteers were recruited through these workshops.
They participated in interviews of informants, transcription, production
of booklets, and preparation of exhibition.
With the funding provided by the Home Affairs Bureau of Hong
Kong, the first phase of the project was completed in February 2005. In
addition to archival research, 15 life history interviews were carried out
on women who experience same-sex desires. A 25-page booklet containing
extracts of the life history interviews was published. It is comprised
of several parts, including identity, family, peers, school culture,
love relationship, sexuality, and tongzhi (literally ‘comrade,’ used to refer
to lesbian and gay) movements. Exhibitions and discussions were
organized in a bookstore and on the street to engage the public’s interest.
At present the team is seeking donation to support the second phase
of the project, which begins in 2006. We aim at including the life histories
of more women who come from diverse backgrounds and age
groups. The final output will be in the form of an anthology which covers
detailed analysis and documentation of Hong Kong women’s samesex
desires throughout the last half of the twentieth century.
What gave WC the idea of constructing an oral history is a common
concern with the lack of such kind of materials in Hong Kong. Connie,
one of the organizers of WC, pointed out that in Xiao mingxiong’s
(1984) Zhongguo tong xing ai shi lu (History of Homosexuality in
China), the history that was documented mainly covered same-sex relations
between males. There was little discussion about lesbians’ lives,
except the stories of Qiu Jin 2 and women who lived together as spinsters
in early periods. 3 Liklik, the other organizer of WC, added that in Zhou
Huashan’s (1995) 4 Xianggang tong zhi zhan chu lai (Coming out of
Hong Kong Tongzhi), there may be one or two articles about women,
with images typical of lesbians. In addition to the lack of diversity of
lesbianism, the book was criticized as out-dated. Other core members
expressed a similar concern about the unavailability of materials about
local women’s same-sex relations. We sometimes referred to Lulu’s

Day Wong 35
(one of the core members) collection of women’s autobiographical articles
on same-sex love as pioneering work, and a more systematic documentation
of the life histories of these women was seen as imperative.
With the vision to fill the gaps in our history, the first step for initiators
to take was to draw the boundary of the project and decide on whose
stories should be included. Seeing the importance of the principle of diversity,
they chose not to use “self-identified lesbians” as the boundary
marker for the project. Connie, while claiming herself lesbian, held that
the lesbian identity is too narrow for including all women who have
same-sex desires. “The group could refer to bisexuals and even transsexual
or transgender people. 5 I have been using this term ‘women who
love women’ for many years as an organizer in the movement.” The
other WC organizer Waiwai also underscored the importance for the
project to be inclusive: “My idol is a bisexual; I have friends who are
transgender people, and there is an activist who is widely known for her
refusal of any label. The project could include all of them.” Liklik
pointed out that the identity of lesbian only came to the scene less than
20 years ago. To capture the experiences of older generations, we could
not use the category of lesbian.
The refusal to name this project a lesbian oral history denotes a respect
for difference. The recognition of differences is particularly important
against a background of the political activism of tongzhi
organizations in Hong Kong in the past 10 years. As I argued in my earlier
work (Wong 2004), a survey of the equal rights movement in Hong
Kong reveals the limitations of the identity politics that activists have
engaged in.
Following the decriminalization of homosexual conduct in private
came a flourishing of lesbian and gay organizations in Hong Kong during
the 1990s. In struggles targeting decriminalization of sexual acts between
male adults, the right claims involved were conduct-based. Now
with the fight for enacting laws that ban discrimination against people
on the basis of a lesbian or gay ‘identity,’ the right claims have turned to
be identity-based. It is a struggle for the right to disclose identity without
being penalized, a right not to be forced into hiding one’s sexual
identity. The fight for equal rights has given rise to the prominence of
identity politics in Hong Kong’s lesbian and gay movement. While an
essentialist conception of identity has been widely criticized by
postmodern theory, local activists have to face the dilemma of adopting
such conception so as to defend against the attack of opponents. Opponents
often argue that since homosexuality has not been proven to be inborn,
a wider acceptance of homosexuality would result in a seduction

36 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
of youngsters to this ‘pathological’ way of life. Activists’ answer is if
homosexuality is biologically or genetically determined, it should rest
outside the realm of condemnation and discrimination. The insistence
that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable has become a key
element in activists’ defense against the charge of contamination of the
population (Wong 2004).
Such a strategy may help arouse sympathy or ease the anxieties surrounding
legal protection of sexual minorities. Yet, it fails to challenge
the uncritical acceptance of the privileged and naturalized order of heterosexuality
upon which security is promised. The community is often
imagined to be composed of individuals whose sexual identities are
fixed and naturally ordered, and whose affiliations with others are
largely confined to a heterosexual model. The fight for equal rights of
lesbians and gay men does not question this presumption. Differently
sexed subjects are constituted as sexual minorities who are placed in a
marginal position in the community. They are either denied of legal protection
or granted a minimal protection on the promise that they would
remain as marginal to the community.
The other strategy deployed by rights advocates is a politics of respectability
(Wong 2004). In government’s public consultation about
anti-discrimination legislation in 1996, activists highlighted the sameness
between homosexuals and heterosexuals. To repudiate the accusation
from religious and conservative camps that homosexuality is
immoral, they emphasized that homosexual people are as law-abiding
as anyone else, as moral as any other sector of society. They identified
themselves as tax-payers and argued that being productive and contributing
members of society, they should be entitled to equal treatment. In
order to avoid being labeled as promiscuous, sex-crazed maniac, and
being destructive to family, they further claimed that they are just like
the majority who have affection for their lovers and families. By projecting
a respectable image, the strategy not only plays down the difference
between heterosexuals and homosexuals, but also involves
repressing the differences within the lesbians and gay community. It silences
non-conventional lifestyles and sexual ethics. Those who do not
commit to monogamous values are judged as inferior; the unemployed
or low-income members who have been exempted from tax-payment
are excluded from the category of contributing member, thus disqualified
for equal rights. To convince the public the normality of lesbian and
gay men, the construction of identity becomes an othering process.
Those who fall below the standard are excluded, marginalized or
condemned as the ‘Other’ (Wong 2004).

Day Wong 37
Queer legal theorist Bower (1997) refers to identity-based rights
claims as a politics of ‘official recognition,’ an attempt to erase difference
and fit the ‘Other’ within a certain space acknowledged by the state. She
calls for the abandonment of the state as the site of privileged political action.
Instead, cultural contestations should become the locus of effective
political intervention. In Hong Kong along with an identity politics that
seeks inclusion within the traditional citizenship status, anti-normalization
politics has begun to emerge (Wong 2004). It includes all the protests
or political actions which transgress limits and boundaries. A tongzhi organization
Rainbow Action’s staging a sado-masochism protest in 2001
can be seen as a transgressive act that troubled the mainstream homosexual
identity of respectability. Protestors did not seek to extend the antidiscrimination
law to cover the protection of sado-masochists. Nevertheless,
the demonstration asserted a form of sexual practice, a way to pleasure,
which is different from the sexual practices recognized by the
mainstream community. The intervention of anti-normalization politics
aims not as much at inclusion and protection promised by citizenship as
constant destabilization of identities and disruption of the existing symbolic
order upon which normalizing power operates.
The attempt to construct an oral history of women who have samesex
desires has been confronted with the dilemma associated with identity
politics. On the one hand, we are critical of the exclusionary and homogenizing
effects of identity-making. On the other hand, lesbian
groups cannot afford to give up identity when their identity remains
stigmatized. The argument of lesbian feminists (see for example, Rich
1983) on the unique situation of lesbians may still be relevant. While
lesbians share the institutional oppression of all women and the denial
of civil rights with gay men, the unique oppression of lesbian is
“speechless, invisibility and inauthenticity” (Zimmerman 1984: 672).
To discard identity means to collaborate with silence and lie about the
existence of those who have been self-identified and living as lesbian.
How to give voice to lesbians while at the same time respecting difference
and minimizing normalization is the question that preoccupies our
construction of the oral history. In what follows, I will discuss how the
task is accomplished.
QUEERING COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY
While core members had agreed on the need to construct an oral history
of Hong Kong women who love women, we might not be in an ex-

38 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
plicit agreement about what purpose the oral history serves. In the
lesbian-feminist movement of the 1970s in the United States, the making
of oral history enabled members to articulate a collective identity
that transformed their own sense of self and community. In our oral history
project, some members also appealed to the notion of community
when articulating its objectives. During the interview, Connie, selfidentified
as lesbian, asserted the importance of an oral history for the
community. “Without a history, we know nothing about our predecessors;
we know neither the past nor the future.” In a similar vein, Waisum
(one of the core members) described the making of an oral history as a
root-searching experience. While some members indicated that the oral
history would help create guidelines of living for other women and can
be empowering for members of the community, listening carefully to
their elaboration of the notions of community, coming out and identity
allows us to see a more complex understanding of the project’s
significance.
It may be useful to delineate two senses of community: one refers to
the societal level; the other denotes a specific group. Our publicity materials
put an emphasis on the importance of the history for the community:
“We hope to trace the everyday lives of women who have samesex
desires through their first person narrations, and hence reconstruct a
history of our community through individual recollections.” For
Denise, the core member who wrote the publicity materials, community
here does not necessarily refer to a community of lesbians; rather, it can
be understood in a societal sense. That is, in a broader sense, community
can be referred to members sharing a sense of identification through citizenship
of a state. By saying that the project is important for the community,
Denise explained that members of our society should listen to
the stories about same-sex desires; community members should know
our existence. As stipulated in the funding documents, public education
was a major objective of this project. The oral history serves to enrich
the social history of Hong Kong and enhance mutual understanding
among its members.
In lesbian and gay movement, community can also be defined in a
group-specific sense, referring to people who share the same sexual
identities. In this project, however, cultivation of lesbian identity has
never been regarded as an intended goal. By naming the project an oral
history of women who love women, we attempted to capture an imagined
community of women who may or may not share a sexual identity.
By calling it a project of the community and for the community, community
can be understood as a constellation of liked persons, i.e., a com-

Day Wong 39
munity of women who have same-sex desires. It includes not only those
who remain in same-sex relationships, but also women who only had
past experience of same-sex desires and women who admit the potential
to have desires for women. Whether these women identify themselves
as lesbians is not the primary concern. It is a shared sense of experience
that unites these women. Community is articulated in a minimal and
loose sense; it is not a community with shared norms, shared lifestyles,
or shared support. Same-sex desire is understood as an experience that a
woman may encounter in her life. There is no attempt to expand the experience
to define the totality of self or finding a home in community.
For Liklik, the objective of the project had somehow been achieved
when women of similar experiences came forth to approach WC after
reading the booklet–some married; some never in a love relationship
with a woman. They had gone through different trajectories in their
lives; yet, they all claimed attractions to women and felt that they would
like to talk about their experience with WC. Rather than celebrating an
identity, what was treasured is a shared understanding of desires for
women.
The deployment of the language of community represents an imagined
community which is radically different from an essentialist understanding
of community. Being in common does not necessarily mean
having, in any form, in any empirical or ideal place, a substantial identity.
Our project does not seek to overcome or erase the differences between
women who have same-sex desires. It creates a sense of
identification without reinforcing a single or fixed identity. This sense
of identification disrupts women’s usual affiliations in the male-dominated,
heterosexist order. Although the project avoids treating identity
as the ground of political aspirations for the oppressed group, its bracketing
identity does not make it politically impotent. It envisages a social
transformation through loosening the grip of compulsory heterosexuality
on women and a subtle reconstitution of the affiliations of the
members of the community.
The booklet published in the name of the project has devoted a chapter
on identity. Yet, the chapter does not indicate a celebration of lesbian
identity. On the contrary, it starts by quoting an informant Gumgum’s
critique of identity politics in the gay liberation movement. “It is time
for celebrating diversities, just like the rainbow flag’s representation.
One cannot appropriate the flag as the symbol of homosexual people.”
The informant was a founder of Queer Sisters, an organization which
aimed to put sexual rights on the public agenda. Waiwai, who was both
an informant and a core member, claimed she did not oppose to being

40 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
identified as lesbian, bisexual, tomboy or TBG (fem). Her critique of
identity was expressed by a playful attitude she adopted toward identity.
She refused to hold onto any identity and challenged the conventional
meaning of an identity. In her words, “being a tomboy who wears lipstick
and grows long hair, I have my own way of expanding and redefining
the meaning of tomboy.” As Butler (1990) points out, the parodying
of gender norms has subversive political potential. Since identity is contextually
defined within a particular system of signification, those
trapped in that system can only redefine it by repeating it through a
radical proliferation of gender, to displace the very gender norms that
enable the repetition itself (Wilson 1997).
The quotes in the identity chapter of our booklet did not put an emphasis
on ‘lesbian’ identity. Nevertheless, some informants were more inclined
to use gender-specific sexual identities, namely ‘TB’ (tomboy),
‘TBG’ (fem) and ‘Pure,’ 6 in classifying themselves. While appealing to
these categories, the informants’ classification often demonstrates inbetweeness,
indeterminacy and fluidity of their gender. Informant Carcar
classified herself as ‘Pure’ but also admitted to being a bit butch. Her
gender identity is, one may say, between butch and ‘Pure.’ Flower, a 51year-old
informant, identified herself as tomboy when she was in her
twenties and thirties. Now she saw herself as ‘Pure.’ Kaikai considered
her ex-girlfriend to be butch but acknowledged that she also had a fem
side. It was precisely because of a mix of butch and fem in her character
that attracted Kaikai. Kaikai’s experience reflects not only the fluidity
of gender, but also a sense of indeterminacy. She performed the role of
TBG when her partner was TB, but she was not sure if she might become
pure when she no longer had a TB as her partner. In general, informants
did not appropriate gender as an essential identity. Gender
identities are in a plural form and have the nature of a role identity. By
performing different gender roles in different relations, the notion of an
original gender identity is parodied. Their experiences reveal what Butler
(1990) calls the imitative structure of gender, as well as its contingency.
What they manifest is endless possibilities of the performativity
of gender.
Unlike the mainstream heterosexual culture, gender here does not become
the fixed marker of identity. Nor does the oral history reinstate
any binary of gender. The categories of gender can be expanded or revised.
New categories can be created. Its openness and flexibility encourage
women to play the gender game. Waisum, a core member who
was responsible for putting together the extracts on identity, expressed
that these stories really show the fluidity of identity. She herself re-

Day Wong 41
garded identity to be a game to play with. “Call your partner TB and
tease her for lack of sense of direction can be fun.” What makes teasing
enjoyable rather than humiliating is the fact that the woman did not really
build a sense of self on the identity of TB but simply appropriated it
as a role to perform, as terms to play with, and as a category for critique.
In short, if identity must be continuously assumed in the construction
of an oral history, it is necessary to simultaneously call into question the
identity that is under construction. Only in this way can we avoid the
exclusionary and normalizing effects associated with identity politics.
The ‘community’ built out of it would consequently be able to signify a
terrain for diversity and fluidity of identities.
The objective is to construct a history without presupposing some essential
quality that marks the lives of these women. When we interviewed
informants on their childhood and youthful experiences of first sexual
fantasy or love experience, we were careful not to seek to establish the episode
as the first stage in the development of an inevitable lesbian identity.
This was to allow for the possibility of the existence of heterosexual
desire at early or later stages of life. While informants admitted samesex
desires, some informants had refused to talk about their love relationships,
and instead chose to concentrate on topics such as peer culture
and social movement. Hence, unlike other oral history studies, such
as Faderman’s (1991) Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, the project is not
exclusively or fundamentally concerned with questions of same-sex
love or sexuality, a concern which inevitably lends the texts themselves
distinctively a lesbian identity (Bravmann 1996). The project is not oriented
to the development of a collective consciousness that unites the
historical experiences. The division of the published booklet into several
parts, including identity, family, peers, school culture, love relationship,
sexuality, and tongzhi movements, can be seen as a metaphor
for the fragmentation of women’s culture and history. No attempt is
made to represent the whole history of a unified group of women in an
abstract and general form. Only certain parts, or bits and pieces, of the
history are made visible.
PROJECTION OF THE SECOND PHASE:
TOWARD A ‘7-11’ APPROACH OF CULTURAL POLITICS
The first phase of the oral history project was completed and meetings
were held to refine the directions of the project. In review meetings,
most participants expressed the hope for the principle of diversity to be

42 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
more vigorously observed in the second phase of the project. In addition
to an insistence on recruiting women from diverse age groups and
socio-economic backgrounds, they suggested that married women,
women who have children, and women who remain in heterosexual relationships
be included in the future interview. In the published booklet,
most of the informants that were mentioned remained in a same-sex relationship.
“It seems that all the differences among the women were reduced
to sameness, to a single quality, i.e., women who have same-sex
relationships,” commented Eugene (one of the core members). She suggested
that in the second phase of the project, “we should classify
women according to the different ways they identify themselves. Readers
should be able to see how a bisexual, a married woman, a mother, a
woman who refuses any identity, and so on experience same-sex
desires.”
I argue that this project constitutes a ‘7-11’ approach of cultural politics.
In the meetings of core members, we sometimes used ‘7-11’ as a
metaphor for women who have same-sex desires. The same metaphor
appeared in a slogan of an anti-homophobia rally held in May 2005:
“There must be tongzhi on every corner. No need to tremble when you
see them.” By presenting the stories of same-sex desires among women
who are single, married or divorced, who claim to be heterosexual, homosexual
or bisexual, who are housewives, workers or middle-class
professionals, this project reinvents women who have same-sex desires
as ‘7-11,’ as ‘there must be one near you.’ While the project underscores
the similarity of heterosexual and homosexual women, it does
not constitute a politics of ‘official recognition.’ On the contrary, it
challenges assimilation and minoritization associated with the identity
politics of the equal rights movement in Hong Kong. Same-sex desires
are portrayed as not only inherent in our 10% population who are biologically
born with such ‘abnormal’ desires. They are experiences
shared by women from different walks of life, the number of which may
well exceed what was assumed and imagined. The project, in a unique
sense, takes an insightful step not only towards the identification of sexual
minorities, but also towards unfolding the vast majority’s reflection
upon their own same-sex desires, the experience of which can be unacknowledged
and unsettling, or memorable and pleasurable. The oral
history in effect helps to shift the affiliations of ordinary people away
from the heterosexist order.
During the 1960s and 1970s, our Western counterparts sought to
bring about cultural transformation through sexual liberation and cultivation
of a sense of pride in gay identity. In arguing against marriage

Day Wong 43
and monogamy and against existing family structures, liberationists
presented alternative lifestyles such as communal life, multiple partnership,
etc., in terms of freedom from constraining gender roles and celebration
of sexual pleasure and equality. Since the 1990s, a new politics
of cultural contestation appeared in the West which was signified most
forcefully by the group known as Queer Nation. Queers use theatrical
tactics, such as public display of same-sex affection or dressing in drag,
to demand public attention. By invading straight bars and organizing
“Queers Night Out,” for example, queers shows a heterosexual culture
that what “looked like bounded gay subcultural activity has itself become
restless and improvisatory, taking pleasure in a theatre near you”
(Bower 1997: 281). While these actions may increase conflict, exacerbate
fears and produce dilatory effect on achieving policy change,
queers refused to compromise and insisted on reconfiguring the public
sphere as a site for articulation of multiple-sexed subjects.
A common thread running through the two forms of cultural politics
is their critique of homophobia and heterosexism. In criticizing the naturalness
of gender roles and heterosexual nuclear family, some liberationists
advocate alternative social institutions which free people from
oppression. Queer Nation confronts homophobia directly by the strategy
of “We’re here, We’re Queer, Get used to it.” This project shares
liberationists’ critique of heterosexuality as something other than natural
without prescribing any alternative institutions as the cure. It also
shares queers’ emphasis on broadcasting the ‘ordinariness’ of same-sex
desires. Instead of asking how to justify lesbianism and in what sense is
lesbian identity necessary, the questions are shifted to heterosexist social
norms and practices (Phelan 1993). It reveals the unnaturalness and
arbitrariness of heterosexist norms. Same-sex desires are shown to be
natural, not in terms of biological determinism but as a common
experience shared by women of all ages and backgrounds.
We have not, however, appropriated the term ‘queer’ in descriptions
of the project. In Taiwan, queer nation has been translated as guaitai
yizu which possesses the connotation of ‘weirdo’ or ‘freak’ (see Martin
2003: 3). In Hong Kong’s social movement, ‘queer’ has neither been
translated nor popularized. Rather than labeling women who have
same-sex desires as freak, we seek to evoke an ‘ordinary consciousness’
7 in reading these stories. In an attempt to reconstruct histories that
contest identities and subvert binaries, this project can be read as a challenge
to the division between “we as queers” and “you as non-queers.”
What lies at the heart is a critique of the homosexual/heterosexual binary,
upon which the separation between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is based. It is a

44 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
cultural contestation which calls each of us to attend to our own desires,
as well as the uncertainties and incompletion in our identities. It allows
us to treat same-sex desires as ‘ordinary’ feeling, without losing sight of
the differences among women.
In our review meetings, core member Denise hoped that in the second
phase we will be able to recruit informants who can come out and
face the society. Making comparison with the oral history project she
did in the United States in 1996, Denise held that our project would have
a more powerful impact if the informants could really be ‘out.’ “In the
1996 project, we displayed not only oral narratives but also big photos
of informants who were of different races and backgrounds. This made
diversities visible for the general public.” “For members of the sexual
minorities,” stated Denise, “this implies taking off the shame and a
sense of empowerment.” Though Denise stressed the importance of
coming out, she was quick to add that this is not a requirement for every
individual. The ultimate goal is not that everyone should be coming out
and admitting his/her sexual orientation; rather, it is to alleviate prejudice
and discrimination so that people have room to express themselves
freely.
In my exchange with Denise, I made use of Kennedy’s (1998) work
to highlight how lesbians’ life stories of the 1940s to 1960s in western
New York challenged the simple equations of discretion and secrecy
with furtiveness, despair and self-hatred and of openness and coming
out with liberation and happiness. We both recognize that many people
in Hong Kong still believe that homosexuality is symptomatic of a psychic
abnormality. It is a long road to fight the stigmatization surrounding
lesbian or gay identity. Coming out to society may not be a path that
every woman who has same-sex desires must go through. In the published
booklet, coming out stories are not treated as a separate topic but
rather included in the chapters on family and friends. Self-disclosure
was not seen as an ethical or political choice; rather, it was connected to
some intimate moments that informants had with their significant others.
Some of the coming out stories were touching, demonstrating a
deep sense of love and care between family members. Other stories displayed
an ‘ordinary consciousness.’ When people were told the truth of
same-sex relationships, there were no arguments or queries. People did
not make a big deal of it, only taking it as a matter of fact or as a personal
choice. Nevertheless, negative reactions were also reported. Based on
past experience, an informant said she would not come out to her friends
again since she did not want to jeopardize the relationships. The collection
of life stories offers a clue as to how coming out can be successful,

Day Wong 45
while at the same time fostering a sense of understanding and respect for
those who decide to remain closeted.
In the future we will ask our informants if they can really be ‘out’ and
have their photos included in the anthology. This is not to replace
heteronormativity with an ethos of lesbian existence, which treats coming
out as an ethical obligation in fighting homophobia and heterosexism.
Instead it is understood by Denise as one of the strategies that
can be used for the purpose of public education. Identity deployment is
seen as a way to contest stigmatized social identities for the purpose of
institutional change (Bernstein 1997; Taylor and Raeburn 1995). Coming
out and identity formation depend on not only the interaction of
one’s self-understanding and the categories of meaning provided by immediate
and distant communities, lesbian and otherwise, but also the
political goals that are intended to achieve. To advance a ‘7-11’ approach
of cultural politics, I believe it is not even necessary to link coming
out to the making of lesbian identity. A married woman, a mother, a
woman who refuses any identity, or a self-identified heterosexual, may
all come out and share their stories of love between women. The aim is
to trouble the category of heterosexuality, to challenge the division
between the ‘normal majority’ and the ‘perverse minority’ upon which
heterosexuality’s power relies.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
As reported above, this oral history has, in many ways, moved beyond
identity politics by insisting on respect of difference and
destabilization of identity. Nevertheless, one must be reminded that critiques
of identity politics need to be counterbalanced by the awareness
that sexual minorities in Hong Kong cannot afford to give up identity
when legal protection against discrimination has not been granted and
when the access to same-sex marriage has not been made available.
Therefore, part of this project is to document the development of
tongzhi movements and the life stories of self-identified lesbians. In this
way, the oral history helps foster identification and mutual support
among lesbians. If there must be a sense of identity, we must try to minimize
the normalizing effects in the making of an identity. For instance,
we avoid imposing an ethical responsibility to come out on individuals.
If this project creates a community, this is not a community which has
the potential to discipline members on behalf of a code of behavior. This
imagined community is open for not only self-identified lesbians, but

46 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
also any women who can have a shared understanding of desires for
women. This paper has told the critical story of the oral history project.
The significance of this project, I have argued in this paper, lies in advancing
a cultural politics which subverts the heterosexual/homosexual
binary and rejects minoritization and marginalization.
NOTES
1. Hall Carpenter Archives published two anthologies, Inventing Ourselves, Lesbian
Life Stories and Walking after Midnight: Gay Men’s Life Stories, in 1989. In addition to
the separate treatment given to the life stories of lesbians and gay men, a detailed account
of the class background of the storyteller was provided and distinctions were
made according to the race or ethnicity of the storyteller.
2. Qiu Jin was considered to be an early Chinese feminist. She took part in the revolutionary
movement to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty in 1906. Some scholars viewed
Qiu Jin and Wu Zheying, a poet, as lovers. The two exchanged a formal pledge of eternal
friendship. See Ng (1996).
3. Sankar (1994) had a detailed discussion of the sisterhood and their marriage resistance
in traditional China. Also see Herdt (1997: 137).
4. Chinese names are given in the convention of last name first, and first name(s) second.
5. The idea to include transgender and transsexual people opens up questions about
the dominant classifications of women in terms of biological sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
We have seriously considered the possibility of including them in our project,
but due to the limitation of time and resources, and the fear of not being able to do justice
to their unique experiences, we finally resorted to the most conventional category
of biological sex in selecting women to be our informants. It must be admitted that our
decision essentially forbids an interrogation of the category of ‘women,’ which is crucial
for cultural contestation. We genuinely hope that in the future we would undertake
projects on the oral history of transgender and transsexual people.
6. An informant defined ‘Pure’ as those women who do not mind being with ‘TB’ or
‘TBG’ or ‘Pure.’ This definition focuses on the sexual object choice of an individual.
Whether these terms convey the same meanings as the terms butch, fem and androgyny
in Western countries is not clear. In light of the interaction of local and global contexts,
how people in Hong Kong understand, appropriate and use these terms deserves a thorough
study.
7. ‘Ordinary consciousness’ is a commonly used Buddhist jargon which refers to an
attitude of letting go, or being unemotional, nonjudgmental, unprejudiced. Hong Kong
people like to stress the importance of an ordinary heart in facing divergent views or
experiencing ups and downs in their lives.
REFERENCES
Bernstein, Mary. 1997. “Celebration and Suppression: The Strategic Uses of Identity by
the Lesbian and Gay Movement.” The American Journal of Sociology 103: 531-565.
Bower, Lisa. 1997. “Queer Problems/Straight Solutions.” Pp. 267-291 in Playing with
Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theory, edited by S. Phelan. New York: Routledge.

Day Wong 47
Bravmann, Scott. 1996. “Postmodernism and Queer Identities.” Pp. 333-361 in Queer
Theory/Sociology, edited by S. Seidman. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York & London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1991. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Pp. 13-31 in Inside/Out:
Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, edited by D. Fuss. New York: Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1994. “Gender as Performance. An Interview with Judith Butler.” Interviewed
by P. Osborne & L. Segal. Radical Philosophy 67: 32-39.
Connolly, William. 2002. Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political
Paradox. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Faderman, Lillian.1991. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in
Twentieth-Century America. New York: Columbia University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1979a. Discipline and Punish. London: Allen Lane.
Foucault, Michel. 1979b. The History of Sexuality. London: Allen Lane.
Franzen, Trisha. 1993. “Differences and Identities: Feminism and the Albuquerque
Lesbian Community.” Signs 18: 891-906.
Fuss, Diana. 1989. Essentially Speaking. New York: Routledge.
Herdt, Gilbert. 1997. Same Sex, Different Cultures. Boulder, Colorado: Westview
Press.
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky and Madeline D. Davies. 1993. Boots of Leather, Slippers
of Gold: The History of Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge.
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky. 1998. “Telling Takes: Oral History and the Construction
of Pre-Stonewall Lesbian History.” Pp. 344-355 in The Oral History Reader,
edited by R. Perks & A. Thomson. New York & London: Routledge.
Krieger, Susan. 1982. “Lesbian Identity and Community: Recent Social Science Literature.”
Signs 8: 91-108.
Martin, Fran. 2003. Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in Taiwanese Fiction,
Film and Public Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Ng, Vivien. 1996. “Looking for Lesbians in Chinese History.” Pp. 160-164 in The New
Lesbian Studies: Into the Twenty-First Century, edited by B. Zimmerman & T. H.
McNaron, foreword by M. Cruikshank. New York: The Feminist Press.
Phelan, Shane. 1989. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the Limits of Community.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Phelan, Shane. 1993. “(Be)Coming Out: Lesbian Identity and Politics.” Signs 18: 765-790.
Phelan, Shane. 1994. Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Rich, Adrienne. 1983. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Pp. 139-
198 in The Signs Reader: Women, Gender & Scholarship, edited by E. Abel & E. K.
Abel. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Rust, Paula C. 1993. “Coming Out in the Age of Social Constructionism: Sexual Identity
Formation among Lesbian and Bisexual Women.” Gender and Society 1:50-77.
Sankar, Andrea Patrice. 1994. The Evolution of Sisterhood in Traditional Chinese Society:
From Village Girls’ Houses to Chai Tangs in Hong Kong. Ann Arbor, Michigan:
University Microfilms International.
Seidman, Steven. 1993. “Identity and Politics in a ‘Postmodern’ Gay Culture: Some
Historical and Conceptual Notes.” Pp. 105-142 in Fear of a Queer Planet, edited by
M. Warner. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

48 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Stein, Arlene. 1997. Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Taylor, Verta and Nicole C. Raeburn. 1995. “Identity Politics as High-Risk Activism:
Career Consequences for Lesbians, Gay, and Bisexual Sociologists.” Social Problems
42: 252-273.
Thompson, Paul. 1998. “The Voice of the Past: Oral History.” Pp. 21-28 in The Oral
History Reader, edited by R. Perks and A. Thomson. London & New York:
Routledge.
Walker, Lisa M. 1993. “How to recognize a lesbian: The cultural politics of looking
like what you are.” Signs 18: 855-890.
Wilson, Angelia R. 1997. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Queer Translating.” Pp. 99-
112 in Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories, edited by S. Phelan. New
York & London: Routledge.
Wong, Day. 2004. “(Post-)Identity Politics and Anti-normalization: (Homo)sexual
Rights Movement.” Pp. 195-214 in Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong: Community,
Nation and the Global City, edited by Agnes S. Ku and N. Pun. London & New
York: Routledge Curzon.
Xiaomingxiong. 1984. Zhongguo tong xing ai shi lu (History of Homosexuality in
China). Hong Kong: Fen Hong San Jiao Chu Ban She.
Young, Iris M. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Zhou, Huashan. 1995. Xianggang tong zhi zhan chu lai (Coming out of Hong Kong
Tongzhi). Hong Kong: Centre for Hong Kong Tongzhi Studies.
Zimmerman, Bonnie. 1984. “The Politics of Transliteration: Lesbian Personal Narratives.”
Signs 9: 663-682.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_03

Beyond Pain and Protection:
Politics of Identity and Iban Girls in Korea
Ji-eun Lee
SUMMARY. This study analyzes the complexities in the exploration of
iban girls’ identities and the various ways how girls appropriate varied
sources such as popular culture to examine the heterogeneousness of
identity explorations and rethink the politics of identities. Against the
tendency in current discourse on homosexual youth in Korea, protection
discourse and pain discourse, the notion of identity itself will be critically
examined and the girls’ agency in destabilizing heteronormativity
will be discussed. This study also deals with the appropriation of popular
culture by the girls, suggesting that cultural critiques should reveal complex
dynamics in concrete experiences. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_04 [Article
copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-
800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights
reserved.]
Ji-eun Lee has studied in the Graduate Program in Culture and Gender Studies at
Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. The title of her Master’s thesis is “A study of teenage
iban girls’ community experience and identity,” written in Korean. Her recent research
interest is gender, technology and identity.
Address correspondence to: Ji-eun Lee, Graduate Program of Culture and Gender
Studies, Baikyang Hall 517ho, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-749,
South Korea (E-mail: iamjieun@gmail.com).
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Beyond Pain and Protection: Politics of Identity and Iban Girls in Korea.”
Lee, Ji-eun. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint
of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 49-67; and: “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity,
Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The
Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 49-67. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address:
docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_04 49

50 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
KEYWORDS. Popular culture, queer, iban, youth protection, identity
politics
Since 2000, people’s eyes have been caught by teenage girls with
short hair gathering at Shinchon Park and lesbian cafés in Seoul, Korea.
Groups of girls with loose-fit clothes and boyish fashion hang out in the
streets crowded with teens. Some ‘ordinary’ cafés, which have not been
lesbian cafés are also occupied by queer girls and gossip has been
spreading that the there are cafés crowded with lesbian girls smoking,
chatting and kissing. Although the boyish style is not all there is to the
queer girls, they are being picked on by their outward appearance. People
have shown contempt for “lez (lesbian) fashion” and some schools
have picked out girls with short hair to urge them to be good heterosexual
girls.
Meanwhile, queer girls are making friends, meeting lovers, communicating
with other queer girls, sharing knowledge and information on
“homosexuality” and constructing a community in cyberspace. Many
Internet clubs and chat rooms are enlivened by teenage queer girls who
could not get access to adult-only lesbian websites. Slang of teenage
queer girls emerged, and to connect with other queer girls, a girl would
need to be familiar with these words.
This study analyzes the complexities in the exploration of girls’ identities
and the various ways how girls appropriate varied sources such as
popular culture. By doing this, I aim at criticizing current discourses on
homosexual youth in Korean society, presented by both the sexual conservatives
and sexual minority activist groups and their supporters. The
sexual conservatives problematize youth homosexuality as an aberration
and emphasizes the harmful effects on the immature and reckless
of cultural products that contain explicit information or representation
of homosexuality. In opposition to this, sexual minority activists point
out that homosexual youths are deprived of resources for their identity
formation and challenged by homophobia in their everyday lives; they
urge practical intervention for protecting sexual minority youth from
the pain caused by their stigmatized identity. While the former effaces
the girls’ agency by producing a rash and liable-to-infection image of
youths, the latter unintentionally sutures the rupture of heteronormativity
present in the girls’ complex experiences around sexual
identities. In this paper, I try to examine the heterogeneousness of identity
explorations and to rethink the politics of identities through the stories
of iban girls, or the queer girls.

Ji-eun Lee 51
BACKGROUND TO THE PRESENT STUDY
This study started from my Master’s thesis project on queer girls’
community experiences and identities. I carried out field research from
July 2004 to December 2004. I interviewed 16 girls who identified
themselves as iban and examined materials which were posted and read
by queer teens in the Internet iban communities.
Let me explain the term iban for better understanding of later discussion.
The word iban, originated from the Korean gay community, is
widely used by the girls who identify themselves as lesbian or bisexual.
The term iban is meant to be different from ilban, which means “the
normal” in Korean; it indicates “not being heterosexual” and “a consciousness
of the homosexual community as a social group only
vaguely differentiated from heterosexual” (Seo 2001: 69). Using the
term iban, the girls are emphasizing how their sexuality is unlike normative
heterosexuality. In terms of this emphasis on challenging the
norm, iban has a similar political effect as “queer,” which also acquires
its meaning from its oppostional relation to the norm (Halperin, 1995).
To capture the girls’ complex experiences, I will use the term iban as the
girls identify themselves as iban. However, I will also use queer sometimes
in order to avoid presenting their experiences as an exclusively
unique phenomenon among Korean teenagers, and to clarify the
significance of their stories in ongoing discussions on identity politics.
During the interviews with iban girls, I asked them various questions,
including how they conceive/perceive iban identity. In this process, I
encountered a problem of fanfic iban category as the girls distinguished
their identity from fanfic iban, such as “I was interested in fanfic, but it
is not that I am a fanfic iban just following the cool fashion.” ‘Fanfic
Iban’ is a compound word of “fanfic”and“iban,” with fanfic referring to
“fan fictions” with male homosexual protagonists. It is used as a negative
notion within queer youth community implying superficiality and
inauthenticity with an assumption that some girls are not “real” iban because
fanfic iban is supposed to be one who just follows the fashion depicted
in fanfic as a fan of a male idol star. Why should they claim their
distinctiveness from fanfic iban? Why were they cautious of fanfic experiences
while they talked about the chances to explore their sexual
identities through involvement with fanfic? How does heteronormativity
enter their perception of identity? To answer these questions
and to derive from them political implications, I exerpted and
analyzed some girls’ narratives from the interviews and Internet materials.
1

52 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
The girls’ experiences are very heterogeneous but they cannot be
clearly seen without problematizing identity. In this sense, discourses
on homosexual youth constructed with an appeal to a coherent notion of
identity need to be critically examined. Whether they problematize the
girls as reckless youth affected by unwholesome popular culture or
stand by them with the concept of pain and identity, these discourses fail
to notice the queer girls’ challenge to existing discourse on sexuality in
South Korea. I will first briefly present how teenage girls become sexual
subjects, are being affected by popular culture and, at the same time,
appropriating it. In particular, fanfic, fan fictions in most of which male
idol stars are protagonists in homosexual relationship among them, will
be analyzed as an example of teenage queer girls’ appropriation of popular
culture. It will give us a chance to capture the unexpected way in
which popular culture and its fan communities provide a teenage girl
with a chance to explore her own identity. I will argue that the complexities,
inconsistencies, and ambiguities urge us to confront the question
of identity.
CURRENT DISCOURSES ON HOMOSEXUAL YOUTH:
DEATH BECOMES HER?
As a Korean journalist stated in an article, 2005 was “the inaugural
year of action for sexual minority youth in Korea”; how to “protect” homosexual
youth became an important agenda for Korean society, not
only for activists in the sexual minority movements. “Youth homosexuality”
has become a big issue through several events known to the public:
the formation of homosexual and bisexual youth community in
cyberspace that has been known to the public since 2000, the struggle
over a restraint order that prohibited Internet contents on homosexuality
from youths in 2001, and a young gay activist’s suicide in 2003. Two
Korean governmental organizations (National Youth Commission and
Korea Youth Counseling Institute) organized a conference on this issue
in 2003, and 3 activist groups for sexual minorities developed education
programs for youth with the support of the National Human Rights
Commission of Korea. Besides, a documentary film “Lesbian Censorship
in School” was produced by a feminist video activist group WOM
and screened in the 9th Seoul Human Rights Film Festival.
The growing concern on this issue is a very important achievement as
it has created space for discussion about youth and homosexuality.
Youths, considered too young to think about their own sexuality, have

Ji-eun Lee 53
been forced to stay asexual in public discussion. In the meantime, popular
culture lures teenagers into consumers of cultural products, suggesting
that they also have rights to pursue their own sexual pleasure within
heteronormativity. Thus, it can be said that the opening of the debates
on homosexual youths signified a challenge to existing discourses on
youth sexuality.
While youth homosexuality is still problematized in mainstream discourses,
it is not that homosexuality itself is pathologized. Instead, it is
emphasized that information on homosexuality has a harmful influence
on immature and innocent young people. As indicated by the question a
lawyer for the Information Communication Ethics Committee in Korea
asked a gay activist Seo Dong-Jin, 2 a testifier in court in the ExZone
case, 3 whether we need to make a distinction between “adult” and
“youth,” the sexual conservatives have transformed the issue of youth
sexuality into a social problem based on ageism. At this point, we
should note that it is not a problem of ‘homosexuality’ itself, but of
“youth.” Now most Koreans arguably have accepted the idea that homosexuality
is one form of human sexuality instead of a perverted desire
and that discrimination against a homosexual person is a violation
of ‘human rights.’ However, youth homosexuality still matters as it is
thought that attraction to homosexuality is dangerous for impetuous
young people.
In struggling against this “protective” perspective, activists and supporters
of homosexual youth emphasize the pain experienced by young
sexual minorities and argue that Korean society should support these
youths. Referencing the high suicide rates according to statistics compiled
in foreign countries and cases of ostracization in school reported
by queer youth, they urge society to provide support programs for teenage
queers and campaign programs for sexual minority issues. Of
course their claim is very important in light of irrational actions like the
“inspection” of lesbians in school and violation and exclusion by classmates.
However, this argument is problematic because it equates this
‘pain’ with an identity defined by “pain,” and in doing so appeals to heterosexual,
“normal” citizens’ sympathy. This perspective does not take
into account queer youths’ lived experiences, their agencies, and their
subversive questions.
Such discourses emphasizing pain and protection are also usurped by
the mass media, as shown in the following guide to a TV program.
Girls who enjoy yaoi 4 and fanfic depicting same-sex love between
men are adapting to the homosexual culture more rapidly than

54 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
adults. The problem lies with young people who think of homosexuality
as fashion rather than a sexual identity that defines one’s
whole life. Their relationship is not limited to friendship or emotional
communication with a same-sex friend. They have gotten
used to sexual contact with people of the same-sex. This kind of
behavior might cause confusion in sexual identity, and sexual
trouble, even if they marry someone of the opposite sex in the future.
On the other hand, there are other teenagers who deny this
frivolous trend. They agonize over their sexual identity, which
must be consuming their whole life; they don’t like other teens
who merely follow the frivolous trend and call them fanfic iban.
After all, there exist the two faces of ‘temptation’ and ‘destiny.’
This is a producer’s introduction on the program website for a TV report
“We want to know it–Two Faces of Teenage Homosexuality”
(broadcasted in 2002). This program was criticized by lesbian groups
for such problems as the exposure of personal information without consent.
However, in my opinion, what is most problematic in this program
is the framework used to discuss homosexuality and sexual identity. Ostensibly,
this framework seems not to pathologize homosexuals; it supports
the human rights of homosexuals as long as homosexuals cannot
choose their sexual identity freely, or in other words, when sexual identity
is “destiny.” This is a very common attitude in Korea. As a result of
the sexual minority movement in mid-1990s, homosexuality cannot be
‘officially’ described as “sexual pervasion,” and there is apparent support
for defending their ‘human rights’: no one should be blamed for
his/her private sexual identity! According to this producer’s introduction,
homosexuals are people who need social support for their agony
over their homosexual identity rather than people with pervert desire
and deviant sexual behavior. However, at the same time, embedded in
this discourse is also a division between these youths who deserve our
sympathy and others who apparently do not. This binary opposition of
“temptation/destiny” and “fleeting fashion/identity of a whole life” denounces
‘some’ queer teens, while leaving intact the binary logic of
heteronormativity.
If temptation and fashion mean a bad influence of “distorted” representations
of homosexuality in fanfic or yaoi, and the resulting confusion
caused by such bad cultural texts, destiny and homosexuality as
one’s lifelong identity should be tolerated and supported. Such binary
idea also affects queer girls when they engage in “fanfic iban/authentic
iban” debate, as we will see in the next section. However, who is to

Ji-eun Lee 55
judge whether one is feeling “agony over the sexual identity which
should be consuming one’s life” or is just following a “fashionable
trend”? This scheme also reveals another aspect of the ways in which
discourse on sexuality is constructed in Korea. A person’s sexual identity
can be affirmed and respected only if it is serious, not frivolous, and
only when it is a matter of lifetime, not just fleeting fashion. We should
remember that homosexuality cannot be claimed or discussed without
references to “destiny” and “pain” in Korean society. In other words,
death becomes homosexual youth. Sensual feelings toward other girls,
intimacy between women, and ambiguous desires disappear in this
point of view and sexuality is abstracted to identity, pain, and human
rights.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN FANFIC IBAN AND AUTHENTIC IBAN
Two years ago ...Ididn’t know anything about lesbian or anything.
I and my friend liked yaoi and the beautiful boys in it, so I
didn’t have any disdain for homosexuality. From my friends, I got
to know one chat site, it was a fun playground. I was attracted to it.
I wanted to get along with the girls in the chat room, so I learned
one by one. Words like iban, lesbian, bai (bisexual), and other
slang, and I learned their chatting style, too. It was a lot of fun.
One day, I could go out with a girl, she was an online lover. I
wanted to find a lover, and it was the girl; I did not think about it
seriously. It was just an online thing! But her letter in the mailbox
at my home made me fall in love with her. It was real love. My
heart throbbed, and sometimes I felt melancholic because I
wanted to see her. (Yeong-mi)
If someone operating with a “temptation/destiny” binary hears this
story, s/he would say it is the story of “temptation.” The girl was not
afraid of homosexuals due to the effects of yaoi comics, and chatted on
the net with girls who identified themselves as iban/lesbian just for fun.
She met a partner without thinking seriously about it, but she fell in love
with the girl sincerely and after that she could identify herself as lesbian.
Can the experience be described as just a temporary fashion that merely
fades away? Was she a reckless girl who was contaminated by yaoi,adistorted
heterosexual culture that objectifies homosexuality? Is her love a
mere illusion? Indeed, a typical response from the mainstream runs as
follows: “Their homosexual practice is just a passing fashion. We need to

56 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
control their cultural consumption and prevent them from reading obscene
and perverted materials! We should lead/keep them straight!”
Whereas heterosexuality is promoted as the only sexuality a “normal”
person should achieve, non-heterosexual attempts are construed as an aberration
which can and must be corrected. Anxious to defend both children
and heterosexuality, “harmful information” is blamed for distorting
the formation of normal (heterosexual) identity. To defend themselves,
iban girls need to explain themselves with a coherent notion of identity,
discarding the ambiguities and heterogeneousness in their identities.
Fanfic iban/authentic iban distinction combined with hatred against
fanfic iban emerged amidst the growth of queer teen girls community,
which is distinct from that of older lesbians. Here the term fanfic iban
stands for something false, inauthentic and impetuous. It refers to girls
who are swept by fads which make homosexuality just a cool style
adorned in fanfic and yaoi. Fanfic iban’s love cannot be earnest from
this point of view. “Authentic” iban girls needed to distinguish themselves
from temporary fashion, and so they invented the category fanfic
iban to construct a distinction from the “other” that they did not want to
be identified with. As such, this derogatory term has been invented as a
reaction to homophobic responses to them. When others say to the girls
that they are contaminated by a distorted culture and need to be corrected,
their response is something like this: “I didn’t enjoy that kind of
text and it was not that fanfic made me a lesbian. Yes, the other girls,
younger girls, they might be untrue and insincere. Some of them admire
male idol stars, and mimic the stars through fantasized images in fanfic.
I don’t think they are true lesbians. Don’t suspect me! My reality is
different from theirs!”
When mainstream discourse tries to describe the girls’ identity with a
coherent notion of identity, it stabilizes the heterosexual matrix (Butler
1990) and inscribes the girls’ complex experiences in the matrix. Eliminating
any ambiguities in their sexuality, heteronormative discourse attempts
to eradicate trouble within heteronormativity itself, which
suppresses all the sexualities and genders that do not fit the “norm.”
Queers, agents whose desires and sexual practices are not captured
within the normative sexuality, can be subversive at this juncture. However,
as they are also immersed in this heteronormativity, the reference
of their self-identity is the heteronormative discourse, as we can see in
fanfic iban debates. At this point, instead of answering the question
about identity on an abstract level, it is necessary to reveal the complexity
of their experiences with the identity category of iban. If we claim
the authenticity of the identity against the sexual conservative’s ques-

Ji-eun Lee 57
tion, we cannot explain their ambiguous experiences and would risk
contributing to the stabilization of heteronormativity. What their stories
show us is not an “authentic” identity that is fixed and definite, but a
rupture between their own lived experience and the normative discourse
which assumes a stable identity.
Categorized sexual identities, such as “homosexual,” are a product of
western modernity and are abstractions of sexuality based on sexual object
choice. Rosemary Hennessy (2000) notes that this abstract notion
of sexual identity reifies and commodifies sex. The category demarcates
human experiences with a logic of commodity, conceals the ambiguity
of sexuality, and makes sexuality into a question of choice. Queer
theory is a political project which problematizes heteronormativity, and
which locates the non-hetero subject as “queer.” It is not to add new,
clear and detailed categories to the existing dictionary of identities, but
rather to destablize heteronormative discourse, revealing the way in
which our culture allocates one to a certain identity category and
subjectifies one within the discourse. Hence, the girls’ experience cannot
be reduced to an abstract identity category. This is not to suggest
that we need to affirm or prove the authenticity of Korean queer teen
girls’ experiences; rather, I am arguing that we should deconstruct the
categories which organize and define their experiences. In other words,
we should analyze the rupture between the girls’ lived experiences and
the identity category of iban and not resolve the question of sexuality
into the framework of identity politics, which is in turn based on a
liberalist notion of individual’s identity.
The iban girls’ stories have not been observed fairly in spite of their
significance in a discussion on identities, as the fanfic iban debate has
shown us. As noted earlier, the issue of youth homosexuality is discussed
in two ways: (1) “protection” discourse which urges protection of (latent
heterosexual) youth from the bad influence (of homosexuality) and (2)
“human rights” discourse which claims protection of (painful homosexual)
youth from discrimination and violence (by heterosexuals). Those
two assumptions produce a vulnerable image of youth who need to be
protected by society. They infantilize both youths infected by sexual
harms and adults who cannot protect the girls properly, parentalize the
state, and obstruct reading the political agencies of queer teen girls
whose bodies live historically, complexly, and incoherently (Berlant
1997). By looking into their concrete experiences, we should challenge
this infantilizing tendency, reveal the problem of essentializing identity
category and confront the challenge of the girls living on the borders of
the (violent) homosexual/heterosexual divide.

58 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
ANALYZING POPULAR CULTURE:
IS THERE ONLY HETEROSEXUAL DESIRE?
Analyzing fan culture is crucial to thinking about the question of
queer girls’ identity, because fan culture is intertwined with queer teen
girls’ culture in a complex way. Let me explain a few terms. Nori (playing)
means role-playing of the stars in online chat rooms. Participants
postulate a situation and take their favorite star’s part; most of the situations
concern sexual tensions between the male stars. Fancos is an abbreviation
of fan costume-play, performances copying stars’ fashion
and dance. Some queer teen girls mention fan activities like fanfic, nori,
and fancos when they were asked to explain how they got to identify
themselves as iban. Indeed, an anonymous girl wrote on a lesbian
Internet club board that fanfic and nori were related to the sudden increase
of queer girls some years ago, and they (she and other girls in the
club) are not free from the effects of fanfic. Suggesting that queer girls’
culture would have been formed in a different way if there had been no
effect of fan culture, she explained that queer girls’ community culture
has been influenced by fandom in a definite way. It is important to note
that the effect of fan culture must neither be understood as a one-way
process, nor be thought of as an irrational deviation of the girls. Rather it
should be said that teenage girls appropriate a certain cultural space and
texts to explore their identity in varied ways.
One thing I would like to note at this point is that defining the female
fans’ desire as a heterosexual one is mistaken. There is a tendency that
the desire of fan girls is interpreted as heterosexual, invoking a (heterosexual)
romantic model of fandom. For instance, the homosexual romance
in fanfic is seen as an expression of girls’ heterosexual desire and
the convention of matching same-sex couple in fanfic is construed as the
result of heterocentrism. Kim (2003) noted that because teenage girls
want to avoid matching the male stars they love with other girls, they
couple two male stars they love in their fiction. This point of view provides
only a partial explanation, and fails to provide a proper frame to
analyze queer girls who take resources from fanfic to explore their identity.
There are girls who get a chance to think about homosexuality and
define her same-sex desire as love in reading fanfic. While adoring fans
of male stars are seen as ordinary heterosexual women (in a romantic
model of fandom), the dynamics of desire are more complicated. For instance,
Min-hee, one of my interviewees, distinguishes her love for the
girlfriend from her adoration of a star. She said she adores the male star
because she wants to be like him, as someone who has power and talent.

Ji-eun Lee 59
The reason she wants to look like him is just because he looks great. For
her, love is a more concrete emotion she feels with a real person with
whom she shares her everyday life. She said that their adoration of stars
is not just heterosexual in nature, as the normative culture assumes. For
her, the male star is a man whom she wants to be like, not the one whom
she wants to have! What is attractive to her are the power and talent he
possesses which make many girls adore him. She wants to be like him,
so she likes him, but what she wants is to be the one loved by girls, just
as he is. Not to confine their complex desire within discourse that privileges
heterosexuality, we need to queer the familiar assumption in cultural
critique that is based on homo/hetero binarism. As Fuss (1991)
points out, if the binary (such as inside/outside, homo/hetero) is used for
achieving heterosexuality’s status of the ‘compulsory,’ analyzing
within the binary would confirm the binarism. Reading female fans’
desire as just a heterosexual one is foreclosing the possibility of
ambiguity and denying women’s cultural ability to appropriate it.
In addition, reading and writing fanfic can be a chance to get familiar
with and to make sense of what homosexuality means in their own language.
Since there are not many sources on homosexual practices and
intimacy that are accessible to them in the public sphere of current Korean
society, it can be a chance to expand a reader/writer’s imagination
about sexuality and intimacy, as Joo-yeon’s comment shows.
I got to know the word ‘iban’ while I was doing ‘nori.’ Nori means
performing the scenes from fanfic. I was addicted to it because it
was attractive that I could become my idol. We make couples in the
fan community. Fans play roles in nori. If I play Minwoo’s role (a
male idol star she liked in a famous boy group ‘Shinhwa’), and I
like to be a couple with Hyesung (another member of ‘Shinhwa’),
I’d chat with the girl playing Hyesung and say, “I love you,
Hyesung.” There’s something ‘unwholesome’ about it. It was
very, very interesting, though now I think it was kind of silly. . . .
One day, after the nori, one asked me if I were ‘iban.’ I didn’t know
what she meant, so I searched the webs. “Ah, there are people
called iban.” I knew about it only at that time. Later, I happened to
fall in love with my female friend, and it became a meaningful moment
to me. (Joo-yeon)
She encountered the word iban during role-play chatting, and the unexpected
event gave her an opportunity to explore her identity. When
she fell in love with her female friend, she could think of herself as iban,

60 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
recalling the experiences. She even thought that what made her addicted
to the role-playing was her homosexual character after seizing the iban
identity. Her experience is one case of an unexpected appropriation of
popular culture. It is neither important nor possible to define the fundamental
origin of her iban identity in this case. What is needed is how the
girls experience the situation, how they interpret the playful events, and
how the process changes the concept of identity. Instead of concluding
that iban originates from a typical heterosexual desire, we should read
the concrete dynamics in these experiences. I will consider Hye-jin’s
case to suggest how to construe the girls’ story in that way.
TWO CONFUSIONS:
IDENTITY, RETRO-EXPERIENCE, AND QUEERING HERSELF
Hye-jin, who posted an autobiography on the Internet iban club
board, said she was “ordinary.” Why she described herself as “ordinary”
is that she had been attracted to “men,” as “everybody else is,” not
to “women.” She wanted to enter a co-education school to meet boys,
adored male idol stars, and her heart beat fast when bumping into boys
on the street. She could not imagine romance in a girls’ school, or any
same-sex schools. She prayed to get admitted to a co-education school
in vain, and she entered high school for “a hideous 3 years without a boy
around.” She was so sure that a life without a man would be a serious
lack that she claimed she would never apply to a women’s university.
Although she was accustomed to male homosexuality because of her
fascination with reading and writing fanfic, she said female homosexuality
was unimaginable in her mind. Love between men in fanfic is understood
as just a convention of the genre, so she could write fanfic
without any problem.
Many girls say that they get to understand homosexuals through
fanfic experience and some girls re-think their sexuality through it.
Fanfic and its related experiences offer chances to gain access to homosexuality
and same-sex intimacy that hardly appear in official discourse,
for that reason we should not jump to the conclusion that it is
merely a distorted representation of heterosexual desire. On the other
hand, Hye-jin’s story also shows that experience is not directly related
to queer thinking. In many cases, reading and writing fanfic lead girls to
think of homosexuality as just a sort of sexual taste one can sample
freely. Homosexuality can be consumed without any agony because it is
proposed as an abstract identity, not a real living experience.

Ji-eun Lee 61
I was crazy about my favorite singer’s fanfic when I was in middle
school. I could accept the concept of homosexuality accordingly.
But, at that time, homosexual or ‘iban’ was just a love story between
men, not between women. I was obsessed by only fanfic. I
could think it was not abnormal when I heard about a man loving
another man. But women’s [same-sex relationship] was felt not to
be realistic but unnatural. Frankly speaking, I could not understand
the woman. I thought falling in love with a woman could not
happen to me.
For Hye-jin, the homosexual relationship in fanfic is not real but fictional.
So she could see the relationship from a distance and it did not
cause any confusion or doubt in her own ideas about sexuality. However,
when she witnessed lesbian couples in her favorite fancos team,
she could not sustain what she had thought of as true in principle. She
had believed that female homosexuality did not exist, but after sometime
she could not but admit she had been wrong when she saw an iban
couple in her favorite fancos team. It was the first confusion Hye-jin felt
in exploring her sexual desire.
After entering high school, I was fascinated by fancos and got to
know many teams. One day, I was accessing the website of one
team, and found something weird. A girl went out with a girl! They
seemed very natural! Same-sex relationship between girls was
common there. I was very confused and thought about it again and
again. But after some days, I concluded that it was not abnormal
and I could also go out with a girl.
As she came to know about the relationship between female fancos
players, she started to rethink her own sexuality. She always thought
that ordinary people, including herself, have only heterosexual desire.
Even though she depicted the characters in fanfic as homosexuals and
knew there were gays in reality, she had not known any lesbian relationships
before. This is how she could see this “homosexual thing” from a
distance. As such, she could be in a safe place where heterosexuality is
the only possible and pursuable sexuality. However, she saw other girls
engaged in same-sex relationships and got to inquire about something
that she never doubted before. It is important to note that she grasped the
concept of homosexuality as a relationships and intimacy between real
persons, not as a fictional character through the encounters. Compulsory
heterosexuality (Rich 1980) suppresses intimate relationships be-

62 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
tween women and women’s sensual feelings toward each other, making
heterosexuality the only recognizable sexuality. Here, a homosexual
encounter by definition needs to be excluded from everyday life as an
ambiguous but strange event. However, when Hye-jin witnessed by
chance many girls engaging in same-sex relationships, she had to accept
that it was not an unreal thing and not a perverted desire. After that she
asked herself that if it could happen to any ordinary girl, whether there
had been any homosexual affairs in her life. She tried to retrieve
experiences that were related to homosexual experiences from her own
memories.
I was accustomed to the iban girls . . . After that, I reflected on my
real life. Wait a minute!!! I had left an important memory behind! I
thought it was too trivial to remember, but that memory came back
to me.
Hye-jin recalled an affair that had happened in her middle school.
The memory consisted of letters from her best friend, vague feeling
about what the friend said to her, how the girl treated her, and how she
felt about the friend’s strange behaviors. Hye-jin couldn’t understand at
that time why this friend was so sweet to her. She concluded that her
best friend might have been iban and that what her friend wanted to express
was not mere friendship but love. It might be said that this experience
was a turning point in her thinking about intimacy. Remembering
and recognizing non-normative aspects from the ambiguous moments
led her not to dismiss her desire toward a woman as meaningless. After
some time, she came to love one girl in her school, albeit unrequitedly.
The fact that she defined her feeling as love was probably made conceivable
by remembering the earlier experience. Grasping homosexuality
and the term “iban” made it possible for her to interpret her feeling in
a non-heteronormative way and to legitimize her love for another girl.
However, there came a second confusion:
It was my second confusion. Why should my heart flutter with love
for women when there are as many men as there are women in the
world? . . . But I couldn’t say what I was feeling to my friend easily.
I was serious. I dared not say I was iban to my pals. I knew what
would happen if I said it. I didn’t want to take the risk of admitting
my love for the girl.

Ji-eun Lee 63
Conflict between feeling love and identifying herself as iban by admitting
that her feeling is love is the second confusion for Hye-jin.
Through her friends’ experience, she knows how iban is dealt with and
excluded from her friends and classmates. There was a rumor that two
friends of hers were a couple. Because of the rumor, they were excluded
from their friends and everyone gossiped about the girls. Hye-jin said if
one girl playfully announces that she likes another girl, it could be affirmed
by their friends. But, when a girl really loves another girl, everyone
would attack her. In that case, the girl would be stigmatized as a
homosexual by her peer group. Hye-jin feared what would happen if she
identified as iban, as homosexual.
Let me discuss in greater depth these two confusions Hye-jin related
in her story here. Fanfic (or yaoi) does not direct girls to “confusion.” In
spite of its own subversive aspect, fanfic text in which the detailed depiction
of sexual practices becomes a textual convention makes homosexuality
an easily consumerable code. Accordingly, although many
teenage girls say they can understand homosexuality, it is always no
more than a superficial understanding. It is because of this that some
girls easily say they can understand homosexuality in fanfic but dislike
it in reality. We have seen earlier that there are girls who find resources
for exploration of their sexuality, but this is not all. As Hye-jin’s story
shows, there are more complex processes. The first and the second confusion
tell us to investigate this issue in a more sophisticated way.
The first confusion stems from witnessing “real” homosexual persons
rather than encountering an abstract version of sexual identity in
fanfic texts. Hye-jin could not distance herself from the girls who were
engaged in a same-sex relationship because they were not fictional
characters: they seemed normal, just like her. She could not just say that
their love was simply weird. She wanted to make sense of what was
happening beyond the framework of love and sexuality that she had before,
and tried to understand the girls she liked at that time. In this process,
Hye-jin returned to her own experiences and asked herself if there
were not any non-normative affairs in her life. In an effort to answer the
question of sexuality, she was retro-experiencing her past, and it was an
attempt to queer a life history otherwise suppressed by compulsory heterosexuality.
I use the term “retro-experience” to capture and better represent Hyejin’s
recalling of encounters once trivialized in a hetero-normative
framework through interrogating if she and all her relations were indeed
heterosexual. Hye-jin recognized sexual tensions, “love” and sensual
feelings from apparently obscure moments. Here, we can see a potential

64 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
for her to rethink the sexual intimacy that cannot be conceived in a
heteronormative society. If the logic of compulsory heterosexuality operates
by leading subjects to believe that only heterosexuality is the legitimate
and conceivable sexuality, Hye-jin’s inquiry disrupts this logic
in this interrogation and interpretation process. Past experiences are reorganized
in a different way from what has been thought before and her
life is rewritten reflexively with a new framework. It might be said that
many queer girls’ mentioning their boy-like appearance or character
and sexual play with female friends in their childhood when narrating
how they identified themselves as iban shows a kind of such retroexperiences
of non-normative subjects.
Hye-jin was in love with a girl, and she felt the second confusion at
that time. She was embarrassed by her feeling even though by that time
she thought that a woman who loves a woman is not abnormal or weird.
But why she herself of all persons? She was driven to the position where
she could recognize the violence and power relations embedded in the
boundary between homosexual and heterosexual. While identifying
herself as iban is naming and legitimatizing her desire, she is also at the
same time making herself non-normative and hence deprived of her
power in the hetero-normative society. Here, we might say her second
confusion comes from the dissonance in her life when a stigmatized
sexual identity became herself. Seeing the trouble her friends experienced
just from the rumor that they were lesbians, she thought she
would not dare say she loved a girl. This is a problem caused by the fact
she has to be re-positioned as an unprivileged sexual pervert when she
tries to claim her desire towards women. Other aspects of her personality
are overwhelmed by her sexual identity, and she becomes an object
of hatred because she is homosexual.
If we take account of the dynamic process in one’s identity experiences,
we should also see heterogeneousness among queer girls. Surely,
not every queer girl in Korean society experiences iban identity in the
same way. For instance, Ji-hye, another of my interviewees, said the
term “iban” freed herself from isolation. She did not have any word for
explaining her ‘abnormal’ same-sex intimacy and had to think of it as
her own personal problem. Before knowing the term, she had thought
she was insane to love a girl, but after knowing the term, she could be
one of the iban girls and could think that her feeling was not abnormal.
All this notwithstanding, we should not miss the point that although
Hye-jin’s and Ji-hye’s stories seem very different, considering both together
raises a question about identity. Specifically, the difference in
their “coming out” stories shows that identity is not just a personal char-

Ji-eun Lee 65
acter, a private choice, an essence of herself, or a description of sexual
object-choice. There is not a single lesbian identity narrative but plural
ways of contextualizing one’s experience using the term iban or lesbian.
Identity, as knowledge and a category, intervenes in the reflexive
process in which one organizes her life.
Identifying as lesbian or iban means to register oneself in existing social
relations in terms of sexual identity. Exclusion and isolation result
from the fact that one is positioned outside the (mainstream) society
where heterosexuality is the only and powerful norm. However, one’s
complex experiences cannot be abstracted. Since identity categories are
permeated in the heteronormative discourse, a person who identifies
herself as iban must explain herself within the heterosexual matrix: locating
herself inside or outside the homo/hetero binary. Hence, an identity
category that has once permitted her a new way of thinking, loving,
and living, now turns around to regulate her from inside. This trouble
with identity raises a question about the boundary between homosexuality
and heterosexuality and leads us to think about queer politics that
interrogates the boundary and challenges heteronormativity itself. Identity
politics is ineffective at this point because relying on and invoking
identity carry the danger of stabilizing the identity and the boundary that
controls sexuality by demarcating it as normal/abnormal.
BEYOND DISCOURSE OF “PAIN”:
READING GIRLS’ AGENCY
Fanfic iban debate shows the problem of politics that relies on identity
or on inevitable pain. It covers up the complex aspects of identity
and queer teen girls’ agency. In the discursive space formed by identity
and pain, the non-normative subjects need to claim their authenticity
through erasing complicated experiences and would consequently be
disempowered. In this process, the concept of identity we should
problematize is further stabilized.
If we appeal to sympathy, how about other stories which cannot be
understood easily with old framework like so-called fanfic iban? Why
their stories have not been discussed seriously is because they are not
common narratives expected in a “temptation/destiny” view on identity:
sexual practices seen just for fun should be erased to foreground the
image of the youth in a closet suffering because of her “true” identity.
Discourses on homosexual youths in Korea do not deal with this issue
effectively. They are concentrated on how to rescue homosexual youths

66 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
from the pain and agony they supposedly suffer. Here, a homosexual
identity is equated with pain and the issue is to call for sympathy for the
youth in danger. Such a stance might be due to an awareness of the danger
that discussions of the instability of identity could be manipulated
by the sexual conservatives who claim that homosexuality is abnormal,
unnatural and that youth homosexuality is just a passing misdeed. At the
same time, however, we should keep in mind that we cannot challenge
existing power relations while holding on to a coherent notion of identity.
Without problematizing the concept of identity, we cannot think
about queer girls’ agency in experiencing their lives as mediated by
their identity.
Instead of appealing to pain and agony, we should read the complicated
and heterogeneous experiences of the girls as they are. It is not to
conclude there is infinite freedom in their choice of sexual identity; it is
clear that these girls experience a discontinuity from their previous life
by identifying as iban. This discontinuity occurs because her life needs
to be reorganized through the identity. Whether she comes out to her
friends or not, she must exist as iban; that is, she would love as iban, and
talk with her friend as iban. When a friend asks her how she thinks about
lesbians and expresses homophobia by saying that they are disgusting,
she would feel that she is being attacked. It might seem clear that the girl
feels pain at the moment. However, if we look closer, it is not the pain
directly from her iban identity, but the dissonance between herself as a
complex human being and an identity category which seems to have
gotten ahead of her own life. It is pain from the violence of borders and
it cannot be resolved by appealing for sympathy.
Beyond the discourse of pain, we should investigate how queer teen
girls interpret and appropriate the identity category. How the identity
category inflects their experiences also needs to be examined. There is
no moment at which one discovers an iban identity. Rather, iban identity
is a sort of knowledge that opens up a space for interpretation of ambiguous
feelings, and lets a girl retro-experience and reorganize her life.
We should interrogate identity categories and investigate how queer
subjects experience them.
NOTES
1. Ji-hye, Joo-yeon, and Min-hee were my interviewees, and Young-mi’s and Hyejin’s
stories were selected from internet materials as their autobiographical writing is a
good illustration of the complex process in identity exploration. All of their names are
pseudonyms.

Ji-eun Lee 67
2. With the exception of the author’s name in the title, all the names in this paper are
given in the Korean convention of last name first, followed by the first name(s).
3. Exzone, the first gay website (http://exzone.com), was designated as a “harmful
site to youths” by the Information Communication Ethics Committee in Korea and National
Youth Commission. The owner was ordered to immediately mark it as a ‘harmful
site’ and install filtering software to prevent youth access. In January 2002, he
lodged a nullity suit against the government action and activist groups fighting discrimination
against homosexuals supported his court struggle.
4. Yaoi means a “boylove” fiction and comics produced and consumed mostly by
women. Yaoi originally is an abbreviation for “Yamanashi (no climax), Ochinashi (no
punch lines), Iminashi (no significant meaning)” in Japanese.
REFERENCES
Berlant, Lauren. 1997. The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex
and Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New
York: Routledge.
Fuss, Diana. 1991. “Inside/Out.” Pp. 1-12 in Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories.
New York: Routledge.
Halperin, David M. 1995. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Hennessy, Rosemary. 2000. Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism.
New York: Routledge.
Kim, Min Jeong. 2003. A Study on Fanfic as a Women’s Cyber Subculture: Focusing
on the Relation between Fantasy and Gender Identity. MA thesis, Ewha Womans
University.
Rich, Adrienne. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 631-60.
Seo, Dong-Jin. 2001. “Mapping the Vicissitudes of Homosexual Identities in South
Korea.” Journal of Homosexuality 40: 65-79.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_04

The Politics of “Disregarding”:
Addressing Zainichi Issues
Within the Lesbian Community in Japan
Yuriko Iino
SUMMARY. This article discusses the difference in positionality between
Japanese lesbians and Zainichi (literally, “resident in Japan”) Korean
lesbians. The author first presents a narrative written by a Zainichi
Korean lesbian, in which she expresses her anger toward Japanese lesbians.
Setting her narrative as a starting point, the author retraces the controversial
incident that occurred during the second Asian Lesbian
Network (ALN) conference that was held in Japan in 1992. Through a
re-reading of a series of narratives with regard to the second conference,
the author demonstrates how the unequal power relations between Japanese
lesbians and Zainichi Korean lesbians operate in what she calls the
Yuriko Iino is a PhD candidate in Comparative Gender Studies at Josai International
University. Her work centers on the history of the lesbian movement in Japan,
particularly focusing on narratives told in and about the movement. The narratives she
studies are mainly collected from life story interviews and minikomi-shi (self-published
newsletter and/or magazine) published by lesbians in Japan.
Address correspondence to: Yuriko Iino, 3-1-10-203 Kikuna, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama-shi,
Kanagawa, 222-0011 Japan (E-mail: i-no@sd6.so-net.ne.jp).
The author would like to thank Diana Khor and Saori Kamano for helpful comments
and suggestions.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “The Politics of “Disregarding”: Addressing Zainichi Issues Within
the Lesbian Community in Japan.” Iino, Yuriko. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies
(Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 69-85; and: “Lesbians”
in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park
Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 69-85. Single or multiple copies of this article are
available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
(EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_05 69

70 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
politics of “disregarding,” where Zainichi Korean lesbians are continuously
omitted from the consciousness of Japanese lesbians. doi:10.1300/
J155v10n03_05 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document
Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2006 by The Haworth
Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Anger, narrative, positionality, power relations, disregarding,
Zainichi Korean, lesbians in Japan
The Asian conference, organized by the Japanese, who are not
conscious of being Asian, was very successful from the perspective
of the Japanese but was an utter failure from the viewpoint of
Zainichi (literally, “resident in Japan”) Koreans. It is widely acknowledged
that the Japanese lack the consciousness of being
Asian. In addition to this, the consciousness that only Japanese
live in Japan surfaced at this conference. The Japanese consider
foreigners to be English-speaking people or whites. They do not
regard Zainichi foreigners who speak fluent Japanese as foreigners.
. . .
By virtue of nature, Japanese are born and live in Japan naturally,
have the right to vote, are guaranteed their human rights, are not
discriminated against, and are alive. It is not surprising that they
could not understand the meaning of gathering together only with
Asians. (Regumi Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 2)
The narrative quoted above was written by Park MiJwaJa, 1 a Zainichi
Korean lesbian, shortly after the second Asian Lesbian Network (hereafter,
ALN) conference that was held in Japan in 1992. In this narrative,
she refers to a certain incident that occurred during the second conference
and expresses her anger toward Japanese lesbians from the viewpoint
of a Zainichi Korean.
Zainichi literally means “resident in Japan” and is commonly used to
refer to Korean residents, the largest group of foreign residents in Japan.
2 Although recent immigration is part of the process, for the most
part, Japan’s colonization of Korea between 1910 and 1945 is responsible
for the large population of Zainichi Koreans. The process of the colonization
led to over 2 million Koreans being mobilized to Japan.

Yuriko Iino 71
Although the majority of them returned to Korea soon after the war, approximately
600,000 Koreans remained in Japan. Since the end of the
U. S. occupation of Japan in 1952, these Koreans have been deprived of
their Japanese nationality and classified as Zainichi foreigners. 3 Although
Zainichi Koreans are entitled to permanent residency and national
welfare rights, as “resident aliens” they still face discrimination in
such areas as employment, housing, and education. The ideology of a
monoethnic nation-state has also made it difficult for them to express
their ethnicity, forcing them to pass as Japanese. 4
Setting Park’s wrathful narrative as a starting point, this article will
retrace the controversial incident that occurred during the second conference.
I will first discuss the location of Zainichi Korean identity in
contemporary Japanese society in order to identify the distinctiveness
of Park’s position as a Zainichi Korean lesbian. Then, after presenting
an overview of the birth and development of the ALN, I will re-read a
series of narratives with regard to the second ALN conference and discuss
the difference in positionality between Japanese lesbians and
Zainichi Korean lesbians. In doing so, I explore how Park’s anger urges
the story of “lesbians in Japan” to be altered.
THE LOCATION OF ZAINICHI IN JAPANESE SOCIETY
A number of scholars have indicated that there was a significant
change in the location of Zainichi Korean identity in the 1970s. The formation
of a new identity in the Zainichi Korean community represents
the generational shift from the first-generation to the second- and thirdgeneration.
Second- and third-generation Zainichi Koreans were born
and have established themselves in Japan, using the Japanese language
and adopting various customs from Japanese life. Most of them did not
know, or at least had very little knowledge of, Korea and its language.
They were more likely to think of themselves as long-term residents of
Japan rather than short-term ones who would eventually return to Korea.
Therefore, Japan-born Zainichi Koreans preferred to identify themselves
as a group that is not “traditionally” Korean and not purely
Japanese, but rather possessing Korean ethnicity and belonging in Japan.
For them, this formation of a new Zainichi Korean identity was a
way to live in Japan as home, without being totally Korean or Japanese.
Kang Sanjung (2004)–a second generation Zainichi Korean–describes
this new Zainichi Korean identity as being “the outsider as well
as the insider” (p. 164) or as being “almost Japanese but remaining as

72 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
‘non-Japanese’” (p. 176). These descriptions represent some sense of
plural identity developed through having a positioning within Japanese
society, as well as being excluded from it. Thus, according to him,
Zainichi Koreans are situated in “an extremely delicate position, which
is different from other foreigners residing in Japan or other ethnic
minorities” (p. 176).
In her account of an Afrocentric feminist epistemology, Patricia Hill
Collins (1998) also talks about such a “delicate position,” using the
trope of the “outsider-within.” She uses this term to describe “the location
of people who no longer belong to any one group” (p. 5) as well as
“social locations or border spaces occupied by groups of unequal
power” (p. 5). Park MiJwaJa, who wrote the narrative quoted at the beginning
of this article, can be seen as an outsider-within, in that she is
multiply marginalized as a Zainichi Korean lesbian yet able to cross a
variety of boundaries. Thus, her outsider-within position refers not only
to plural identity but also to the power relations that are implicated
therein.
Furthermore, Collins argues that outsider-within positions “can produce
distinctive oppositional knowledge that embrace multiplicity yet
remain cognizant of power” (p. 8). Such knowledge is always shifting,
open to different readings, and is not exclusively possessed either by the
hegemonic group or by any particular identity group. Therefore, I consider
that Park’s narrative provides a relevant place from which to start
retracing the incident that occurred during the second conference. After
her narrative was published in Regumi Tsushin No. 63–the monthly
newsletter of Regumi Studio 5 –a number of Japanese lesbians responded
to Park’s narrative and her anger. Their replies were published over several
issues of the Regumi Tsushin. A careful re-reading of their narratives
will show us how Japanese lesbians and Zainichi Korean lesbians
are differentially positioned in a power relationship. Before that, however,
I will sketch out the birth and development of the Asian Lesbian
Network in the next two sections. The overview of ALN will give us the
background of the controversial incident that occurred during the
second conference.
THE BIRTH OF ALN
The establishment of the ALN was led by the 8th Annual Lesbian
Conference–organized by the International Lesbian Information Service–at
Geneva University in Geneva, Switzerland, from March 28 to

Yuriko Iino 73
31, 1986. Most of the participants of this conference had so far been
Caucasian lesbians from Europe or the United States. Therefore, in order
to enhance the international nature of the conference, lesbians from
14 countries in Asia, Africa, and South America, including visually impaired
lesbians were invited at the 8th conference. Two Japanese lesbians
who participated in this conference were Hazuki Inaho and
Hirosawa Yumi, both members of Regumi no Gomame, 6 a small
lesbian group.
At the conference, 16 sectional meetings were held over two days;
the topic of discussion at one of these meetings was “Asian lesbians.”
U, a lesbian from India who was studying in the United States at the
time, called this sectional meeting. Ultimately, six Asian lesbians, including
U, Hazuki and Hirosawa from Japan; T and S, who were studying
in Europe but hailed from Thailand and Bangladesh, respectively;
and J, a Chinese American from New York, organized the meeting. Describing
the atmosphere at the meeting, Hazuki reported:
It was really wonderful that Asian lesbians, who had been divided
and who had not been able to meet each other, were finally in the
same place, talking together. U, who was the last to speak, was
moved to tears as she was overcome with emotion. Most of the
participants were also overwhelmed by this tough-minded
woman’s tears. (Regumi Tsushin No. 13, 1986: 7)
The idea of establishing a network emerged from the informal exchange
of opinions triggered by this sectional meeting. Hazuki wrote:
We talked about the similarities of lesbians in each country and
confirmed that we have a lot in common as Asian lesbians. Then,
we discussed our need to enhance the network of Asian lesbians
henceforth. (Regumi Tsushin No. 64, 1992: 4)
The establishment of the ALN was declared on the final day at the closing
ceremony of the 8th Annual Lesbian Conference. Four years later
the first ALN conference was convened.
This first conference was held from December 7to 10, 1990, in Bangkok,
Thailand. Approximately 60 Asian lesbians participated in this
conference. Many were from Asian countries, including Thailand, Bangladesh,
India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan,
and Japan, but some participants were from areas outside Asia,
such as the United States, Australia, England, and the Netherlands.

74 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
ANJAREE, a Thai lesbian group that organized this conference wrote a
letter to announce this event. This letter, which was translated into Japanese
and featured in Regumi Tsushin No. 43, narrates the story of
“Asian lesbians” as follows:
This conference, which will be held in Asia for the first time, will
prove that we do exist, and we are not here alone. As lesbians who
live in Asia, we are fighting to maintain our love, our sexuality,
and our sanity in a social climate that is scathing about our
choice....Bylivingisolatedlives,each one of us tends to believe
that we are alone in loving another woman. As a result of
this, we experience anxiety and deep loneliness. However, if we
find that there are other women in Asia or elsewhere in the world
who share the same emotions and the same experiences, we will
be able to feel that we are more complete individual human beings.
Overcoming self-denial and building self-confidence is the
first step toward confronting and changing the unhealthy social
climate. (Regumi Tsushin No. 43, 1990: 5)
“In a social climate that is scathing about” lesbianism, Asian lesbians
are “isolated” from each other. As a result of this isolation, an Asian lesbian
is apt to believe that she is the only lesbian in the world and to experience
“anxiety and deep loneliness.” Therefore, the first conference
was held in order to create a space for Asian lesbians to meet each other
and to “share the same emotions and the same experiences.” The letter
also states that such an encounter aids in “overcoming self-denial and
building self-confidence,” and that such a personal change “is the first
step” toward social change. In this sense, the ALN conference was expected
to be a process of “consciousness-raising” in which Asian lesbians
share their emotions and experiences, and find common patterns of
oppression structuring their personal lives.
DIFFERENCES AMONG “US”
Certainly, the first conference helped many Asian lesbians realize
that “[they] are not here alone”; however, it also made them aware of the
fact that although they could regard themselves as “Asian lesbians,”
they are not homogeneous. One difference surfaces in how they relate to
white lesbians.

Yuriko Iino 75
At the first conference, an organizer allowed some white lesbians
residing in Thailand to participate in the conference. Some Asian lesbians,
particularly those from the West, strongly opposed this. At a plenary
meeting, which was held on the final day of the conference, they
discussed whether white lesbians should participate in future conferences.
Their remarks were recorded in Regumi Tsushin No. 55 (1991).
According to this record, the lesbians who opposed the participation of
white lesbians insisted that “We have the right to hold a lesbian conference
only for Asians” and “It was disappointing that some white
lesbians were included in this conference” (pp. 1-4).
Asian lesbians residing in Asian countries believe that white lesbians
provide useful information for the community and are supportive of the
community. In many cases, Asians and white lesbians share a cooperative
relationship. On the other hand, Asian lesbians residing in the predominantly
white societies of the West are always exposed to the white
gaze and are discriminated against as an ethnic minority. Therefore,
they prefer to meet only Asians.
Since it was difficult to decide whether to allow white lesbians to participate
in future ALN conferences, this decision was finally left to the
organizer of each future conference. Therefore, when Japanese lesbians
began to plan the second conference, this issue was featured and discussed
during the preparatory stage. After a discussion that lasted
months, this issue was finally resolved by choosing the middle course.
In other words, participation in the conference was limited to Asians;
however, white lesbians could participate in the festival held on the eve
of the conference (Iino 2003).
The foregoing discussion highlighted differences between Asian and
Euro-American lesbians, but it is more relevant to the theme of this article
to note that during the preparations for the second conference, Japanese
lesbians became more conscious of another difference among
Asian lesbians–the difference between Japanese lesbians and those
from other Asian countries. Hazuki is probably the first to note this difference
in Regumi Tsushin. In the preceding section, I presented an excerpt
of a letter written by ANJAREE–a Thai lesbian group. In the short
notes attached to this letter, Hazuki wrote:
Because family bonds are so strong in Asia, it is economically and
culturally difficult for a woman to live independently and more so
as a lesbian. This is the similarity we share. On the other hand, because
Japan has a history of invading other Asian countries, even
if we are the same as Asians, there is a difference in terms of posi-

76 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
tion. However, all begins from meeting each other! (Regumi Tsushin
No. 43, 1990: 5)
Since they are all “the same as Asians,” Japanese lesbians and other
Asian lesbians share certain similarities. On the other hand, Japan’s
“history of invading other Asian countries” has produced “a difference
in terms of position.” When she writes that “all begins from meeting
each other,” Hazuki perceives the act of “meeting each other” as a
positive experience.
However, as the preparations for the second conference proceeded,
Japanese lesbians grew increasingly anxious about the possibility that
“meeting each other” might result in a serious conflict between Japanese
lesbians and other Asian lesbians. Mochizuki Shinobu, who participated
in the first conference, expresses this anxiety most explicitly in
the following words:
At the first ALN conference, Asians living outside Asia claimed
that they are discriminated against in a “white” society. But in Japan,
Asians (the Japanese) discriminate against Asians. It is my
apprehension that this realization might shock them more than the
recognition of the discrimination that Asian lesbians face in a
white society. (Regumi Tsushin No. 47, 1991: 10).
In Japan, “Asians (the Japanese) discriminate against Asians.” Such
power relations between the Japanese and other Asians stem from the
colonial legacy of contempt toward the latter. Mochizuki expresses concern
that if other Asian lesbians had a first-hand experience of such
power relations, they would be astounded. It appears that the organizers
of the second conference also shared similar “apprehensions”–this is
clearly reflected in the leaflet that was handed out as a participant application
form for the second conference. This leaflet lists six purposes of
the ALN, and the sixth one is striking.
6. We learned of aggressive acts committed by Japan against other
Asian countries. Therefore, as lesbians in Japan (nihon no
rezubian), we wish to develop a greater understanding of lesbians
in other Asian countries and change this situation.
Despite its brevity, this statement brings to light various issues. It
suggests that “aggressive acts committed by Japan against other Asian
countries” have given rise to the difference in positionality between the

Yuriko Iino 77
Japanese and other Asians. As discussed earlier, this difference assumes
the form of a power relation, rendering other Asians vulnerable while
assigning more privileges to the Japanese. After a careful consideration
of this history and of the power relations, the authors of the leaflet asserted,
“lesbians in Japan” will seek to cooperate with “lesbians in other
Asian countries.”
On the one hand, we can interpret this statement to be an expression
of the positive intentions of “lesbians in Japan,” but on the other hand,
we can consider this statement to presage the incident that would occur
at the second conference. The phrase “lesbians in Japan” obviously refers
to “Japanese lesbians” in this context; in other words, those who
were “other Asians” as well as “lesbians in Japan,” such as Zainichi Korean
lesbians, were not counted here. This (mis)conception of Japanese
lesbians about themselves reveals itself even more saliently at the
second ALN conference.
“DISREGARDING” OF ZAINICHI KOREAN
The second ALN conference was held in a women’s facility in a Tokyo
suburb from May 2 to May 5, 1992. Approximately 170 Asian
lesbians–around 140 from Japan and 30 from other countries–participated
in the conference. 7 At the beginning of this article, I quoted a narrative
written by the Zainichi Korean lesbian, Park MiJwaJa, which
appeared in the issue of Regumi Tsushin that was published approximately
a month after the second conference. In this narrative, Park criticizes
the attitude of Japanese lesbians, claiming “the consciousness that
only Japanese live in Japan also surfaced at this conference.”
The incident that sparked this criticism occurred in a “country report,”
which was one of the plenary meetings and functioned as an
opening ceremony of the conference. Tsukimori Gin, one of the emcees
of the meeting, recalls the following on this incident.
I was unexpectedly chosen to be one of the emcees of the plenary
meeting. This is my experience at the time. When a participating
nation reported on the conditions of each country, a group of emcees
introduced the participants by their country, saying, “Asians
who come from (name of the country), please stand.” However,
when they introduced participants from Japan, they said, “Japanese
lesbians who live in Japan, please stand.” There were many
lesbians in the hall who were residents of Japan but were of foreign

78 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
nationality, and they lost the opportunity to stand. ...Iwasbusy at
that time and was not listening to this remark. However, even if I
were listening, I could not be certain that I would have realized that
it was a slip of the tongue. When some Japanese lesbians who realized
that this remark was a slip of the tongue brought this to my notice,
I apologized as an emcee. (Regumi Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 4)
Tsukimori perceives the emcee’s statement “Japanese lesbians who live
in Japan, please stand” to be “a slip of the tongue,” implying that the
emcee had no spiteful intentions and that it was merely a careless mistake.
However, even if her perception is right, it does not mean that the
emcee’s statement is harmless since much of the oppressive experience
occurs in mundane contexts of interaction–in the gestures, speech, tone
of voice, and reactions of others (Brittan and Maynard 1984). Indeed,
Park perceives the emcee’s statement as a reflection of “the consciousness
that only Japanese live in Japan.” On a more serious note, “many
lesbians who were residents of Japan but were of foreign nationality,”
including Park, “lost the opportunity to stand” because of this statement.
Consequently, their presence was disregarded, at least in the
“country report,” because they were not formally introduced to the lesbians
from other countries. Park was angered by this disregard of her
being a Zainichi Korean.
Furthermore, her anger was amplified by the fact that one of the purposes
of the second conference was to cooperate with other Asian lesbians
while recognizing the different positionality between Japanese
lesbians and other Asian lesbians in a power relationship. Summarizing
Park’s claim, Machino Miwa wrote:
In order to introduce participants from each country, one of the
emcees began the plenary meeting by saying, for example, “Asian
lesbians who come from Canada, please stand.” However, while
introducing lesbians from Japan, the emcee announced, “Japanese
who live in Japan, please stand.” As a result, many Asian lesbians
who were not Japanese nationals could not stand up. Before the
second conference was held, Japanese lesbians gave the impression
of having a good understanding of the history of Japanese imperialism
and of being careful not to discriminate against other
Asians; however, I felt that they had unconsciously discriminated
against Asians through their belief that “only Japanese live in Japan.”
(Regumi Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 8)

Yuriko Iino 79
As noted earlier, the Japanese and other Asians are differentially located
in a power relationship. This difference in positionality exists not
only between the countries but also between the Japanese and these
other Asians living in Japan as well. However, many Japanese tend to
disregard this fact, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The statement
of “Japanese lesbians who live in Japan, please stand” might have
been an unintentional mistake on the part of the emcee. However, in the
relationship between the Japanese and Zainichi Koreans, it is always the
latter’s existence, culture, and history that have been forgotten. Therefore,
Park considers the fact that many Japanese believe that “only Japanese
live in Japan” and that they can live in Japan without being
conscious of the existence of Zainichi Koreans to be tantamount to
“discrimination.”
Moreover, if we read Tsukimori’s narrative more closely and consider
the unequal power relations between Japanese and Zainichi Koreans,
we cannot overlook the following points. In her narrative,
Tsukimori states that she “was not listening to this remark” when the
emcee made that statement. Further, she states, “However, even if I
were listening, I could not be certain that I would have noticed that it
was a slip of the tongue.” In fact, she realized that the emcee’s statement
was a “slip of the tongue” only when “some Japanese lesbians . . .
brought this to” her notice. In other words, at first, she herself did not
notice that the emcee’s statement disregarded the existence of Zainichi
Koreans.
However, Tsukimori was not the only one who did not notice this unintentional
disregard. Hazuki, who had pointed out “a difference in
terms of position” between the Japanese and other Asians even before
the first conference was held, also did not notice this disregard.
At the plenary meeting, when introducing lesbians from Japan,
one of the emcees said “Japanese lesbians who live in Japan.”
Thus, all Asian lesbians, except the Japanese, were ignored. After
the noon recess, another emcee apologized for the incident very
carefully. As I listened to this apology, I could not recall the incident
and thought, “Did she say such a thing?” (Regumi Tsushin
No. 63, 1992: 7)
Before the second ALN conference was held in Japan, some Japanese
lesbians were concerned that when other Asian lesbians learnt of
the Japanese discriminating other Asians, they would be astounded.
When they were concerned about this, the Japanese lesbians probably

80 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
assumed “other Asians” to be those from other countries; however, their
apprehensions were realized in an unexpected way. The astonishment
hit Japanese lesbians themselves when it was revealed that they disregarded
the existence of Zainichi Koreans, who are the most closely
related to them among the “other Asians.”
The difference in positionality between the Japanese and Zainichi
Koreans can be observed in the above narratives, in sentences such as “I
was not listening to this remark,” “However, even if I were listening, I
could not be certain that I would have noticed that it was a slip of the
tongue,” and “As I listened to this apology, I could not remember the incident
and thought, ‘Did she say such a thing?’” As mentioned earlier,
in the relationship between the Japanese and Zainichi Koreans, it was
the former who have denied, ignored, and disregarded the latter’s existence,
culture, and history. More importantly, such a relationship has
continued to hurt the Zainichi Koreans but not the Japanese. This is one
reason why many Japanese did not even realize that the existence of
Zainichi Koreans has been disregarded. Therefore, the asymmetrical relation
between the Japanese and Zainichi Koreans is reflected not only
in the emcee’s statement but also in the fact that Tsukimori and Hazuki
did not notice the emcee’s act of “disregarding” Zainichi Koreans.
“DISREGARDING” OF THE DISREGARDED
OF ZAINICHI KOREANS
Despite the apology issued by the emcee, Park criticizes this conference,
claiming that it “was very successful from the perspective of the
Japanese but was an utter failure from the viewpoint of ‘Zainichi‘ Koreans.”
The reasons for Park’s not being appeased by the apologies need
to be further explored. In order to do so, I will turn my attention to another
incident that took place after the second conference.
Describing this incident, Tsukimori wrote:
I wrote a report on the ALN conference in Regumi Tsushin No. 62.
Although I wrote about the plenary meeting in the report, I did not
write about the emcee’s “slip of the tongue.” A Zainichi Korean
pointed this out over the phone saying, “Was apologizing in front
of everybody a trifling issue for you?” This came as a great shock
to me and I was reduced to tears on hearing her complaint. ...Ibegan
to panic because my act had hurt someone. (Regumi Tsushin
No. 63, 1992: 4)

Yuriko Iino 81
Tsukimori reported on the conference through a series of illustrations
that appeared on Regumi Tsushin No. 62, which was issued immediately
after the second conference. However, her illustrations did not
cover the controversial incident involving Zainichi lesbians being disregarded.
Tsukimori states:
The theme of the illustrations was “pitiable Tsukimori, who came
to the conference but was too busy to listen to others speak.” I had
attended the conference for a purpose, which I did not achieve. I
considered this to be pitiable. So I wanted to draw it as “a private
report.” My own purpose for attending the conference was to “associate
with lesbians from other areas of Asia as a lesbian who
lives in the countryside of Japan.” ...Asalesbian who lives in the
countryside of Japan, I have found it difficult to build a lesbian
community and have experienced a feudalism that is deeply rooted
in human relations in the region. I think that these issues can be
perceived as the problems of living in Asia. I participated in the
ALN to share this thought. (Regumi Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 4)
“As a lesbian who lives in the countryside of Japan,” Tsukimori participated
in the conference in order to “associate with lesbians from other
areas of Asia.” However, as one of the emcees, she was so busy monitoring
the progress of the conference that she could not listen to them
speaking at the plenary meeting. In fact, as shown in her illustrations,
Tsukimori could not cope with the situation well and was shattered by
it. She also expressed her regrets at being unable to listen to the speakers
by using phrases such as “not listening to them at all,” “being astonished
by the fact that I had no recollection of what we did at the plenary meeting,”
and “I felt wretched.” Thus, the purpose of her “private report”
was to draw a picture of “pitiable Tsukimori, who came to the
conference but was too busy to listen to others.”
Tsukimori’s apparent intention was to write a “private report,” so she
did not refer to the incident in which the existence of Zainichi Koreans
was disregarded. Nevertheless, this angered Park, who is among those
who were disregarded. The anger that she must have felt is evident in
the words she said to Tsukimori over the phone: “Was apologizing in
front of everybody a trifling issue for you?” In other words, Park was
angry that the “disregard” of Zainichi Koreans at the second conference
appeared to be dismissed as a “trifling issue” and was later forgotten
immediately after the conference.

82 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
This incident after the second conference also shows how the difference
in position between the Japanese and Zainichi Koreans in a power
relationship hurts the Zainichi Koreans but not the Japanese. As indicated
earlier, the Japanese tend to disregard the existence of Zainichi
Koreans, and in many cases, they do so unconsciously. Additionally, by
not mentioning the incident after the conference, it seems that the Japanese
lesbians involved tended to view this as a “trifling issue” and they
forgot about it soon after. In other words, by not treating the incident
with thoughtful attention, Japanese lesbians repeated an act of “disregarding”–this
time by “disregarding” the disregarded Zainichi Koreans.
This is why their apology did not pacify Park. By claiming that the second
conference was “an utter failure from the viewpoint of Zainichi Koreans,”
she attempted to make Japanese lesbians wake up to this
“disregarding” that was done after the conference.
CONCLUSION
Park concluded her narrative as follows:
No matter how much I say this to the Japanese, I know that there
would be no response, no effect. But I’m preparing to be hurt
again. What a fool I am. (Regumi Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 3)
In addition to her anger and annoyance, this narrative expresses her
deep sorrow. Many Japanese lesbians would not be able to read these
sentences without any pangs because they have also experienced anger
and sadness of being disregarded, although in a different context. For
example, through a re-reading of the narratives written by Japanese lesbians
in the late 1970s, Iino (2004) demonstrates how they resisted the
exclusion from a “uman ribu” (women’s liberation) movement. Depending
on the context, Japanese lesbians become the ones who
disregard and the ones who are disregarded.
Therefore, to say that Japanese lesbians and Zainichi Korean lesbians
are differentially situated in a power relationship does not imply that
there are no overlapping experiences, or that we have nothing in common.
Rather, a variety of actions can be related to the positioning of Japanese
lesbians as well as provide a basis for a dialogue with Zainichi
Korean lesbians who, although positioned differently, or even unequally,
share similar actions across borders and boundaries. Such a

Yuriko Iino 83
“transversal dialogue” (Collins 1990; Yuval-Davis 1997) may help us
to share affinity with one another.
Of course, this is a theoretical idea, and how to turn it into practical
realities is another question and is beyond the scope of this article. However,
like Audre Lorde (1984) affirms, if “anger between peers births
change” (p.131), then it is not futile to consider the changes in our narratives
that Park’s anger has engendered. At the least, her anger has made
the story of “lesbians in Japan” more complex. If we attend to her anger,
we are no longer able to tell the story of “lesbians in Japan” without recollecting
the existence of Zainichi Koreans, who are neither regarded as
Japanese nor as complete “foreigners.” Her anger has also shaken the
manner in which ethnic differences are told. If we attend to her anger, it
no longer becomes possible to assume that such differences exist only
between countries or between “nationals” and “foreigners.” Whenever
her anger is recalled, it will serve as a reminder that “other Asians”
always and already exist among “lesbians in Japan.”
In such a process of (re)telling the story of “lesbians in Japan,” each
individual or group “speaks from its own standpoint and shares its own
partial, situated knowledge” (Collins 1990: 236). Because our knowledge
is perceived to be partial and situated, we need a transversal dialogue
where “each participant in the dialogue brings with her the
rooting in her own membership and identity, but at the same time tries to
shift in order to put herself in a situation of exchange with women who
have different membership and identity” (Yuval-Davis 1997: 130). I
propose that this process of “rooting” and “shifting” involves telling a
story “as a listener and not as an author” (Lyotard 1984: 72). By telling
our stories to each other as listeners, “we” who are positioned differentially
within the lesbian community in Japan are able to establish common
ground. Such common ground would help “us” to tell the story of
“lesbians in Japan” in ways that would facilitate rather than undermine
coalition politics.
NOTES
1. With the exception of the author’s name, the Japanese and Korean names are presented
in their original order with the surname first.
2. According to statistics by the Immigration Bureau of Japan in 2004, 607,419 Koreans
were living in Japan, comprising the largest group of foreign residents and constituting
30.8% of all foreign residents registered in Japan (http://www.moj.go.jp/
PRESS/050617-1/050617-1.html, retrieved on December 4, 2005).
3. For the history of Zainichi Korean, see Cumings (1997) and Ryang (2000).

84 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
4. For example, many Zainichi Koreans, particularly those in the first generation,
have spent their lives trying to pass as Japanese by relinquishing their Korean names
and adopting Japanese-style ones.
5. Regumi Studio, the first lesbian organization in Japan, was established in 1985
within JOKI, a cooperative office for feminist groups. “Re” is the first syllable of the
Japanese word for lesbian, rezubian. The second part, “gumi,” means groups. For more
information about Regumi Studio, see Lunsing (1999) and Summerhawk et al. (1998).
6. Regumi no Gomame later played a central role in establishing Regumi Studio.
“Gomame” means a small fish. Each of them may be powerless like small fish, but by
naming themselves “a lesbian group of small fish,” they wished to work together to
achieve a common goal. This idea came from children’s literature, Swimmy, written
and illustrated by Leo Lionni.
7. The participants of the second ALN conference were from countries that include
India, Indonesia, Australia, the United States, Canada, Korea, Singapore, Sweden,
Thailand, Taiwan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Peru, Hong Kong, and Japan (Regumi
Tsushin No. 63, 1992: 14).
REFERENCES
Brittan, Arthur and Mary Maynard. 1984. Sexism, Racism and Oppression. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and
the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
______. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota.
Cumings, Bruce. 1997. Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History. New York: W. W.
Norton.
Iino, Yuriko. 2003. “Sai wo Motsu no Katarare-kata: Aru Rezubian
Akutivisuto no Raifu Sutorii” (How to Talk about “us” who have Differences: Life
Story of a Lesbian Activist). Pp. 86-102 in Raifu Sutorii to Jenda (Life Story and
Gender), edited by A. Sakurai. Tokyo: Serika-Shobo.
Iino, Yuriko. 2004. “Nihon no Rezubian Feminisuto no Sutorii wo Yominaosu” (Rereading
Stories of Lesbian Feminist in Japan). Kaiho Shakaigaku Kenkyu 18: 18-38.
Kang, Sanjung. 2004. Zainichi. Tokyo: Koudansha.
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press.
Lunsing, Wim. 1999. “Japan: Finding its Way?” Pp. 293-325 in The Global Emergence
of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement, edited
by B. D. Adam, J. W. Duyvendak & A. Krouwel. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Regumi Studio. 1986. Regumi Tsushin No. 13, issued on June 3.
Regumi Studio. 1990. Regumi Tsushin No. 43, issued on Oct. 19.
Regumi Studio. 1991. Regumi Tsushin No. 47, issued on Feb. 20.
Regumi Studio. 1991. Regumi Tsushin No. 55, issued on Oct. 28.
Regumi Studio. 1992. Regumi Tsushin No. 62, issued on May 31.

Yuriko Iino 85
Regumi Studio. 1992. Regumi Tsushin No. 63, issued on June 22.
Regumi Studio. 1992. Regumi Tsushin No. 64, issued on July 26.
Ryang, Sonia. 2000. Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin. London:
Routledge.
Summerhawk, Barbara, Cheiron McMahill & Darren McDonald eds. 1998. Queer Japan:
Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals.
VT: New Victoria Publishers, inc.
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_05

Noras on the Road:
Family and Marriage of Lesbian Women
in Shanghai
Lucetta Yip Lo Kam
SUMMARY. During the past decade, we have witnessed the rise of
Shanghai as a new metropolitan centre in China. The city has also become
one of the most vibrant sites of lesbian community in the country.
The author interviewed 20 lesbian women in the city in 2005. It is found
that almost all of the women interviewed are experiencing the pressure
of social conformity most severely from their immediate family, and the
social expectation of marriage. In this paper, the author demonstrates the
conflicts of family and marriage that many of the informants have encountered
and how the hegemony of heterosexuality is still securely re-
Lucetta Yip Lo Kam is a doctoral candidate in Gender Studies at the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. Her research interests include gender identities, queer identities,
and lesbian community in China. She is the editor and illustrator of Lunar Desires: Her
First Same-sex Love Story (Hong Kong Cultural Act Up 2001), and a member of the
core working group of the “Oral History Project of Women Who Love Women in Hong
Kong” since 2004. She has also been an editor of several women’s magazines and a
freelance writer for the popular media in Hong Kong.
Address correspondence to: Lucetta Yip Lo Kam (E-mail: lucettakam@yahoo.
com.hk).
The author would like to sincerely thank both editors for their invitation to submit
this work and their feedback on her earlier draft.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Noras on the Road: Family and Marriage of Lesbian Women in
Shanghai.” Kam, Lucetta Yip Lo. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington
Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 87-103; and: “Lesbians” in
East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press,
an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 87-103. Single or multiple copies of this article are available
for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). Email
address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_06 87

88 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
produced and carried out through the discourses of family and marriage
in contemporary urban China, and finally, how the informants deal with
the controls enacted by the institution of heterosexuality. doi:10.1300/
J155v10n03_06 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document
Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2006 by The
Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Lesbians in Shanghai, family, marriage, homosexuality
in China, institution of heterosexuality
Matty 1 : I have started to feel that leaving the country is the only
way out. In China, you have your family here and you’re surrounded
by family, friends. I ...Ifeel that’s okay, but it brought a
lot of pressure on my family and that’s not right then. That’s not
right.
Yan: Never thought of divorce. Thought of running away [laughs].
Really, I feel that running away is a bit easier than divorce. Actually
running away means escaping because you need to face your
family in case of a divorce. You have to face them . . . that’s difficult,
really difficult ...soisdivorce, divorce is even worse. It’s
better not to choose [marriage] in the first place . . . Everything is
settled down in a normal way now, to break away suddenly from
this track might be even more difficult. It’s better [to leave] before
I enter marriage. Stepping aboard and leaving again is very difficult.
SHANGHAI: REVISITED
In the summer of 2005, I started my journey of research to my birthplace,
Shanghai. It is for the research of lesbian women (or Lala in the
local language) in the city and also for the re-search of my fading connection
with the place where I have spent my childhood. It is a journey
during which I found myself often reflecting upon two previously disconnected
parts of my life: my childhood experience of living in Shanghai
and my adult experience of being a woman attracted to other
women. I left Shanghai and settled in Hong Kong at the age of seven. In

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 89
a city that I was once familiar with but no longer am, I am searching for
those common experiences but in another cultural and social landscape.
I am a lesbian nurtured by the city of Hong Kong who returns to her unfamiliar
motherland in search of “sisters,” yet they are, for the most part,
unfamiliar to me. The experiences of being a native Shanghainese and a
lesbian in Hong Kong are closely linked up in this study. As a researcher,
this dual-identity positioned me vis-á-vis the informants.
During my summer and winter trips, I have met and talked to many
Lalas. Many of their stories kept reminding me of Nora, the protagonist
in Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House (1879). She leaves her seemingly
ideal marriage and family house for the pursuit of independent
personhood. Nora had become a revolutionary figure of women’s liberation
in modern China. She is a heroic icon for many generations of
women who have struggled and are struggling against arranged marriage
and patriarchal oppressions. A century has passed since the first
generation of Noras in modern China have taken the courageous step to
leave the family house for marriage autonomy, now their great grand
daughters are preparing for another revolutionary leave, that is, the
breaking away from heterosexual marriage, and the institution of
heterosexuality altogether.
During two one-month long field visits in 2005, I met and talked to
twenty self-identified Lalas in Shanghai. Most of them were introduced
to me through referral by a local community leader. They were women
who were in various degrees involved in the local Lala community. All
of them are citizens of China and are ethnic Chinese. Their ages ranged
from early twenties to mid-thirties. Nearly all of them had white-collar
jobs (or had had white-collar jobs but were studying for a second degree
at the time of interview) or self-employed. Most of them lived and
worked in Shanghai. A few of them were staying temporarily (e.g.,
studying a full-time course) and a few worked in nearby cities but came
to Shanghai regularly either for home visits or community gatherings.
Three of them were in heterosexual marriages and one had a young
child. Face-to-face in-depth interviews and participant observations
were conducted. The interviews were conducted in Mandarin,
Shanghainese or Cantonese. On average, interviews lasted one to two
hours each time. For some of the informants, a second interview was
conducted to gather updated developments of their lives and to follow
up topics that were unfinished in the first meeting. In a few cases, I interviewed
couples together. Sometimes it was because the couple approached
me or were referred to me together and they usually expected
me to interview them together. Another time I did couple interviews be-

90 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
cause I wanted to invite discussions between them on topics that were
related to their relationship. I also carried out individual interviews of
each partner before or after the couple interview for more personal or
private information.
According to one local community leader in Shanghai Lala circle, the
city has long been a vibrant site for both gay men and lesbian women. In
the recent decade, Lalas have become increasingly visible, first in
chatrooms and bulletin boards on the Internet, later in some gay or
mixed bars, and more recently in social gatherings organized by lesbian
groups in the city. The cyberspace continues to be the most popular
meeting place for Lalas in the country. The founder of one Shanghaibased
local Chinese lesbian website told me that her website has more
than 45,000 registered members since its inception four years ago. They
started to organize offline gatherings in 2004 and a community working
group has been established by volunteers to carry out different community
projects and regular monthly gatherings in 2005. In my own observation,
it is not difficult to spot Lala couples or the more easily
recognizable Ts 2 in shopping areas or subway stations in downtown
Shanghai.
The city has also become the most desired destination for job seekers
all over the country. Half of my informants are not Shanghai natives but
were working or studying in the city away from their families in other
provinces. The reasons for the increasing visibility and community networking
of Lalas in Shanghai in recent years are numerous and I will
not be able to have a full discussion in this paper. But it is certain that the
increasing geographical mobility of job seekers in the past two decades
have contributed to the emergence of visible lesbian and gay communities
in big and economically well off cities in China. Individual mobility,
either geographically or socially, has been significantly heightened
after the economic transformation since the late 1970s (Lu 2004). The
implication of this policy change is that the social control on individuals,
which has been long carried out through centralized job assignment
system, has been significantly lessened. In the past, mobility between
jobs was almost impossible and mobility between cities was even more
difficult. The work unit (Danwei) of an individual controlled almost every
aspect of her/his social life, from the provision of housing to the regulation
of one’s love life. Therefore, the opening up of the job market
and hence the loosening of state control through Danwei have created
new opportunities for people to live their personal lives more privately.
The newly acquired geographical mobility encourages people from less
developed parts of the country to seek jobs in more developed cities.

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 91
Big cities such as Shanghai are densely populated. For non-natives, the
city can provide them a kind of anonymity that they can never enjoy in
their hometowns, and this is crucial to people who want to live alternative
lifestyles. For many people, Shanghai is a place to fulfill their career
aspirations and also their desired way of living. The availability of
information and relatively safe meeting spaces for lesbian and gay people
are other reasons why the city has become one of the most active
queer centres in the country. For some of my non-native informants,
Shanghai is where they first put their desires into practice, so to speak.
The anonymity in a big city, the relative freedom to adopt different
lifestyles, and the vibrancy of the lesbian and gay community in Shanghai
notwithstanding, one recurring theme that always came up in the interviews
is the conflicts between family and marriage, and my informants’
desire to be true to themselves. The pressure of family and marriage has
been mentioned in many studies of lesbians and gays in China or in Chinese
societies elsewhere (Chow 2000; Li 2002a, 2002c; Zheng 1997).
In this paper, I will demonstrate the conflicts of family and marriage
that many of my informants encountered and how the hegemony of heterosexuality
is still securely enforced, reproduced and carried out
through the discourses of family and marriage in contemporary urban
China. And finally, how my informants, the Noras in our generation,
struggle to break through the control of the heterosexual institution.
MARRIAGE IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
Marriage is still a very secured and powerful institution in contemporary
urban China. According to the official data collected in 2004,
19.5% of the entire population aged 15 or over is unmarried (never married),
of which unmarried females constitute 16.5% of the entire female
population aged 15 or over, and for unmarried males, it is 22.5% (China
Statistics Press 2005). There is no significant change of the size of unmarried
population aged 15 or above over the last five years in China. In
1999, 18.8% of the entire population aged 15 or over was unmarried, including
15.3% of females and 22.2% of males who were unmarried
(China Statistics Press 2000). 3 The figures of 2004 also show a drastic
decline of unmarried populations in the age categories of 20-24, 25-29,
and 30-34, which are 69.3%, 21.4% and 5.7% respectively (China Statistics
Press 2005). This indicates that the norms of suitable age for marriage
still have a tight grip on most people in China. In urban China, 25-
29 is considered to be the most suitable age for marriage for both sexes.

92 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
By that time, people will have finished their education and probably for
many, will already have a stable job. Most people will experience the
strongest and also most organized pressure of marriage during these few
years before they turn thirty. The pressure is particularly felt by women.
Parents, relatives, or even colleagues and friends will start to introduce
possible mates to them and arrange meetings. Even in Shanghai, a city
which is generally considered to be progressive in many social aspects,
marriage is still the norm for most people. The percentage of unmarried
population of the city in 2004 (18.2%) is even slightly lower than that of
the country’s total (China Statistics Press 2005).
The reasons for the importance of marriage and the high involvement
of parents in their adult son and daughter’s marriage can be cultural, social
and political. While politically there is no law in China which states
that everyone should get married, the punitive effects are obvious for
people who choose not to marry. Even though state control has weakened,
the Danwei system, which has been in place for decades, still has
effective control on aspects of people’s lives. Married people in staterun
enterprises would get more economic rewards than unmarried people.
For example, married couples are assigned a bigger apartment
while unmarried people might have to wait years before they can be assigned
an independent flat. There is also the factor of the general economic
inequality of women and men: marriage is still a popular way for
many women to attain upward social mobility.
Besides economic benefits, married people enjoy much higher social
recognition than unmarried people. Marriage is the ticket to adulthood:
one cannot be a socially recognized adult until s/he has her/his own family
and household. This cultural belief is always expressed through the
discourse of social responsibility. To be an adult means s/he needs to
take up more social responsibilities and be productive to the country. It
is every citizen’s social responsibility to get married and to reproduce
the next generation. Therefore, if a person has reached the age of marriage
but refuses to get married, then s/he is avoiding the responsibility
s/he needs to fulfill for family and society, and hence s/he cannot be considered
as a responsible adult. Marriage and then whether one can have a
child are socially seen to be evidence of one’s value in society and one’s
physical or psychological well-being. People over the suitable age for
marriage but who are still single are socially stigmatized. In the past decades,
Daling Qingnian (overage young people) has been identified as a
social problem. Especially for overage unmarried women, the term Lao
Gu’niang (old girl) is still popularly used in Shanghai. Lao Gu’niangs
are usually associated with physical unattractiveness, bad social skills,

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 93
poor health, and personality defects. The status of marriage is therefore
seen as closely linked to one’s “internal essence.” Parents will be also
affected by this social stigma if they have an unmarried but “overage”
daughter.
According to my research, parents play a significant role in their
daughters’ marriage choice, which includes the decision to get married
or remain single, when to get married and the choice of husband. Relatives
are the second most powerful group in deciding the marriage partner
of the younger generations. Although strictly arranged marriages
are very rare in urban centres like Shanghai, semi-arranged marriages
are not uncommon. Meetings with potential partners introduced by relatives
or friends of parents are usually arranged for the younger members
in a family who have reached the suitable age for marriage. After the
initial meeting, the young people can decide whether or not they want to
further develop the relationship. According to a survey done by Li
(2002b), 40% of the 200 people researched had their marriage decided
by themselves yet with the approval of parents, 13% had their marriage
decided by parents but with their approval. Only 17% managed to be in
full control of their marriage, although 55% said they would prefer to
have full control over their marriage.
THE FAMILY AND THE INSTITUTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY
As state intervention of individual’s personal life significantly decreased
in the recent decade, with the opening of the job market and the
introduction of consumerism into the country, people are now less
reliant on state provision for their daily necessities. In the old days when
centralized job assignments were the norm and marriage was encouraged
more by state policies through the Danwei system and networks of
social surveillance over people’s daily life, now we can see that the family
is left to be most active in the maintenance of the institution of heterosexuality.
With the power of political intervention fading away from
people’s everyday life, contemporary Chinese parents, who have grown
up in a uniform society in which any politically or socially deviant behaviours
would affect their livelihood severely, are now actively taking
up the role of the guard to ensure that their children lead a normative
heterosexual life and do not become a deviant in any sense. Even though
there is a growing population of younger urban dwellers who choose to
remain single, to most parents of my informants, a life without marriage
seems unthinkable. They believe that responsible parents should help

94 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
their children to find a good match and to establish a new family. 4 This
is why many parents are eagerly involved in the matchmaking of their
children and have big emotional and economic investments in their
children’s marriage.
An unmarried homosexual woman is therefore doubly stigmatized
and marginalized by the normative heterosexual discourse. There is a
hierarchy of social recognition concerning one’s marital status in
China; in decreasing order, they are: married, single, divorced. And being
a homosexual is even more stigmatized than being single or divorced.
One of my informants, Jenny (in her mid 20s), told me that her
mother had once said to her, “I would rather that you don’t get married
for the rest of your life. I will not give you my approval for this kind of
matter [being a homosexual].” How to cope with family and marriage is
the biggest challenge for women in China who are now struggling to
pursue a life that is deviated from the heterosexual norms.
COPING WITH FAMILY
Parents are usually the people my informants are most concerned
about. 5 The biggest struggle for them was how to tell parents of their
sexual orientation or same-sex relationship, or whether they should let
them know at all. Only one informant, in her early 20s, has “actively”
confessed to her parents of her sexual orientation, and her parents finally
accepted her same-sex relationship after a period of broken relationship,
during which she moved out of her parents’ house. There are a
few informants whose parents have “discovered” their sexualities by
accident. Jenny was one of them. Her parents are now avoiding the topic
after many bitter confrontations. It is quite common for parents to avoid
the topic or even to deny the entire matter. Lisa’s parents have been suspicious
of her sexuality, but they never spoke about it or confronted
their 30-year-old daughter directly. Instead, they have reverted to a tactic
of actively arranging matchmaking dinners for Lisa. For others who
did not tell their parents, two tactics were most frequently used. The first
is, “to come out softly and gradually.” Flora, in her late 20s, told me she
first showed a picture of her and her girlfriend to her parents casually
and then occasionally brought her girlfriend to her parents’ home for
dinner. She wanted to prepare her parents for the fact that sooner or later
she would move out to live with her girlfriend and would confess to
them of their relationship. The second and more popular coping strategy
with parents is not to tell them at all. The discourses of filial piety and

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 95
familial harmony govern the decision of many informants of whether
they should let their parents know. Many of them chose to leave home
after they decided to pursue a life that they thought would not be understood
by their parents. Yan’s story is illustrative of this reasoning. As a
married woman in her early 30s, she had a traumatic breakup with her
second girlfriend. After that she decided to leave her parents and husband
and headed south to Shanghai. Yan had a serious nervous breakdown
last year before she left and she told me why she would never let
her parents to know of her other life,
I felt bad when I looked at my parents. I remembered vividly one
time when I stayed at their place for a week because I was sick. Each
time before a meal, they would push open the door lightly to check
and see if I were sleeping. They would always ask me what I would
like to eat. It was very hard on me. I didn’t feel like eating but I pretended
that I wanted to eat something. It got too hard on me afterwards.
It’s also too much for them physically and emotionally to
keep looking after me. Then one afternoon, I got up from the bed
suddenly and announced that I would leave home. In fact, my body
was too weak. My parents tried to stop me. November is usually
very cold back in the North. I did not wear warm clothes when I first
returned home. But I put on my coat and told them I was going
home without discussing it with them. I wouldn’t listen to them either.
I put on my coat and pushed the door of my room open and left.
My mother kept saying out loud, “You cannot go back, there will be
no one to take care of you.” But she saw how adamant about leaving
I was, she went back into the house to fetch my jacket. I didn’t know
about this. I had already rushed out, caught a taxi and sat right inside
it. I ran really fast so I didn’t notice the cold wind. When I sat in the
taxi and turned my head around, I saw my mother holding my jacket
and running after me. I would never forget this image for the rest of
my life. That is why I thought if I chose to live this kind of life, I
could never do it in front of them.
I might never come out of the closet on my own. It’s not because I
don’t want to face it. I feel that if it is going to hurt people you love
around you by doing this, then it’s not necessary. Avoid it while
you can, right? It doesn’t matter with others but for your parents . . .
you can never leave them behind just for the sake of yourself. I
have done this before already. I will certainly try to avoid it from
now on.

96 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Some informants also chose to leave their hometowns. Tong, in her late
20s, has actually fled to Shanghai to avoid an arranged marriage. Echo,
in her late 20s, came to Shanghai to have a more anonymous social life
that was impossible in the small town where she had grown up. Jenny is
of local Shanghainese ethnicity. She and her girlfriend were planning to
leave China. To Jenny, it is the fear of losing face that has led her parents
to react so drastically to her same-sex relationship.
Jenny: Actually parents always want you to be happy. I feel that
the problem is more on their pride or their “face.” There are many
relatives and friends here. That is why I thought that it might be
good if I left the country. They can tell others that I don’t want to
get married as I’m alone outside of the country. They cannot see
you so there is no need to tell others. Just like that time when my
father said to me, “You can’t be like this in China. China is not that
open yet. If you stay in your ways, you cannot be respected in your
career or anywhere.”
Jenny’s parents can easily have a very good excuse to explain why
their daughter is not married if she is living outside China. The physical
distance relieves the pressure for both parties. Matty, in her mid
20s, has also decided to leave China. She has kept her three-year relationship
in complete secrecy. Although she led a very well off and
even affluent life in Shanghai, she decided to give up everything, including
her career as a professional, and start a new and most probably
much less comfortable life in a foreign country with her girlfriend.
Matty told me why she had no other way but to take this drastic action
to leave China:
Although some would say that love between two persons has
nothing to do with others, but at least we shouldn’t put pressure
upon people around us, or affect them. What you’re doing
should not affect other people’s lives ...Ifeelthattheydon’t
know how to understand [the situation]. If you can leave it out
of your family, just leave it out. You know you would get yelled
at if you talk about it and it’s not necessary. Wait until the day
when you really have to talk about it to bring the matter up. Hide
it at least for now. Don’t talk about it. It might not be a good situation...

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 97
COPING WITH MARRIAGE
The social expectation to lead a “normal” life as everyone else does is
very strong in China. The force of social conformity is evident from everyday
language (such as the choice of many informants to use “normal”
or “not normal” to describe different kinds of lifestyle or sexuality)
to real life choices (such as marriage and childbearing). Most of my informants
are within the age range which is considered to be suitable for marriage,
and a few of them are already married and one of them has a young
child. Therefore, almost all of them have experienced the pressure of
marriage. Most of them have attended matchmaking dinners arranged by
parents, relatives, colleagues or friends. It seems that most of them have
accepted that marriage is not something one can take full control of, either
in fulfilling or relinquishing marriage as a controlling social factor.
It is more like fulfilling a responsibility to parents and to society. In her
mid 20s, Shu’s view on marriage is quite representative:
Since marriage is not a simple matter of love, you need to consider
many things. Such as family . . . society . . . Since a person’s marital
status can affect society ...amarriage can affect things that one
might think does not matter before. It can also well be the reason
why someone would attack you. And this will make your parents
worry.
Informants always stressed responsibility to parents when talking about
marriage. Especially for married informants, marriage is an individual’s
duty to satisfy her/his family’s expectation and not to upset the social
order. Yan has met her first girlfriend before her wedding and since then
she has had a very difficult long-term extra-marital relationship. But
even at that time, she had never thought of not getting married:
I have never thought of not being married. There’s no one like that.
I felt that everyone has to walk this path. Maybe I thought I was
just a bit different from others. But still you cannot upset social order
because you’re different or special. You still have to bear the
responsibilities for others, for your family, for your parents, including
for yourself. I didn’t see how you can have the ability to
challenge [all this]. At that time, both of us [Yan and her girlfriend]
did not think about [not getting married]. It didn’t seem like
an issue. It didn’t feel like it’s a question that was worth serious

98 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
consideration because it’s simply unimaginable to consider its
possibility.
Apart from responsibility, Yan also mentioned the importance of role
models. Although she knew there are single women in the country, she
had never encountered any positive role models. Similarly, she did not
have any idea of what a lesbian’s life would be like when she started her
first same-sex relationship. Yan did not know if it is possible not to get
married and have a family with a woman:
At that time, it was really terrifying to hear people mentioning
those three words [Tong Xing Lian, homosexual]. When our
friends made fun of us and said “you two look like you’re Tong
Xing Lian,” I and my girlfriend would fight back at once. First of
all, it’s about not acknowledging your own being. But now I understand
the reason why we fought back is also about others not
acknowledging your behaviour . . . Both of us didn’t know what to
do at that time when we got together. We would always cry when
we called each other, and talked about what we should do, because
there was nothing to refer to. I thought if we had access to the
Internet at that time, we might have gotten together, we might have
been with each other . . . overcome many obstacles. You basically
won’t think of living this kind of life. You feel there is no future for
this. You think that no one would embark on this road and that this
road is impossible to begin with. You feel that everyone should get
married ...Iremembered the night before I got married, she went
with me and stayed at a hotel. There were many relatives at home
and it provided an excuse for me to stay out in order to get a good
rest. So she stayed with me at a hotel room. The next morning, I
had to return home to put my makeup on and to prepare for the
wedding. It was really . . . together we were crying and crying till
four in the morning. That was the night before my wedding.
For many younger informants who are now facing the pressure of
marriage, they usually tell their parents they want to stay single. Although
staying single is a less preferable and socially recognized lifestyle,
it is easier for most parents to understand it than to accept or to
gain an understanding of homosexuality. Matty has made it clear to her
parents that she will be single for life. Flora also told her parents that she
would not get married and also assured them it is a possible lifestyle.
But for economically dependent Lalas, it is more difficult to convince

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 99
their parents that they can support themselves without the help of an
economically better off man. It is evident in my research that the importance
of economic self-sufficiency is often rated very high for Lalas
who have decided not to get married.
For married informants, Mu, in her mid 30s, has a girlfriend living
overseas. Her husband accepted her same-sex relationship partly because
of the geographical barrier that exists between Mu and her girlfriend.
Another two married informants, Yan and Coral, both in their
early 30s, chose to leave their hometowns and husbands temporarily to
stay in Shanghai. They have worked hard to get an opportunity to have a
few years’ leave from their marriage. Physical distance seems to be very
important for them to strike a balance between marriage and their extramarital
same-sex relationship.
All of them have told me the difficulties of keeping a same-sex relationship
outside marriage. Coral was staying temporarily in Shanghai
and during these few years she could live with her girlfriend. She told
me how she was tortured everyday by this triangular relationship and
how difficult it was to get divorced:
My husband knew [my extra-marital relationship] within a year . . .
A person who has never been married will not understand or realize
the weight of marriage. In actuality, a marriage between two
persons is not only about those two parties; it involves a lot of people,
family, even friends and colleagues ...Aperson who has
never been married would not understand . . . Now I believe that a
married woman should not . . . love another woman. If I knew that
it would be like this three years ago, no matter how much I loved
her, I would have controlled [my feelings] because you will end up
hurting three persons. All three persons will be in pain. If I knew it
would be like this situation now, I would rather have felt a bit
heartbroken at the beginning. It’s really hurtful to others. Once I
accessed a chatroom and read an article on how married women do
not have the right to love. I felt that it is wrong. I felt that love is a
right. It is everybody’s right. Why can’t I have this right? But now
I have experienced it, you can say that it’s about having responsibilities,
or it’s about the other person’s gender, you should not really
touch this kind of matter . . . because she is in a lot of pain now.
She feels she has no security. I cannot give her much security and I
cannot give her any promises. On the other side, my husband is
also suffering because I cannot provide him with what a normal
man would have. I have suffered a lot as well. Sometimes I just

100 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
want to live simply, not to feel any burden when I open my eyes in
the morning, to have the simple joy to smile, to work and to read.
Now each morning when I open my eyes, I can feel a heavy load, a
dead weight.
At that time, I wanted a divorce. I have talked with him about a divorce.
He was nonchalant about it. He said, “Don’t worry. Just do
what you need to do. It doesn’t matter. No need to worry about me.
I’ll be here, forever. When you decide to return just come back.” If
his attitude were not so accommodating, I would have been more
determined to get a divorce, but his attitude has rendered me useless
to do anything about it.
Yan’s husband did not want to get a divorce even though their relationship
had never been easy since the first day of marriage. They still
pretend to be a normal couple in front of families and friends. It seems
that the price of getting divorced is even higher than suffering in a bad
marriage. That probably explains why divorce rates are consistently low
in China over the years. For example, the divorced population of people
aged 15 or over in China in 2004 is only 1.07% (China Statistics Press
2005), while it is 5.2% in Taiwan in 2004 (National Statistics 2005b)
and 2.7% in Hong Kong in 2001 (Census and Statistics Department,
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 2005).
The girlfriend of Mu, another married informant, is also married.
Both of their husbands knew of their relationship and fortunately both
of them have accepted it. Mu said it is because of the geographical distance
and the gender of her lover that have made it easier for her husband
to accept it. When being asked about whether she had considered
getting a divorce, Mu named children and economic viability as factors
that were of greatest importance to her:
Children are a very huge reason. If no children are involved, two
persons would have gotten a divorce without much to care about.
Both parties can figure out their finances and draw the separation.
But it would affect the children a great deal if they’re involved. We
absolutely cannot be too selfish. We cannot ruin a child’s future or
a child’s prosperity for the sake of your lone pleasure. Part of it is
economic. But the child will be affected personally, that is why it
cannot be good for a child’s growth or a child’s well-being. We
cannot impinge upon a child’s future only to fulfill your own happiness.
This is a very important reason. Of course there is also the

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 101
economic factor, if, let’s say, if it is not economically viable for
two people to be together, then there will be a lot of tension. A
breakup will happen after fighting. If after spending tremendous
energy and so much effort into being together, the end result is still
going to be a separation, then the stakes are too high. There is no
point to it.
THE JOURNEY IS CONTINUING
A century ago, first generation Noras in China had taken a brave step
to leave home and fight for marriage autonomy, but soon enough, they
found that they were trapped in another doll’s house. They were leaving
their father’s patriarchal family for another new patriarchal family, that
is, the new conjugal family; the institution of patriarchy remained intact
and powerful. Now a hundred years later, it is the institution of heterosexuality
that has forced many women in China to live in involuntary
marriages or suffer from social stigmatization. Women have now
started to fight against this compulsory and oppressive system. Many of
my informants are forced to leave their families, to be deprived of social
recognition and social support, and to hide a significant part of their
lives from the rest of the world. However, we are now also in an unprecedented
time when homosexuality is more than ever being publicly discussed
and demonstrated, and lesbian and gay communities are more
than ever being vigorously developed in many parts of the country. We
are seeing, for the first time in China, people with same-sex desires organizing
together to build communities and actively take part in self-affirmation
and anti-discrimination projects. The experiences and lived
practices of my informants and all other Lalas in the country will be the
most valuable source of reference for the following generations of
women and also their contemporary counterparts elsewhere in China
and outside of China to imagine and pursue a life of their own that is not
bounded by the heterosexual norms.
NOTES
1. All the names of the informants in this paper are pseudonyms, and their personal
information has also been partially altered.
2. T is the masculine gender identity in Lala community. T is usually defined by the
way she dresses or behave herself (either socially or sexually), or by her desire for P,
the feminine gender identity of Lalas. P is usually recognized or self-defined by her

102 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
more feminine appearance and mannerism, or her desire for T. The third popular gender
identification (or non-identification) of Lalas is Bufen (non-identified, or neither T
nor P). It is harder to recognize a Bufen by her appearance or by her choice of partner.
Her non-identifiability tells a lot of Bufen’s gender and sexual politics.
3. In other Chinese societies, the figure of unmarried population aged 15 or over in
Hong Kong was 31.5% in 1996 and 31.9% in 2001 (Census and Statistics Department,
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 2005) while it is 34.1% in Taiwan in 2004
(National Statistics 2005a).
4. There is a park in downtown Shanghai where there is a Saturday matchmaking
event once in a month. It attracts many parents to look for suitable mates for their adult
children. Regular participants of the event will hold a cardboard on which is written the
information of the person who is looking for a partner. Parents will usually carry the
cardboard with their child’s personal information and also the kind of partner they expect
for their children. Parents will exchange contact numbers if they are interested,
and both sides will proceed to arrange meetings of their children if they are interested in
seeing each other.
5. This accounts for why most of the informants felt that the biggest pressure of marriage
came from their parents. They might also experience similar pressure from
friends or from people at work, but it is usually easier for them to dismiss comments
from those people. The heavy emotional attachment and responsibility that my informants
imposed on themselves towards parents are the major causes of their frustration
or even guiltiness of being a Lala. For those informants who have siblings, they
usually chose not to tell them about their sexuality. Siblings seem not to be a significant
source of pressure or a major source of support to my informants. For those who
are the only child, they do not in all cases face more pressure from parents. It depends
more on their relationship with parents and whether they are living away from or with
their parents.
REFERENCES
Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. 2005.
“Population Aged 15 and over by Marital Status, 1991, 1996, 2001.” http://
www.censtatd.gov.hk.
China Statistics Press. 2000. China Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistics
Press.
______. 2005. 2004 Zhongguo Renkou (2004 China Population). Beijing: China Statistics
Press.
Chow, Wah Shang. 2000. Xingbie Yueje Zai Zhongguo (Gender Transgression in
China). Hong Kong: Xiang Gang Tongzhi Yanjiu She.
Li, Yinhe. 2002a. Zhongguo Nvxing de Gangqing yu Xing (Love and Sexuality of the
Chinese Women). Beijing: Zhongguo Youyi Chuban Gongshi.
______. 2002b. Zhongguo’ren de Xing’ai yu Hunying (Love, Sexuality, and Marriage
of the Chinese People). Beijing: Zhongguo Youyi Chuban Gongshi.
______. 2002c. Tongxinglian Ya Wenhua (Subculture of Homosexuality). Beijing:
Zhongguo Youyi Chuban Gongshi.
Lu, Xueyi, ed. 2004. Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui Liudong (Social Mobility in Contemporary
China). Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation Publishing House.

Lucetta Yip Lo Kam 103
National Statistics, Republic of China. 2005a. “Monthly Bulletin of Statistics (December
2005).” http://eng.stat.gov.tw
______. 2005b. “Population of age 15 years or over by sex and marital status.” http://
eng.stat.gov.tw
Zheng, Meili. 1997. Nv’er Quan: Taiwan Nv Tongzhi de Xingbie, Jiating yu Quannei
Shenghuo (The Female Circle: Gender, Family and Community Life of Lesbians in
Taiwan). Taipei: Nvshu Wenhua.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_06

Lesbian Mothers in Japan:
An Insider’s Report
Keiko Arita
SUMMARY. This report introduces Remaza-Kansai, a lesbian mother
group in Japan based in the Kansai area, their activities, and the lives of
some of the participants in the activities based on interviews by the author.
Remaza-Kansai organizes activities and special events for lesbian
mothers and their children. It also manages a website and operates a bulletin
board for lesbian mothers. In the interviews, it is found that besides
the lack of legal recognition of lesbian mothers not biologically connected
to the children, they also experience difficulties relating to
Keiko Arita lives in Osaka. She had worked as a teacher of social studies in high
school for ten years and then as a teacher at a special education school for the last ten
years. She is now also a graduate student of a doctoral course at Ritsumeikan University.
Some of her papers are published in Core Ethics, a bulletin of the university, including
“Beyond Limitations in the Legal Definition of ‘Parent’: What Lesbianmothers
Assert in Legal Courts in America” and “Is Childrearing by Lesbian-mothers
Healthy?: Empirical Studies in Developmental Psychology and Disputes about the
Children of Lesbian-mothers in America & Europe” (2006, both in Japanese).
Address correspondence to: Keiko Arita, 3-5-2-402 Tsurumi, Tsurumi-ku, Osaka
538-0053 Japan (E-mail: fwip3371@mb.infoweb.ne.jp).
The author would like to express her deepest appreciation to Saori Kamano and Diana
Khor for their help, time, and patience. The author feels their devotion in editing
this collection and also a strong sense of sisterhood.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Lesbian Mothers in Japan: An Insider’s Report.” Arita, Keiko. Copublished
simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth
Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 105-111; and: “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
(ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.,
2006, pp. 105-111. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document
Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@
haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_07 105

106 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
schools. Another issue requiring further inquiry is how lesbian mothers
“come out” to their children. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_07 [Article copies
available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-
HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights
reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Lesbians, lesbian mothers, lesbian mothers in Japan,
children of lesbian mothers, custody, children’s welfare
In this report, I introduce the activities of Remaza-Kansai, a lesbian
mother group in the Kansai area of Japan, and present a sketch of the
lives of and problems facing lesbian mothers based on interviews I conducted
with 6 lesbian mothers and three of their children. 1
WHAT IS THE REMAZA-KANSAI?
Remaza-Kansai is a group of, by, and for lesbian mothers in the
Kansai district of Japan. With a friend, I organized a workshop named
‘Zenkoku no rezubian-mazaa atsumare’ (Come together! Lesbian-
Mothers from all Japan) at ‘Kyoto Onna no Fesutibaru’ (Kyoto
Women’s Festival) in 1992, 1993, and 1994. About ten women came
every year, and six of them, including myself, kept in close contact with
each other after the festival. In October, 2000 we built a website named
Remaza-Kansai. In August 2001, we organized a workshop for lesbianmothers
at the forum of Gender Studies at the National Women’s Education
Center of Japan, at which 20 women, including the presenters,
gathered. We also organized “family weekends” in 2003 and 2004, in
addition to other activities such as camping with children, and so on.
Our purpose behind founding Remaza-Kansai is as follows. Lesbianmothers
not only need to meet other lesbian mothers, but also we desperately
need to give our children the opportunity to meet other children
coming from a similar environment. In our neighborhoods, there are no
mothers like us, so we want to make our children notice that they are not
alone. For example, Taro, 2 a 26-year-old son of Fumiko, a lesbian
mother, said at the family weekend in 2004 that he had never met any
friends who had mothers like his, and so he had felt alone. Another lesbian
mother, Rika, told me that she did not want Mari, her daughter, to
feel alone, and so she accessed an adoptive parent’s community on the

Keiko Arita 107
web. However, she found it hard to connect with them because they saw
themselves as “normal nuclear families.”
The reason that Remaza-Kansai was created was to cope with the
problems like these. We wanted to show our children alternative families
that are not based on the nuclear family, and which are not just fatherless
families, but are communities through which lesbian mothers
are connected to each other. So the six lesbian mothers who met each
other in Remaza-Kansai meetings went camping or skiing with our children
from 1995 to 2002 in order to let our children meet each other and
give them the opportunity to reconsider the established heterosexual nuclear
family norm. As the children grew up and as childrearing became
less of an issue, the center of activities shifted from camping to managing
the website of Remaza-Kansai, 3 which introduces overseas information,
including well-known North American websites such as
“Family Pride Coalition.” The domestic information the Remaza-
Kansai website provides includes a classification of various types of
lesbian mothers in Japan to emphasize the diversity of lesbian mothers
and to encourage them, regardless of how they have gotten their children,
whether they have given birth, and whether they are living with
their children. It is hoped that lesbian-mothers will reach out and meet
other lesbians. The website also satisfies lesbian mothers’ needs of exchange,
beyond just obtaining factual information. Lesbian mothers
want to get not only information but also stories of other lesbian mothers’
personal experiences. For example, how they have addressed difficulties
surrounding preschools or schools, how lesbian-mothers come
out to their children, how lesbian couples have resolved any feeling of
jealousy of the partners of the biological mother. Lesbian mothers cannot
“hear” each other through any other media. For those who want to
hear from other lesbian mothers and to communicate with each other,
Remaza-Kansai’s BBS now undertakes the modest role of a virtual
community. Below is an example of an exchange between Rui and
Kana, both lesbian mothers.
Rui’s message on 2005/03/28 at 16:15:
Last spring, my secret was disclosed by my husband. I was in a
long-distance relationship with a woman. Even though my husband
pressured me into confessing, I continued shutting my
mouth. My husband had a family conference in which he gathered
his parents, my parents, me and the three children. His parents in
the end made a strong recommendation to me to perform a purification
ceremony.

108 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Kana’s response on 2005/04/18 at 14:27:
I was in the same situation five years ago. Afterward I left my husband,
bringing my children with me, but it was so difficult to attain
economic self-reliance. After the divorce, I lived with my partner,
but sad to say, I broke up even with her eventually. Other than developing
a relationship with my partner, I had to take care of my
children. But I couldn’t maintain the relationship with my lover to
make the home full of love. I was terribly sad. Now I am living
with my parents and children as if I were an ordinary single
mother. 4
In 2003 and 2004, we planned two large-scale off-line gatherings
(“family weekends”), spreading the information on the website, Remaza-
Kansai. The activities of these gatherings included talks on various
themes in 2003, for example about partners of lesbian mothers, lesbian
mothers living with husbands, and so on. In 2003, 48 people came together,
including 21 lesbian mothers, 6 children and 21 lesbians with no
kids. In 2004, 27 people came together.
Besides meeting or exchanging e-mails with about forty or fifty lesbian
mothers in Japan through the activities described above, I also interviewed
six lesbian mothers and three of their children. 5 By piecing
together conversations and interviews with them, I would like to sketch
concretely the conditions of and issues facing lesbian mothers in Japan
today. The lesbian mothers I interviewed and/or had conversation with
include 51-year-old Georgia and 48-year-old Rika, one of the first lesbian
mother couples who had children by adoption without going
through marriage; 29-year-old Yuko and 33-year-old Julia, one of the
first lesbian mother couples to have a child by self-insemination without
going through marriage; 54-year-old Misako and 58-year-old Fumiko,
one of the first lesbian-mother couples in Japan; 41-year-old Ichiko and
56-year-old Katsuko, founding members of Remaza-Kansai; and 34year-old
Matsuko, one of the participants of the family weekends.
WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS OF AND ISSUES FACING
LESBIAN-MOTHERS IN JAPAN?
(1) Educational institutions of Japan do not imagine that children have
same-sex parents, and lesbian mothers have to “educate” teachers.

Keiko Arita 109
Georgia adopted through an American agency a two-year-old orphan
who was born in China. Georgia and Rika reared the child named Mari
together from the start. Mari is now 6 years old and goes to a preschool
in Japan, and Georgia and Rika told the teacher of the preschool that
they reared Mari as two mothers. But on one Mother’s Day, Mari
brought home from preschool a picture she drew. Mari painted a portrait
of only one mother. Georgia and Rika were shocked. Georgia asked
Mari, “Who is this woman, am I here?” Georgia and Rika went to the
preschool and repeated to the teacher that Mari had two mothers, and
they requested the preschool to make the classmates understand there
are children who have two fathers or mothers.
On a separate occasion of a mother-and-child excursion, Georgia and
Rika asked teachers whether both of them could participate. The teachers
were unwilling, for the reason that there should be only one mother
in a family. However, by their tenacious negotiation, both were eventually
able to participate in the event.
Nana, a 2-year-old child of Yuko and Julia, also brought a card from
daycare with only one mother’s name on Mother’s Day one year. On
Father’s Day, Nana brought home a card without any names. When
Yuko and Julia heard the case of Mari from me, they said they decided
to talk to the daycare center that they want a card on Mother’s Day with
both mothers’ names.
In these ways, lesbian mothers in Japan probably have to continue
negotiating with schools in various situations until they are recognized
socially.
(2) Lesbian mothers in Japan are also troubled by the fact that legal
system of the family doesn’t affirm their existence.
In Japan there is not a system of co-adoption by the second parent, so
Rika cannot be a legal parent of Mari. Even though Georgia has written
a notary deed will with the signature of an attorney, saying that if Georgia
dies she will give the custody of Mari to Rika, there is a concern that
Georgia’s brother, a Christian fundamentalist, might wage a custody
battle because he hates homosexuals.
Matsuko said to me she had a lover who was a lesbian but she didn’t
make her rear the child together with her. Matsuko said she hoped to end
the couple culture (the culture which recognizes couples as the fundamental
unit of society); she thought her child was reared not only by
herself but also by the community, for example the public nursery and
the neighborhood. Matsuko also makes her ex-partner, who is the bio-

110 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
logical father, meet her children. Matsuko thinks the legal system of
child rearing doesn’t agree with her reality, and she said to me she
wanted to end the institution of marriage.
Although Japan lags behind the West by years in legal protection of
alternative families, the family will eventually become more diverse
even here. The absence of a legal relationship between the partner of the
lesbian-mother and the children is an urgent issue to be addressed.
(3) Lesbian mothers are discreet in coming out to the outside world to
protect their children from the stigma, but they come out to their children
whether explicitly or not.
Misako and Fumiko have lived together for thirty years rearing five
children between them. Misako said, “My partner and I have lived and
said to our neighbors that we were just single mothers living and rearing
children together because coming out was not safe for us in a rural area,
so we have not yet come out.” Nobu, who is 32 years old and Misako’s
daughter, told me that during New Year holidays one year, when their
five children were already independent from them, Misako and Fumiko
got them together and declared to them that they were lesbians.
Of course, if true communication between mothers and children is realized,
children of lesbian-mothers have an insight into the sexuality,
such as the sexual orientation, of their mothers. For example, Jun, the
21-year-old son of Ichiko, tells me he knows his mother’s sexual orientation
now, but he doesn’t remember when he noticed it. He thought of
Nori, Ichiko’s 31-year-old partner, as a very close friend of his
mother’s, and he also adored Nori like an elder sister. Because she was
close to Nori in age, and because she gave him more useful advice than
his mother, he shared more with Nori than with his mother, especially
about love troubles.
One day, Katsuko’s daughter Yumi, who was 23 years old then,
asked her suddenly, “Are you a lesbian?” Katsuko winced and answered,
“Yes.” Her daughter just said, “Mm-hm,” and did not ask more
questions. Katsuko told me that was how she came out to her daughter
and that her daughter’s attitude has not changed at all since then. In the
case of Jun and Yumi, after they became adolescents and have matured
sexually, they came to understand the relationship between their mothers
and their partners naturally. However, when the child is small, coming
out is a very delicate issue. For lesbian mothers, it is one big worry
and a problem that we should research more about. More attention
should be paid to the importance of introducing children to the concepts

Keiko Arita 111
of homosexuality or other non-heterosexual identities and orientations
before they fully mature.
CONCLUSION
In this report, I introduced the activities of Remaza-Kansai, which
was founded in order to be a community for lesbian mothers. Even
though there are still few participants, I think that there will be an increasing
need for such communities. Because the law and the system of
schooling in Japan do not support the reality of the lives of children of
lesbian mothers at all, groups such as Remaza-Kansai are needed to
help this socially isolated and legally vulnerable population.
NOTES
1. I have published an article under the name Namidatani Nozomi, the content of
which overlaps in part with the present report. The full citation is as follows:
Namidatani, Nozomi. 2003. “Rezubian Mazaa Sobyou” (A rough sketch about lesbianmothers).
Joseigaku-Nenpo 24:132-143.
2. All the names are pseudonyms.
3. The URL of Remaza-Kansai is http://www.geocities.co.jp/Milkyway-Sirius/
4157/. The URLs of other web sites include: “Baby H & Familys Homepage!” (a diary
of lesbian-mothers who had babies through self-insemination) http://www.geocities.
jp/cutiepatootiehana/ “Teku Teku” (diaries of long-distance lovers who are lesbian
mothers) http://leaf.on.arena.ne.jp/ “Chokobo no hibi” (a diary of a lesbian mother)
http://blogst.jp/ittyann/; “Nyankoromochi” (a diary of a partner of a lesbian mother)
http://blogst.jp/kin_kon_kan/; “Bero tei” (a record of lesbian mothers who have reared
five children and have been living together for 30 years) http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/
~berotei/purasu-bero/purasu-bero.htm
4. These messages are in Remaza-Kansai’s Internet discussion board (http://
www2.rocketbbs.com/100/bbs.cgi?id = lemother&page = 5).
5. The interviews with the 6 lesbian mothers and the 3 children of lesbian mothers
followed an unstructured style. The length of the interviews ranged from about 2 to 8
hours. They were recorded with permission and were transcribed by me. The interviews
were conducted at cafes or at interviewees’ residences in 2003.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_07

Lesbians in China’s Mainland:
A Brief Introduction
Yaya Chen
Yiqing Chen
SUMMARY. This paper describes and introduces lesbians’ lives and
the relevant research in China’s Mainland. The first part shows the slow
development of lesbian culture in the form of literature, films and documentaries.
Although lesbians’ lives were reflected more or less in modern
literature, the “true” lesbian novel was published only recently.
Relevant films and documentaries were never shown to the public in
China. Lesbian culture is still unevenly developed and remains negligible.
The first part also describes lesbian research in the field of literature,
Yaya Chen graduated from Fudan University in China and received a Master’s degree
in Applied Mathematics and a Doctoral degree in Modern and Contemporary Chinese
literature. She is now an assistant researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social
Science. She has delivered several papers in the fields of Applied Mathematics, Chinese
literature, Macroeconomics, Sociology of Sex and Internet Communication.
However, she has a special interest in Queer and Gender Studies.
Yiqing Chen spent four years studying Economics in Shanghai Normal University,
China, and got a bachelor’s degree there. After graduation, she joined Shanghai Garment
Group Import and Export Corporation. She is interested in English and does
translation work in her spare time.
Address correspondence to: Yaya Chen, 1610 West Zhongshan Road, Room 1506,
Shanghai 200235, China (E-mail: voiceyaya@163.com, auwi9@hotmail.com).
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Lesbians in China’s Mainland: A Brief Introduction.” Chen, Yaya,
and Yiqing Chen. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint
of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 113-125; and: “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity,
Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The
Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 113-125. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from
The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address:
docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_08 113

114 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
psychiatry and sociology. The relevant research in literature is relatively
systematic and rich, while that in psychiatry is fraught with discrimination
and that in sociology is relatively weak. The second part presents
the observation and analysis of lesbian Internet communities. It deals
with lesbians’ self-identity, role differentiation, sentiments and sexuality.
Among them, role differentiation plays an important part in lesbians’
lives though few researchers have studied it. Most lesbian
organizations founded on the strength of Internet communication lack
experience and resources and have little influence on the masses.
Some lesbians are accepted by the public, but in return, they compromise
to some popular values. This is extremely disadvantageous to
those who are unwilling to give in. At the end of the paper, the first author
expresses her future plan that she will continue her study on
lesbian culture under the help of Internet observation and various activities.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_08 [Article copies available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Lesbian, China’s mainland, lesbian culture, network,
communities, tomboy
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, with the advancement of reform and opening up of
the country, people living in China’s Mainland have enjoyed more freedom
in their private lives. Lesbians’ lives are no longer a secret to people
and the masses have begun to pay attention to them. Although
information, data and references to undertake studies and research are
hardly sufficient, lesbians and the lesbian culture are becoming a subject
of social and academic inquiry.
This paper will give a brief introduction to lesbian culture and lesbians’
lives in China’s Mainland. The first part of the paper presents aspects
of the lesbian culture and relevant studies related to lesbians.
The second part of the paper shows lesbians’ lives from the perspective
of a lesbian, based on observations and analyses of discussion in
some lesbian network communities, such as “A Report on Queers’
Use of the Internet and their Self-Identity in China’s Mainland” (Zhu
2004).

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 115
THE LESBIAN CULTURE AND RELEVANT STUDIES
OF LESBIANS IN CHINA’S MAINLAND
In modern China, in the shadow of heterosexuality, a lesbian culture
is developing gradually and unevenly. In contrast to the gay culture, lesbian
culture attracts less public attention and still seems negligible and
invisible. However, while lesbian issues have not yet become a distinct
subject of inquiry, it is beginning to be known by the public. Considering
its development from a researcher’s perspective, I can say that lesbians
are represented in novels, films and documentaries, and being
studied and researched in the fields of Literature, Sociology and Psychiatry.
Among these areas, films and documentaries arguably have the
greatest influence on the public, but few people have undertaken studies
of them. Most people study the lesbian culture through novels and other
genre in literature, for which there are probably more resources for research
than for either films or documentaries. Therefore, the study of
lesbians in literature has been relatively systematic. On the contrary,
Sociological and Psychiatric studies fall behind owing to limited
information and the lack of interested researchers.
THE REPRESENTATION OF LESBIANS IN MODERN
AND CONTEMPORARY CHINESE LITERATURE
As mentioned in the above paragraph, literature provides much information
for researchers on the lesbian subculture. In modern literature,
the most representative works are Ding Ling’s (1998) 1 In the Summer
Holidays in 1928 and Yu Dafu’s (1990) She is a weak woman in 1932.
Such works describe lesbians in order to convey the loneliness and melancholy
of the intellectual that have resulted from the failures of the
struggles against pressure on the intellectual, in the context of the complicated
and unstable political situation as well as the conventional and
conservative culture at that time. Nevertheless, lesbians were regarded
as depraved and corrupted in those days and the life of a lesbian was
therefore always miserable. In the present age, since almost no lesbian
novels can be published in accordance with the unwritten rule, only
some female writers who have already become famous are in a position
to write something concerning lesbians in some chapters of their books,
such as The Private Life by Chen Ran (1996) and The War of One Person
by Lin Bai (1997). Even though lesbians are represented in these

116 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
books, they mainly express women’s narcissism and repulsion against
sexism. Therefore, they cannot be considered as lesbian novels.
While lesbian novels are seldom seen on bookshelves, they are available
in lesbian websites. These novels are usually written on the basis
of the experience of the authors themselves. Hai Lan’s My Angel, My
Love (2005) is a good example. Novels like that also convey women’s
narcissism and loneliness, quite different from their counterparts in another
Chinese society, Taiwan, which are created to condemn social discrimination
and inequality.
Whereas lesbian novels are available on the Internet, literature reviews
on lesbian novels are difficult to be found both online and offline.
Such reviews have been published in several journals of some regional
colleges, including, for instance, “The Lesbian Theme in Contemporary
Female Literature: A Reflection on Lin Bai’s Novels” (Han 2004) in
Journal of Fuyang Normal College Transactions of Social Science and
“Women’s Utopia and Protest Against Sexism: Comparison and Contrast
of Two Lesbian Novels” (Su 2004) in Journal of Luoyang Normal
College. Only Sang Zilan (Tze-Lan), an overseas scholar, has undertaken
a relatively comprehensive study of Chinese lesbian novels,
which is presented in “The Lesbian Desire of Modern Chinese Women”
and published in China Scholarship (Sang 2003).
THE REPRESENTATION OF LESBIANS
IN FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES
Most films related to lesbians are produced to participate in foreign
film festivals rather than shown to the public in China. Traditionally
speaking, Chinese are accustomed to attaching more importance to sexual
behavior and sentiments than to sexual orientation. As a result, Chinese
films generally focus on women’s innermost feelings.
“Fish and Elephant,” the first Chinese lesbian film, was awarded the
best Asian film in Berlin International Film Festival in 2002. Its director
Li Yu is actually a documentary director. For lack of previous filmmaking
experience and enough capital, Li Yu had to use amateur actors
and simple equipment and therefore the film was not refined. However,
lesbians are respected and deemed as normal people rather than eccentrics
in the film, and this is of extreme importance and has brought about
a brand-new idea to Chinese traditional culture.
“The Box” (2001), the first Chinese lesbian documentary, told a story
of the daily life of two girls. Its director Ying Weiwei attributed her mo-

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 117
tive of shooting the documentary to her curiosity towards lesbians and
later she admitted that she still couldn’t understand the inner feelings
and the relationship of the two girls even at the end of the production.
The documentary is named “The Box” because the box is a metaphor
not only for the private space described in the documentary but also for
a woman’s uterus, which is so close and warm that it can protect a delicate
soul.
While aesthetically valuable, all these films discussed above do not
show enough courage to address important problems, such as conflicts
between lesbians’ value and the popular value. I can think of two main
explanations of this situation. On the one hand, the mainstream society
looks at lesbians as eccentrics rather than common people, and so lesbians
cannot but conceal their sexual orientation and hide their sexual orientation.
On the other hand, directors fail to fathom the drastic conflicts
because they are heterosexual and do not have a good grasp of the concerns
and experiences of lesbians. Xiaobai, an independent director in
Shanghai, is working on a story about tomboys. Since she is a lesbian
herself, her documentary is expected to be better than the current films
in being able to delve more deeply into the lives of lesbians.
THE REPRESENTATION AND STUDY OF LESBIANS
IN PSYCHIATRY AND SOCIOLOGY
Studies of lesbians can be found in Psychiatry and Sociology, but
those in psychiatry have little influence on lesbians or other lesbian researchers.
Although homosexuality is no longer considered as morbid
in accordance with The Criterion of Psychopathic Classification and
Diagnosing issued in 2001 in China, lesbians are still regarded as patients
in some recent medical papers, for example, “On the Cause of
Formation of Homosexuality” in Medicine and Philosophy (Wang and
Wen 2002), “The Explanation of the Hindrance of Sexual Psychology:
Homosexuality and Self-Maltreatment and Self-Abuse” in Chinese
Community Physicians (Tang 2003) and so on.
Such discussion is not only theoretical because it has practical consequences,
as can be seen in how lesbian criminals are subjected to unfair
treatments. For example, a lesbian murderer was forced to have a medical
inspection in order to make out whether she was a psychopath or not
(Xing Shumei 2005). In another case, a lesbian murderer was subjected
to an inspection of her sexual organs so as to determine if she was a female
(Zhou 2004). By contrast, generally speaking, a heterosexual mur-

118 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
derer will not be forced to have either a neuropathy inspection or a sex
inspection.
Although there are quite a few studies in Sociology on queers, there
were few on lesbians. Only several researchers have delivered papers
on the subject. Li Yinhe is one of them. She mentioned lesbians in two
of her books. In detail, she writes about lesbians in some chapters of The
Sentiment and Sex of Chinese Women (Li 1998). And in You Need So
Many Consolations she collects many letters selected from her letters
with lesbians (Li 2005). Both books, however, lack in-depth analyses
perhaps owing to inadequate data. In 2005, Renmin University of China
held the Tenth Annual Conference on Chinese Sexuality Research.
During the conference, there are only two papers that make a study on
lesbians. They are “On the Lesbian Literature and Lesbian Consciousness
in Vogue from the Perspective of Sexual Sociology” by Liu Yang
(2005) and “The Cultural Diversification of Lesbians” by Chen Yaya
(2005). Nevertheless, neither of them was written from the viewpoint of
mainstream sociology, for the former analyzes lesbian films and
literature and the latter analyzes Internet communication.
THE OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSES
OF LESBIAN INTERNET COMMUNITIES
The mainstream society is dominated by heterosexuals and thus
queers, especially lesbians, have no voice in public. Generally speaking,
lesbians are regarded as eccentrics and common people often avoid
keeping a relationship with them. When the Internet becomes widely
available, lesbians find it more convenient and safer to voice their opinions
and inner feelings in Internet communities. Meanwhile, they can
obtain relevant knowledge as well as understanding and support. Such
Internet communities also provide first-hand information for lesbian researchers,
particularly when lesbians are positive towards lesbian researchers.
2 Indeed, some university students in China’s Mainland have
conducted surveys by means of the Internet, and most of them have
reaped some benefits.
I use a similar method to obtain the information reported in the second
part of this paper through a long-term observation of lesbian network
communities. In contrast with interviews and questionnaires, this
kind of research method has an outstanding advantage in capturing lesbians’
true feelings, in that lesbians are much likelier to reveal their real
feelings when they are in their own group and choose the topics and

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 119
manners of the speech by themselves. There are of course some shortcomings
of this method, such as incomplete information and the uncertainty
about the background or identity of informants.
Most of the information for my analysis comes from “lesbian.
ytht.net,” the earliest lesbian website in the university bulletin board
system (bbs) in the Mainland which I managed from March to August in
2003. This website is now closed, and I also obtained information from
another website called “lesbian.lqqm.net.” In addition, I also draw on
information from other lesbian websites and lesbian bulletin boards.
Most of the participants in these Internet communities are university
students or university graduates; their ages range from twenty to thirty
and most come from big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou,
Wuhan, Chendu, Tianjin, Xiamen, Nanjing and so on.
When choosing topics for analysis, I focused on lesbians’ self-identity,
sentiment and sexuality rather than controversial topics or hot topics
because the former has so far received little attention.
THE SELF-IDENTITY OF LESBIANS
Although lesbians still live relatively restricted lives, the mainstream
society seems to be increasingly tolerant towards them. Some participants
in the Internet communities claim that they have never encountered
discrimination. A said, “I have never encountered discrimination,
though I feel lonely without a girlfriend.” It is perhaps natural that not
all the lesbians share the same experience. “I can understand people’s
curious stares, but I can’t tolerate my friends’ compassionate eyes,” said
B. Others’ compassion might have come across as patronizing, and
hence offensive.
Lesbians share the same pressure from the mainstream society, but
much to my disappointment, they are not as united as I thought. Some
say they don’t want to associate with other lesbians. C said, “It’s terrible
to become acquainted with other lesbians and I don’t like that.” D
added, “I’d rather have no relationship with other lesbians, for the more
lesbians I know, the stranger I think of myself.” They are also hostile to
gays usually. “There is no friendship between gays and lesbians,” said
E. And F asked, “None of the gays are good men, are they?”
Lesbians adopt various attitudes towards their identity and their lives
in spite of their similar backgrounds and individual experiences. So, it’s
unwise to simply assume that lesbians share the same or similar modes
of thought. These phenomena enrich the lesbian culture, but meanwhile

120 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
bring about theoretical puzzles. For instance, how to define lesbians and
their sexuality? And what is the difference between lesbians and other
common people? Are they different in form or in essence?
THE ROLE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN A PAIR OF LESBIANS
At times, in a lesbian couple, one plays a “man’s role” and the other
“woman’s role.” In Taiwan, the former is called Tomboy and the latter
Po (which means “a female” in Chinese). Lesbians in the mainland follow
the use of Po and Tomboy from Taiwan. The distinction refers to a
range of behavior and characteristics that are roughly differentiated
along a “male”/“female” distinction.
In the Internet communities, most middle-aged lesbians pay little attention
to the division. Nor do they require their partners and themselves
to conform to the division. Most young lesbians are in favor of it,
but there also some who oppose it. G argues, “I want to be either Po or
Tomboy. I love women while I am a woman myself. I don’t like to love
women out of a masculine mind within a woman’s body.”
Discussion about Po and Tomboy is always one of the heated topics
in the lesbian community. Most lesbians agree that Po and Tomboy can
be converted. “My Po asked me to make dinner for her everyday just a
moment ago,” said H, “I come to realize that I will become Po myself
soon.” Some have misgivings for the easiness of conversion between Po
and Tomboy. One asked herself: “I am more and more puzzled ...AmI
a Tomboy? Should the conversion be so easy?”
According to my observation, lesbians seem to agree on the “constitution”
of Po, but their viewpoints about what constitutes Tomboy differ.
Some think a pure Tomboy should always be active in sexuality and
she cannot be penetrated and even be touched by a Po. Others hold that a
Tomboy has a right to be passive. J claimed that she enjoyed the sweet
kisses given by her Po although she was active sexually. K ascribed this
to the fact that many passive partners actually controlled and adjusted
the course and ambience of sexuality. If so, her remarks will destroy the
division of Po and Tomboy from the root.
According to Zeng Chun’e (2004), the more a lesbian behaves like a
man, the more dissatisfaction she has towards her own physiological
structure. The lesbian board “lesbian.ytht.net” once conducted a survey
on Tomboys’ attitude towards passive behaviors in sex. The results indicated
that most tomboys were dissatisfied with their female physiological
structure and disliked to be touched by their partners, but some

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 121
tomboys reported a change in thinking. “I now realize that it’s impossible
to transform my physiological structure into that of a man,” said the
participant L, “I won’t have an idea like that and begin to be fond of my
own body.”
Although a lot of people including both researchers and lesbians are
against the division of Po and Tomboy for they think such a division is a
stupid imitation of heterosexuals, it is yet undeniable that the division of
lesbians takes an important part in lesbians’ daily lives. And most lesbians
admitted that it is necessary to establish an accepted division. However,
this topic has not yet drawn many researchers in the mainland to
study and analyze it.
THE SENTIMENT AND SEXUALITY OF LESBIANS
Many scholars propose a point of view that lesbians keep a much
steadier relationship than heterosexuals on the basis that they value sentiment
more than sexuality. According to Simone de Beauvoir (1998),
the love between two women is much deeper than the love between a
man and a woman, because they caress each other for self-creation instead
of possession (p. 475). According to Li Yinhe (1998), lesbians
spend more time, energy and sentiment in building and maintaining a
relationship. In reality, a lot of lesbians admit that they are given to sexuality
more than sentiment, so some change their partners frequently.
It’s not unusual to have more than one sexual partner at one time in the
lesbian community. M said, “When I told other lesbians that I had never
had a one night stand, they thought of me as strange and unpopular.”
“My lesbian group is so small,” complained N, “that they will be either
my present partner or my former partner if I change partners quickly
enough.”
Lesbians have different attitudes towards men’s bodies. Some are
disgusted with men’s bodies. O said, “Each time I think of a man’s
body, I felt like vomiting.” Some even seem “allergic” to men. P is a
good example; she said, “I just can’t tell my feeling towards men. When
they approach me, I have a special feeling. It maybe abomination or
dread.” But others have an opposite attitude. Q belongs to this group.
She said, “I love women but I have never tasted the happiness of sex
with them. In contrast, when a man comes close to me, I will have a sexual
desire, much stronger than I have when with a woman.”
Likewise, lesbians also hold different opinions on their reaction to
women’ bodies. Some like women’s bodies unconditionally. Taking R

122 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
as an example, she said, “I admire women’s bodies. I feel comfortable
and relaxing even when I am with a woman whom I don’t like very
much.” Some like women conditionally. Most of them are those who
are called tomboys. A Tomboy S said, “I like those of Pos’ but not of
other Tomboys’.” Participant T held another opinion, “I hate those of all
heterosexuals. When they touch my cheek, hair and shake my hands, I
always shout out and ask them not to touch me.” U held the most extreme
attitude, and said, “I don’t like to touch other women, nor do I
want to be touched. When another woman and I take a bath together, I
won’t ask her to scrub my back, nor will I scrub for her, no matter
whether she is my mother, an intimate friend or someone else.”
When talking about sexuality, lesbians tend to describe hugs and
kisses. V said, “I am interested in their soft bodies and fragrant smell.”
W recalled, “I remembered the respective sweet smell of every former
partner.” They seldom mentioned penetrating and sexual climax. When
it was suggested that they use some sex toys so that both they and their
partners can reach sexual climax at the same time, they refused fiercely
at once. “You must be men, either gays or heterosexuals,” argued X,
“and you know nothing about women’s bodies at all.” On the other
hand, there are a few who claim to admire sex between a man and a
woman. “To speak the truth, I like watching sex between a man and a
woman,” said Y, “I hardly feel anything exciting and stimulating when I
am with another lesbian.” Z added, “The most perfect sexuality occurs
when a man makes love with a woman.”
LESBIAN ORGANIZATIONS
Since it is mainly with the help of the Internet–a recent development
itself–that lesbian organizations developed, all lesbian organizations today
have only a short history. When the Fourth UN Conference on
Women was held in Beijing, some lesbians who had contacts with overseas
lesbian organizations took this opportunity to hold a meeting in
Beijing, which was called the first lesbian meeting in public. In 1997,
Xiaoxian, a girl who was pursuing studies in U.S.A., built a organization
named “Purple Phoenix,” aiming to provide lesbian information
and psychology tutorship for the corresponding group. Afterwards,
thanks to the rapid development of science and technology, more and
more lesbian organizations have been founded to provide all kinds of
professional knowledge and information for lesbians.

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 123
After joining the first lesbian meeting in Beijing, some lesbians came
together in 1998 and decided to found the first lesbian organization
“Beijing Sisters” in the mainland. Meanwhile, they operated a lesbian
telephone hotline and schemed to issue a lesbian magazine “The Sky.”
They also planned to hold a lesbian culture festival, but the government
had a clampdown on the festival and the organization was disbanded
afterwards.
Most lesbian organizations operate in secret and are not strong. Due
to dispersed members and defective systems, these organizations share
common shortcomings. They are short-lived and lack sufficient capital
and relevant experience. Their function depends more on the core members
than an efficient system, and so once core members leave the organization,
important plans will be aborted.
Further, Lesbian organizations are still highly dependent on the
Internet. Famous lesbian websites include “Lalachat,” “Lescn” and
“Aladao,” and among them, “Lalachat” has the largest membership of
158,283 people. “Lescn” ranks second with 60,134 and “Aladao” third
with 31,009. Each lesbian website has its own organization and activities,
but none has a great influence on the larger society.
In 2005, Xiao Xian founded a lesbian organization “Tongyu Group”
in Beijing. Its members have operated a lesbian telephone hotline and
organized “salons” to organize discussion about Chinese lesbians and
provide related knowledge for them. They have also promulgated
knowledge about lesbians on campus and taken part in academic conferences
as well. In the same year, another lesbian organization,
“Shanghai Lesbians,” was established to strive for more public benefits
for lesbians through a lesbian website (lescn.net) in Shanghai.
When more and more common people begin to know and understand
lesbians, some organizations begin to put effort into building a healthy
image for lesbians. During an interview (Zheng 2005), Xiao Xian said,
“There’s no essential difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality.
Not all lesbians lead a profligate life. Most lesbians are more
loyal to their lovers than their heterosexual counterparts as long as they
have come upon their ‘Ms. Right.’” Similarly, when “Shanghai Lesbians”
organized a “salon” on “We are falling in love,” the view that remaining
a long-term partnership is worthwhile prevails.
Cui Zi’en decribes the lives of gays in one of his books as, “We are
forced to escape from the center for the center is rotting. As a result, we
come to the brink and find a new land. So we decide to settle there for
the moment and make a preparation for the next escape” (Cui 1998:
234). In reality, we must realize that some lesbians win the respect and

124 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
understanding of the public at the cost of surrendering to mainstream
values, albeit partially. Then, what should the rest of the lesbians do?
Where will the road lead us?
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In conclusion, research on lesbians in China’s Mainland is at an elementary
stage and there is not much pertinent information about lesbians.
This paper gave a brief introduction to lesbian culture and lesbian
lives in the mainland based mainly on observations of the Internet communication
among lesbians. Due to the lack of in-depth research and
systematic analyses, constructive theories about lesbian lives have not
yet been devised. The first author is going to collect relevant information
about lesbians in the mainland on the strength of Internet observation
and take part in lesbians’ activities in order to systemically analyze
them.
NOTES
1. All Chinese names in the paper are given in the Chinese convention of first name
first, and last name next. The “I” in the paper refers to the first author.
2. The attitudes of lesbian participants in these Internet communities are not necessarily
positive. In Taiwan, for example, questionnaire surveys in the Internet are treated
with skepticism.
REFERENCES
Chen, Ran. 1996. Siren Shenghuo (The Private life). Beijing: Zuojia Chubanshe.
Chen, Yaya. 2005. “Duo Yuan Hua Nv Tongxing Lian gei Women Dai Lai de Qidi”
(The Cultural Diversification of Lesbians). Presented at The Tenth Annual Conference
on Chinese Sexuality Research, November 17, Beijing.
Cui, Zi’en. 1998. Meigui Chuangta (Rose Couch). Guangzhou: Huacheng Chubanshe.
Ding, Ling. 1998. “Shujia zhong” (In the Summer Holidays). Pp. 82-121 in zai Heian
zhong (In the Dark), edited by Min. Zhang. Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe.
Hai, Lan. 2005. Wo de Tianshi Wo de Ai (My Angel, My Love). Beijing: Zhongguo
Xiju Chubanshe.
Han, Yuanhong. 2004. “Dangdai Nvxing Wenxue zhong de Tongxing Lian
Zhuti–Cong Lin Bai de Xiaoshuo Tan Qi” (The Lesbian Theme in Contemporary
Female Literature: A Reflection on Lin Bai’s Novels). Fuyang Shifan Xueyuan
Xuebao 1: 48-51.

Yaya Chen and Yiqing Chen 125
Li, Yinhe. 1998. Zhongguo Nvxing de Gangqing yu Xing (Love and Sexuality of the
Chinese Women). Beijing: Jinri Zhongguo Chubanshe.
Li, Yinhe. 2005. Ni Ruci Xuyao Anwei (You Need So Much Consolation). Beijing:
Dangdai Shijie Chubanshe.
Lin, Bai.1997. Ling Bai Wenji: Yige Ren de Zhanzheng (Ling Bai’s Work: The War of
One Person). Nanjing: Jiangsu Wenyi Chubanshe.
Liu, Yang. 2005. “Xing Shehui Xue Shijiao Xia de Nvxing Tongxing Lian Wenzi he
Qingjie de Shishang hua” (On the Lesbian Literature and Lesbian Consciousness in
Vogue from the Perspective of Sexual Sociology). Presented at The Tenth Annual
Conference on Chinese Sexuality Research, November 17, Beijing.
Sang, Tze-Lan. 2003. The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern
China. Chicago: The University Of Chicago Press.
Simone de Beauvoir. (1949)1998. Di Er Xing (The Second Sex). Translated by Tao
Yingzhu. Beijing: Zhongguo Shuji Chubanshe.
Su, Xiaofang. 2004. “Nver Guo de Wutuobang yu Nanxing Hua Kangyi-Shi Lun Lu
Ying, Ling Shuhua Liangpian Tongxing Lian Xiaoshuo zhi Yitong” (Women’s
Utopia and Protest Against Sexism: The Compare and Contrast of Two Lesbian
Novels). Luoyang Shifan Xueyuan Xuebao 4: 69-71.
Tang, Shiming. 2003. “Jiexi Xingxinli Zhang’ai-Tongxing Lian Zinue Zize” (The Explanation
of the Hindrance of Sexual Psychology: Homosexuality and Self-maltreatment
and Self-abuse). Zhongguo Shequ Yisheng 10: 37.
Wang, Xinjian and Jianghong Wen. 2002. “Tongxing Lian Chengyin de Lilun Tantao”
(On the Cause of Formation of Homosexuality) Yixue yu Zhexue 4:1-4.
Xing, Shumei, 2005. “Tongxing Lian Sharen Yili” (One Case on Homosexual Murderer).
Linchuang Jingshenbing Yixue Zazhi 5 (2): 81.
Yu, Dafu. 1990. Ta shi Yige Ruo Nvzi (She is a Weak Woman). Beijing: Renming
Wenxue Chunbanshe.
Zeng, Chun’e. 2004. “Woguo Nv Tongxing Lian de Jiankang Wenti Jiqi Duice” (Chinese
Lesbian’s health problems and its countermeasures). Zhongguo Xing Kexue
3:39-41.
Zheng Chu. 2005. “Guanyu Lala de Shaoshupai Baogao” (A Report on Lesbians).
Zhongguo Xinwen Zhoukan 242:36-39.
Zhou, Caifa. 2004. “Tongxing Lian Sharen Erli” (Two Cases on Homosexual Murderers).
Fayixue Zazhi, 20 (May) (2): 54-55.
Zhu, Yan. 2004. “Zhongguo Tongzhi Wangluo Shiyong he Shenfen Rentong Diaocha
Baogao” (A Report on Queers’ Use of the Internet and Their Self-identity in
China’s Mainland). Presented at The 2004 Annual Conference on Chinese Internet
Communication, May 22, Nanjing.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_08

Lesbian Discourses
in Mainstream Magazines
of Post-War Japan:
Is Onabe Distinct from Rezubian?
Ikuko Sugiura
SUMMARY. This paper elucidates the changes in the meanings associated
with the term rezubian (the Japanese term for “lesbian”) through an
analysis of its discourse in magazines for general readership published
in post-war Japan. The category of “rezubian” first appeared in mainstream
magazines in the 1960s as a generic category that referred to both
“masculinized women” and “women who engage in sexual acts with
Ikuko Sugiura has a Master of Social Science degree and has completed the course
requirements of the Doctoral Program at the Graduate School of Literature at Chuo
University. She now works as a part-time lecturer at several private universities in Japan.
Inspired by constructionism and ethnomethodology, she is currently analyzing
lesbian life history, magazine discourses, and the discourse of medical experts who
promoted the medicalization of gender identity disorder. She has recently begun collecting
related publications and oral resources in an effort to document the social history
of the lesbian community in Japan.
Address correspondence to: Ikuko Sugiura, The Faculty of Literature, Chuo University,
742-1, Higashi Nakano, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo, 192-0393, Japan (E-mail: uraiku@nifty.ne.jp).
The author would like to thank Minako Hara who translated her paper, and the editors
Saori Kamano and Diana Khor for many useful suggestions and advices.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Lesbian Discourses in Mainstream Magazines of Post-War Japan: Is
Onabe Distinct from Rezubian?” Sugiura, Ikuko. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies
(Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 127-144; and:
“Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington
Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 127-144. Single or multiple copies of this article
are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. -
5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_09 127

128 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
other women.” Masculinized women, in particular, were called
“onabe.” At first “onabe” denoted “a tachi rezubian,” meaning a lesbian
who plays “top,” but gradually a distinction came to be made between
“rezubian who are onabe” and “rezubian who aren’t.” The early 1990s
saw the differentiation of “onabe” as a category distinct from that of
“rezubian.” Focusing particularly on this process of differentiation, this
paper traces the transitions in the signifying practices pertaining to the
category rezubian. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_09 [Article copies available for a
fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
Website: © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Signifying practices pertaining to the category rezubian
(lesbian), onabe, FTMTS (female-to-male transsexual), post-war Japan,
analysis of magazine discourse
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ANALYZING THE REZUBIAN DISCOURSE
IN MAINSTREAM MAGAZINES
Rezubian, or the Japanese term for lesbian, became a widely known
category in Japan in the 1960s and served as a means of lexically articulating
the awareness of self and/or of others. At the time, this concept connoted
a more diverse range of people than it does today. It was in the latter
half of the 1990s that the definition of rezubian as “women whose gender
identity consists in regarding others of the same sex as objects of sexual
love” took hold in the lesbian community. The purpose of this paper is to
elucidate the process of transformation of this concept by analyzing the
discourse in magazines directed toward a general readership (hereafter,
mainstream magazines 1 ) published in post-war Japan up till 2000. 2
My current research focuses on documenting the Japanese lesbian
community, which is generally held to have been established in the
1970s. The orientation of the community’s activities is influenced by
how a collective lesbian identity is formed and organized. I therefore
considered it vital to first grasp the changes in the meanings that have
been assigned over the years to the category “rezubian,” which forms
the core of such activities, and decided to collect written references to
“rezubian” in order to analyze the changes in its signifying practices.
The post-war period saw the emergence of references to “rezubian”
in a variety of media–books, newspapers, magazines, bulletins/newslet-

Ikuko Sugiura 129
ters of limited circulation (minikomi-shi), academic journals, television,
and, in the latter half of the 1990s, the Internet. Their genres were also
diverse, including real-life accounts and diaries, documentary reports
and news articles, critical essays and academic papers, literary texts,
and pornographic texts. Although there is much to learn from analyzing
these various materials, my focusing on mainstream magazines is
largely practical: the only materials that have been systematically
collated at this time are articles from mainstream magazines.
While the data used in this paper has its limitations, mainstream magazines
have a comparatively wider circulation than small-scale newsletters
and are more accessible to readers in general, so their influence on
the formation process of a collective identity should not be underrated.
Furthermore, whereas the discourse on rezubian in mainstream magazines
was largely produced by “others” (non-rezubian) until the 1970s,
in the 1980s and 1990s, essays and feature articles written by lesbian activists
themselves began to appear in them. This enables me to include
lesbian self-representation in the analysis, juxtaposing it with lesbian
representation by others, and to have a grasp of when political interventions
occurred in and how it transformed the meaning of “who the
rezubian are.”
In the following sections, I first outline how the data for this paper
were collected from articles in mainstream magazines. I then introduce
a motif established in the 1960s in association with the concept of
rezubian, and sort out how the concept of rezubian was expressed either
by adopting or not adopting this motif. My purpose here is to reveal how
the signifying practices of rezubian in mainstream magazines have
changed over time by examining what kind of discourses intervened to
produce changes in this category.
DATA
The magazine articles used as the data for this paper were collected
through the efforts of an informal study group called “The Society of Social
History of Transgenderism in Post War Japan.” 3
This group was formed in 1999 to collect materials relevant to the
“transgender” phenomenon (including transvestism/cross-dressing and
sex reassignment/sex change) from the post-WWII era to the present
day. Considered as contiguous with the “transgender” phenomenon,
both written and oral materials associated with intersex/hermaphrodite
and same-sex love/homosexuality have also been collected.

130 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
The first activity of this study group was to collect articles published
in mainstream magazines. The range of this collation was determined
by using the Oya Soichi Archives index on magazine articles. The collation,
listing, and filing of 4,167 articles up to year 2000 were completed
in March 2004 (Institute of Social Science Research Team “Sexuality:
Past and Present,” Chuo University 2004). From this pool of articles, I
identified articles pertaining to “rezubian,” “intimate relations between
females,” “masculinization of women,” and “women cross-dressing as
males” as my data. The number of articles per each year is shown in Table
1, and sums up to a total of 559. 4
REZUBIAN IN THE 1960s AND 1970s
The Emergence and Establishment of the “Carnal Lesbian” Motif
According to the data, the rezubian as a category first appeared in an
article in 1963 (in Shuukan Gendai, August 1, 1963: 86-89). In the article,
the term rezubian refers to a female bartender dressed as a man, and
is associated with “masculinized” characteristics. The focus of article,
however, is neither on the cross-dressed bartenders nor on the women
who gather at these bars; rather, the article sensationalizes the emergence
of what they call the secret society of females who crave carnal
stimulation. Compared to the women who gather at these bars, where
TABLE 1. Number of Articles Related to “Rezubian/Cross-Dressing as Male”
Published per Year in Mainstream Magazines (1945-2000)
Year Number Year Number Year Number Year Number Year Number Year Number
1950 1 1960 0 1970 1 1980 22 1990 6
1951 0 1961 0 1971 1 1981 18 1991 8
1952 0 1962 0 1972 10 1982 15 1992 17
1953 1 1963 1 1973 21 1983 14 1993 31
1954 0 1964 1 1974 9 1984 17 1994 33
1945 0 1955 2 1965 1 1975 17 1985 6 1995 26
1946 0 1956 0 1966 1 1976 16 1986 8 1996 12
1947 0 1957 0 1967 8 1977 10 1987 12 1997 13
1948 0 1958 0 1968 7 1978 11 1988 2 1998 52
1949 0 1959 0 1969 4 1979 22 1989 5 1999 50
2000 47

sexual contact is minimal, the article concludes that the “real rezubian”
are those women who are absorbed in having sex with each other, and
gives a detailed account of their sexual activities.
In this paper I shall refer to images which emphasize the sexual aspects
of the rezubian based on said assumptions as the “carnal lesbian”
motif. This motif was first introduced and then quickly established in
the 1960s and has since become central to the representation of rezubian
in mainstream magazines, persistently appearing to the present day. 5
The main points of the articles of that time are as follows: Rezubian can
be found not only in the limited confines of lesbian bars but also in the
everyday world. Young female college students and office workers, not
only unmarried women but also wives (literally “someone’s wife” in
Japanese) are all enthusiastically engaging in sex with each other. These
articles also refer to the so-called “lesbian technique” which is described
as a special skill that gives women a pleasure incomparable to
that of sex with men. These articles usually carry explicit depictions of
the sexual act using the “lesbian technique” at some point.
Core and Peripheral to the Carnal Lesbian Motif
Rezubian Within the Carnal Motif
Ikuko Sugiura 131
According to the carnal lesbian motif described above, a rezubian either
played a “male role” or a “female role.” These terms first appeared
in the article in 1966. “Even though the relationship is between two
women, there still exists a male-female dynamic. In the slang of this
scene, women who play the male role are called ‘tachi,’ and women
who play the female role are called ‘neko,’ or simply ‘ne’” (Shuukan
Manga Sandei, November 23, 1966: 54-57). The slang terms of “male
role: tachi” and “female role: neko” began to appear in this manner in
these magazines. 6 In the four relevant articles found among those published
in the 1950s, “women who are not mannish”–the counterpart of
“mannish women”–were never taken up as an issue. However, after the
carnal lesbian image took hold in the 1960s, these women came to be regarded
as the “rezubian who play the female role,” and were made an
indispensable constituent of the rezubian framework. Moreover, the female
role player was uniformly portrayed as the one who wantonly
craves sexual stimulation.
On the other hand, a distinction is made among the male role players
according to two factors. The first factor is their space of activity: male
role players who work in lesbian bars are portrayed differently from

132 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
those who do not. The other factor is their degree of masculinization;
their treatment in articles differs according to whether one looks “just
like a man” or “still a woman.”
The male role players who are the major constituents of the carnal
lesbian image are women who are outside the lesbian bar scene and are
still viewed as “women.” Even if their external appearance, behaviour
or personality is somewhat “mannish,” they are nonetheless treated in
the magazines as “women.” Such male role players are not “ugly fellows”
who “fall short of becoming a man” (Asahi Geinou April 7, 1977:
52-55). “Unlike the somewhat pathetic-looking male role players who
work at those late-night lesbian bars in town, they are the ”glamorous
tachi, looking like a star who has just stepped out of a glossy
Takarazuka 7 stage pinup” (Bishou, August 7, 1976: 114-115). Such
women are not to be found in the world of lesbian bars but in everyday
life.
This type of male and female role-playing is assumed to be interchangeable
and fluid. There are stories of women who “do both,” that is,
women who can switch freely between male and female roles according
to time and situation. There also are stories of women who, seduced by a
male role player, first acquire a “taste for lesbianism” as a female role
player, only to assume the male role themselves later on and set out to
seduce “girls without lesbian tendencies.” The fluidity in role-play portrayed
in these articles can be taken to suggest that for rezubian sexual
stimulation comes above all else, therefore emphasizing how sexually
uninhibited rezubian are. 8
Rezubian on the Periphery of the Carnal Lesbian Motif
As noted above, the male role players who work in lesbian bars are
portrayed differently from those who figure within the carnal lesbian
motif. The women who work in bars are professional tachi who entertain
customers, dressed up in suits and tie. However, they do not dress as
men simply for the sake of work. Without exception, all the employees
say they have “always been mannish” and recount their childhood, saying
that it is “natural” for them to behave like men. They stress that they
assume they are men not only in appearance but also “in character,” and
say they “love a woman as a man does.” Neither do they change roles in
sex.
While such women who cross-dress as men in bars are not central to
the carnal lesbian image, they are nonetheless related to it. The articles
show the bar workers happily recounting dirty jokes and details of the

“lesbian techniques” which they use to please female role players in
sex. The focus of attention is on the sexual aspect of the rezubian all the
same. Therefore, women who dress as men and work in bars were retained
in the motif to play a part in the concept of the rezubian through
their role as the “tachi rezubian.” Within the rezubian category, such
male role players who dress as men, especially those who work in bars,
were called “onabe.” 9
The public gaze differs, however, when “women who look like men”
are outside the lesbian bars. While women who pass as “men” by dressing
in male attire in everyday life are also put into the category of
rezubian, they are never portrayed in a pornographic way. 10 These
“rezubian” do not figure in the carnal lesbian motif. However, how
these women who dress as men in daily life are understood as rezubian
is a little more complicated. This will be explained in a later section.
A Clear Distinction Becomes Apparent
Ikuko Sugiura 133
With the benefits of hindsight, it is apparent that the important point
here is that with the emergence of the carnal lesbian image, a difference
came to be recognized within the rezubian category between “rezubian
who are onabe” and “rezubian who are not.” For example, one rezubian
who figures within the carnal lesbian motif says she dislikes “bartenders
at lesbian bars because they emphasize masculinity in an unnatural
way” (Heibon Punch Deluxe, February, 1969: 184-187). Conversely,
tachi who work in bars are encouraged to speak of their distaste for
“carnal lesbians,” as follows: “I was so surprised the other day when I
went to a place in Roppongi. It was a scandal–girls together dressed in
normalclothes,girlswearingskirts...weredancingandembracing....
It was so sickening I went home” (Asahi Geinou, September 28, 1972:
66-69).
The difference between “women who like women” and “women who
are like men” is explained by one onabe as follows: “There are two
kinds of lesbians, you know, the homosexuals and our kind. The homosexuals
are the ones who do it to each other you know. . . . For people
like us, we’re happy in the relationship as long as our female partner
gets gratification” (Asahi Geinou, September 6, 1973: 66-69).
To get ahead of the discussion, let me point out that this distinction
became increasingly clear since the 1980s, until finally onabe were
classified as a different entity from tachi rezubian. It is possible that the
lesbian self-representation of the 1980s covered in the following section
also contributed to further emphasizing this distinction.

134 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
THE LESBIAN SELF-REPRESENTATION OF THE 1980s
In the 1980s, articles by male writers featuring quotes from women
called “ribu shusshin rezu” (lesbians from women’s lib) or “shisoukei
rezu” (political lesbians). From 1984, these lesbians themselves began
to write their own stories for mainstream magazines. Their voices in
fact had already been heard in small-scale publications (minikomi-shi)
since the latter half of the 1970s. I shall refer to these views, which characteristically
linked the issue of lesbian liberation with that of women’s
liberation, as the “lesbian/feminist discourse.” By giving an affirmative
meaning to rezubian, they intervened in the rezubian image which had
until then been represented only by others.
The Lesbian/Feminist Discourse: Setting the Norm of the Ideal Rezubian
The new rezubian image presented by the lesbian/feminist voice was
as follows. The rezubian relationship is “by far more equal than a malefemale
relationship, full of mutual sharing and support, as well as recognition
of and consideration for each other” (Fujin Kouron, August,
1985: 236-243). “Being rezubian is one way for a woman to try and
live an independent free life” (Fujin Kouron, June, 1986: 420-427).
These new images of the rezubian were soon taken up by others. A
men’s magazine, BRUTUS, for example, published an article entitled
“Rezubian: the ultimate romance,” celebrating the relationship as follows:
“What is so wonderful about rezubian, above all, is that it is not a
relationship of dominance-subjugation” (BRUTUS, June 15, 1987: 86-
87). Here, the permeation of the lesbian/feminist discourse is evident.
Underneath this type of discourse was a resistance to a society that
discriminates against women, and the existing gender role stereotypes
forced upon them by a sex-discriminatory society became the major
target of their criticism. Thus, those who conceived of a rezubian
relationship in terms of male/female role-playing were criticized for reproducing
the male/female power dynamic by mimicking the conventional
gender role stereotypes. The “cross-dressed male-role player”
was named the culprit and bore the brunt of criticism. Harsh words of
criticism were hurled at these women for being so engrossed with “masculinity.”
By bringing a mock heterosexual pattern into a relationship
between women, they became branded as “old-fashioned rezubian.” 11
As a matter of course, the onabe were the ones who were singled out for
criticism.

Despite the fact that the lesbian/feminist discourse was critical of the
carnal lesbian motif that portrayed the rezubian relationship in terms of
the “tachi/neko” gender roles, it was the onabe who were on the periphery
of this motif, who became their target of alienation rather than the
rezubian who figured within it. As a result, an increasingly clear distinction
was made between onabe rezubian and non-onabe rezubian.
A Counter-Discourse
Ikuko Sugiura 135
In the 1980s, as the rezubian image presented by the lesbian/feminist
discourse was gaining currency, concerns were expressed about the fact
that the rezubian norm was becoming increasingly rigid. This concern
was voiced by Suzuki Michiko, 12 the president of Wakakusa no kai, the
first lesbian group in Japan.
Suzuki has promoted the existence of the group since its founding in
1971 by accepting magazine interviews. The resultant articles tended to
reflect content that has been moulded by the reporters to fit into the carnal
lesbian image. For instance, articles introducing the Wakakusa no
kai would be accompanied by rather abrupt depictions of explicit sex
between women which was obviously out of the context (Shukan Post,
March 29, 1974: 176-179). However, in the 1980s, articles written by
Suzuki herself appeared in a women’s magazine, Fujin Kouron (January,
1983: 340-344). In it, she criticized the carnal lesbian motif and
painstakingly attempted to correct the public prejudice against lesbian
sex.
Suzuki’s article was unique in the sense that it also kept a distance
from the lesbian/feminist discourse. Statements such as “the word
rezubian covers a diverse range of people” and “it’s not possible to define
who is the legitimate rezubian” keep the lesbian/feminist discourse
in check. It is a statement that takes into account those who do
not fit into the rezubian norm. After Suzuki, however, no other efforts
were made to keep onabe within the rezubian framework in mainstream
magazines.
INTELLIGIBILITY OF THE “NON-REZUBIAN” ENTITY
AS SEEN IN THE ARTICLES OF THE 1970s-80s
As outlined above, since the 1960s, women who act like men, or
onabe, had been seen as the “tachi rezubian (the lesbian on top).” However,
there were also reports on people who rejected such labels. The re-

136 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
curring phrase “I am not a rezubian” emerges here. In order to define the
rezubian concept with greater accuracy, the following section examines
articles that take up “women who are like men” who are identified as
“not a rezubian” by tacit consensus of the author and the readers.
Those Who Reject Rezubian Identification: In the 1970s
The following article is one example. ‘“She’ wants to live as a ‘man.’
. . . The first night they spent together, ‘her’ girl was reluctant to go to
bed with ‘her.’ ‘(The girl) said she didn’t like rezu [derogatory term for
rezubian]. So, I said to her, ‘I’m not rezu, I’m a man”’ (Bishou, October,
26, 1974: 86-91).
In another article, a certain ‘young woman’ says “I have no [rezubian
inclinations]. I just want to be a man. That’s why I dress like a man and
only do work that men do. So far I’ve driven a dump truck, worked on
construction sites. . . .” Her father then expresses his bewilderment at
the fact that “his daughter is not a rezubian.” “If she were a rezu it would
be easier to understand, but she’s not a rezubian you know. So, as a father
I don’t know what to do, and her mother is even more worried”
(Asahi Geinou, September 2, 1976: 135-136).
In the first article, the person is categorized as rezu simply by virtue
of her attempt to have sex with a woman. In the second article, the concept
of rezubian is disrupted because the person wants to be a man but
has no interest in having sexual relations with women. In other words,
to be rezubian is linked to the act of “having sexual relations with
women” and when that feature is apparently lacking, it obstructs one
from being identified as rezubian. The same thing can be observed in
the articles about Torai Masae in the latter half of the 1980s.
Discourse Related to Torai Masae: 1987 and 1988
From 1987 to 1988, a story of a “woman who is just like a man” in
her a daily life was taken up by mainstream magazines. This was Torai
Masae, the person who was later to start the first transsexual self-help
group in Japan. In 1987, the Asahi Journal published two articles,
which included memoirs by Torai (May 29, 1987: 98-102; December
4, 1987: 28-31), and in the following year, a number of women’s magazines
successively featured Torai (Josei Sebun, March 17, 1988: 240-
242; Bishou, June 11, 1988: 43-45; Shuukan Josei, July 19, 1988: 61-
63).

At the time, the topic of “sex-change surgery” (now rephrased as Sex
Reassignment Surgery) was a taboo. The operation had been regarded
as illegal since 1969 when an obstetrician was found guilty of violating
Article 28 of the (then) Eugenics Protection Law for performing
orchidectomy (removal of the testicles) on three “men.” The article on
Torai caused a stir as a “woman” who, in light of this difficult situation
at home, travelled to the USA to undergo mastectomy and begin
hormone treatment.
It is important to note that there is not one mention in Torai’s memoirs
of the word “rezubian.” Nor is there any sign of others regarding
Torai as rezubian. This could be because Torai disseminated “medical”
knowledge on symptoms and treatment of “transsexual (gender identity)
disorder.” It could also be because Torai was physically attempting
to become a “man.” These, however, are probably not the only reasons.
One can argue that Torai’s apparent lack of a history of emotional involvement
or sexual experience with either women or men blocked people
from assuming that he is a rezubian. According to Torai’s own
testimony, “I am neither rezu nor homo [derogatory term for homosexual
men]. I have never had any sexual experience.” (Shuukan Josei, July
19, 1988: 61-63). The popular inferential process linking “sexual experience”
with rezu is implicated here, albeit in a negative manner.
The fact that such inferences were established cannot be unrelated to
the fact that rezubian continues to be represented as a sexual entity by
the carnal lesbian image. This popular association of rezubian with
“sexual activity” could be used, on the one hand, as a resource for asserting
that one is “not rezubian,” and, on the other, for distinguishing
one from a tachi rezubian. At the same time, however, the very existence
of this common knowledge made it difficult to think of onabe, or
those bartenders who entertained female clientele, as “not rezubian.” In
the 1990s, however, the signifying frame that at one time included
onabe within the rezubian category underwent a great change.
DISTINGUISHING ONABE FROM REZUBIAN/
FTMTS FROM ONABE: IN THE EARLY 1990s
The Lesbian Liberation Discourse: 1992-1995
Ikuko Sugiura 137
In Japan, 1991 is said to be an epoch-making year for homosexuals. It
saw the beginning of court action regarding discrimination against homosexuals,
people “coming out” in the mass media and appealing for

138 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
recognition, which all indicated the growing awareness of daily disdain
and ridicule of same-sex love as a human rights issue. The year also saw
a “gay boom” as “gay culture” was featured in a variety of counter-culture
magazines.
In 1992, “What it means to be Rezubian” by Kakefuda Hiroko caused
a stir and from the following year there was a succession of “rezubian
feature” articles in mainstream magazines with the involvement of the
rezubian themselves in their writing or preparation. I will refer to this
type of discourse, characterized by coming out to the public and attempting
to convey the reality of the rezubian, as the “lesbian liberation
discourse.” They are concentrated in the period between 1992 and 1995.
The year 1995 witnessed the publication of a commercial magazine for
rezubian, PHRYNE (Furiine), and the coming out of a female rock vocalist;
however, after this, the lesbian liberation discourse virtually disappeared
from mainstream magazines. 13
The lesbian liberation discourse differed in various ways from the
lesbian/feminist discourse. In contrast to the latter’s push for the “liberation
of women,” the former prioritized the “liberation of homosexuals.”
The latter’s claims that “rezubian relationships are equal” and
“rezubian are feminists” were also rejected by the former as stereotypes.
The lesbian liberation discourse showed a dislike for a fixed
rezubian image, and emphasized the diversity within the group, indicating
that there are myriad ways of living, thinking, and having sex. Consequently,
they did not categorically refute the existence of the tachi/
neko roles. “Neither the idea that ‘male/female roles are absolutely
fixed’ nor the view that ‘tachi/neko are obsolete terms’ holds true. Most
people say ‘50:50 is the ideal,’ but frankly, I think the view that ‘there
seems to be an inclination toward one or the other . . . depending on the
relationship with the partner’ rings truer” (Takarajima, February 9,
1994: 31-45).
In addition, the lesbian liberation discourse used the concept of “sexuality”
to shed light on the sexual diversity of the individual, and in this
regard, who stressed the existence of “heterosexuality” as a type of
“sexuality” and the existence of “heterosexuals” as an entity. For instance,
the feature article in Takarajima (March 9, 1993: 28-57) begins
with a big headline saying, “First, let’s think about this. What is a heterosexual?”
followed by the phrase “most heterosexual people do not
know they are heterosexual.”
The lesbian liberation discourse also differed from the lesbian/feminist
discourse in the sense that, unlike the latter, it did not criticize the
onabe. The same article in 1993 describes the onabe in the following

way: “A generic term for female homosexuals, originating from the
word okama [a slang for homosexual men]. However, they differ
greatly from rezubian women in their strong consciousness that they
‘love a woman as a man does’; some people even refer to themselves as
nonke (heterosexuals). Some inject male hormones or flatten their
breasts using bleached cotton cloths, and many work at places called
onabe bars.” In the same article, rezubian is described as “a woman who
loves another woman as normal woman.” Aside from this, there is no
recognizable discourse to differentiate onabe from the rezubian, and no
other extensive discussion on the onabe by a rezubian feature article.
Conversely, there is a noticeable lack of reference to onabe.
It is clear from the article that the lesbian liberation discourse at the
time regarded onabe as an entity distinct from rezubian, but no further
effort was made to explicate the differences or write more about onabe.
At about the same time, outside the lesbian liberation discourse, there
appeared many feature articles on onabe, in which the differences between
the two were discussed in detail.
Onabe Breaks Away from the Rezubian: 1993-1996
Ikuko Sugiura 139
From about 1993, the onabe began to be referred to as misu dandii
(Miss Dandy) as well, and from 1993 to 1996, and onabe became a topic
of public interest under this new category. Articles of this time were
based on interviews in onabe bars and always highlighted the differences
between onabe and rezubian, portraying these differences as
characteristics unique to the onabe.
“Onabe cross-dress as men and love women as men do, so psychologically
they are heterosexual and are different from rezubian. Tobe
rezubian is to love a woman as a woman. Besides, during sex, rezu
women become naked and do it to each other, don’t they? They can take
turns being passive too. As for us, the onabe, we never undress ourselves
or let women touch us. We play the male role throughout with the
sole aim of gratifying our female partner in sex. The gratification we get
is purely mental” (Josei Sebun, May 20, 1993: 98-105). “They unanimously
state that ‘We boys are totally different from those rezu
women!’ In the rezubian world, women love women. ‘But we devote
ourselves as men to serve straight women who aren’t rezu, and make
them come’ says Mr. S” (Flash, August 17, 1993: 66-67). “While the
onabe, like the rezubian, are homosexuals who love women, they also
transcend homosexuality in that they are completely male in their own
perception. In terms of sex, also, they don’t seek ecstasy themselves and

140 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
simply concentrate on giving the woman pleasure. Also, their female
partner has to be heterosexual . . .” (SPA!, July 10, 1996: 3-7).
The articles quoted above have many similarities to the stories related
by the cross-dressed tachi bartenders marginally linked to the carnal
lesbian motif in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea, however, that “the
women the onabe loves are heterosexual” was not evident in the signifying
practices of onabe up to the 1980s. Until then, “the women the
onabe loves” were considered “neko rezubian” and the signification
that “onabe are heterosexual in their psyche” had never come up. What
is used here to persuasively portray the difference between the onabe
and the rezubian is the generic category of “heterosexual.” Using this
concept of heterosexuality provided by the lesbian liberation discourse,
it became possible for onabe to break away from the rezubian category
by focusing on the “difference in their sexuality.”
The Distinction Between ‘Female to Male Transsexual
(FTMTS)’ and ‘Onabe’
We can conclude that, during this period, the definition of “who is
rezubian” was clarified due to active efforts of the discourse on onabe
to make a distinction. However, another discourse indirectly highlighted
rezubian membership–the voice of Torai Masae. From around
1993, Torai began to talk about himself as an “FTM transsexual” or
“FTMTS” and the difference between he and the onabe in mainstream
magazines. The rezubian began to be contoured by what was left over
from the definitions of onabe and FTMTS.
According to Torai, “I think our feelings are the same, so I do feel
some kind of solidarity (with the onabe), but onabe are people who become
men through cross-dressing. They feel satisfied as long as they
dress as men and go out with women. A transsexual like me must rid
oneself of the female body in order to be truly satisfied. I sometimes
envy those who can be satisfied without surgery” (CREA, December,
1993: 82-85). “I can’t work in an onabe bar because onabe bars don’t
hire men. A [FTM]TS not only dresses and assumes manly behavior,
but rather feels totally like a man. In other words, you think you have a
mistaken body; that is what is essentially different from the onabe . . .
few onabe actually intend to change their genitals from female to male.
For me though, that’s one thing I find really difficult to comprehend”
(PANJA, June, 1996: 136-139).

Ikuko Sugiura 141
POST-1996:
MEDICALIZATION OF SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY
For a short period from 1992 through 1996, rezubian, onabe, and
FTMTS were represented as separate entities in mainstream magazines.
This ended in 1996, shortly after the onabe broke away from the
rezubian category, as onabe/Miss Dandy was gradually subsumed under
the concept of Gender Identity Disorder (GID), a category that was
circulating in the public sphere with the imminent introduction of sex
reassignment surgery in the medical field.
After 1996, the focus of the mass media in their treatment of sexual
minorities shifted from “homosexual” to “GID,” and rezubian self-representation
disappeared along with it. Although Table 1 shows that the
number of articles increases after 1998, I believe this is simply a result
of an increased number of hits due to improvement in search technology.
Most of these articles are representations by others that regard the
rezubian from a perspective of sexual curiosity, invoking the ever-familiar
carnal lesbian image. The understanding that “rezubian are
women,” however, is no longer vague here, which in turn means the understanding
that “the onabe are men” has taken hold.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
This paper traced the process of articulation of the onabe as an entity
separate from rezubian up to the early 1990s. Until the 1980s, the lack
of emotional involvement or sexual contact with women was presented
as a characteristic that differentiates the masculinized woman
from the tachi rezubian. However roundabout these speculations may
seem, they show the difficulty of marking a category by an unmarked
attribute, such as the “heterosexual subject”; it is generally difficult to
use an unmarked attribute as parameters to present oneself. The lesbian
liberation discourse that emerged in the early 1990s made the hitherto
unmarked “heterosexuality” visible and labelled it anew. This gave way
to the recognition that the “women the onabe love” are “heterosexual,”
and ultimately enabled the onabe to be considered “heterosexual subjects”
per se.
Even after “accurate” knowledge has taken root in the latter half of
the 1990s which enabled lesbians to recognize themselves as sexual
subjects, the rezubian community continues to be frequented by different
kinds of people. This shows that, although the definition of the

142 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
rezubian category is better established now, this has not necessarily
made the membership of the rezubian community more homogeneous.
True, you can no longer find many people in the community who call
themselves onabe. However, now that the category of TS (transsexual)
has become recognized nationwide with the medicalization of
Gender Identity Disorder, an increasing number of “boyish” rezubian
in the community have begun to call themselves (FTM)TS. On the
other hand, MTFTS (Male to female transsexual) people who were
once categorized as “okama” or “MTF transvestite” are now entering
the rezubian community as “women who like women.” The apparent
increase in cohesiveness of the rezubian category at this point suggests
that there are people who define themselves based on personal
interpretations of the rezubian category. Examining the transition of the
signifying practices of rezubian in this paper will, I hope, become the
first step in documenting and understanding these phenomena.
NOTES
1. Mainstream magazines consist mainly of weeklies, women’s magazines and
monthlies for the general reader of widely varied circulation, readership and genres,
and are generally stratified by, among other criteria, genre (e.g., fashion magazines,
news magazines), and target readership (e.g., by gender (men, women, “general
reader”) and finer distinctions within each group (e.g., age (teenage girls’ magazines,
magazines for women in their forties), occupation (e.g., housewife magazines). I identify
these magazines as “mainstream magazines” to differentiate them from “popular
sex magazines.” In my analysis, “popular sex magazines” refer to publications that
comprehensively take up such “perverse sexual practices” as same-sex desires, transvestism,
“hara-kiri (seppuku; meaning disembowelment),” sadomasochism, and fetishism.
These magazines abounded from the immediate post-war period through the
1960s, until each theme eventually found its own specialized medium.
2. A previous paper by the same author (Sugiura 2005; 2006) covers the postwar
period to the 1980s; the present paper takes this study further from the 1960s through
year 2000.
3. “The Society of Social History of Transgenderism in Post War Japan” (Chair:
Yajima Masami, Professor, Institute of Social Science, Chuo University) is an informal
study group formed in February 1999, of which I am a founding member. I have obtained
permission from the group to use their archive.
4. “The Society of Social History of Transgenderism in Post War Japan” has so far
collected approximately 350 titles of mainstream magazines, 85 of which I have used
as data for this paper. These magazine articles are indexed by the Oya Soichi Library
(http://www.oya-bunko.or.jp), a library specializing in magazine collections. The library
archives 10,000 magazine titles from the Meiji era (1868-1912) to the present, including
the back numbers of nearly 1000 titles currently issued in Japan.
5. The carnal lesbian motif is considered to have emerged in the 1960s as pornography
catering to male readership. Among the 23 articles published in the 1960s, only

Ikuko Sugiura 143
four appeared in women’s magazines, and three among them featured masculinized
lesbians (who cross-dress as males). The remaining article (Josei Jishin, February 27,
1967: 130-131), however, mainly depicted acts of lesbian sex in detail. This happened
to be the first instance in which lesbians appeared as a motif in an article of a women’s
magazine.
6. It is difficult to determine when the slang terms “tachi” and “neko” began to circulate.
Their etymological origins are equally nebulous; tachi, literally meaning
“erect,” is said to derive from “tachiyaku (the benign male role) in Kabuki, while Neko
literally means ”cat” or “sleeping child” and refers to geishas as well. These terms are
used to describe both lesbians and gay men.
7. Established in 1913, the Takarazuka Revue is one of the most popular musical
theater companies in Japan that stages a wide variety of musical shows. Its uniqueness
lies in the fact that all the parts are played by unmarried women. The Takarazuka audience
is also overwhelmingly female. These conditions gave birth to the otokoyaku prototype
(literally “male role,” or women actors playing the male part).
8. These articles emphasize the interchangeable and fluid nature of rezubian roles
to astound male readers by threatening that the rezubian can reproduce itself: Once
women enter the “rezubian world,” they experience or assume the male role and so become
rivals in cultivating (the sexual appetite of) mothers or potential wives of the
male readers.
9. Reference to “onabe” first appeared in 1967 (Shuukan Gendai, February 23,
1967: 94-98), and in the following context: “The bartender at her side (likewise, a
woman dress as a man, age 20) added on. ‘Homo are called okama (a Japanese word for
‘rice cooking pot’), right? Well, we boys are called onabe (meaning a cooking pot).
Those who sleep with both (women converts who first go out with onabe but later date
men) are called furaipan (the frying pan). It’s the most detestable kind for us, because
it’s a lesbian betrayal. I consider myself a real man. I’m saving money to undergo surgery
in the future. And marry a foreign woman, that’s what I dream of.’”
10. Stories of women who cross-dress as men in daily life often appear in connection
with crime reports. While most cases deal with common crimes such as
theft and fraud, they see news value in the fact that “a woman was in male disguise
for a long time” and sensationalize it. Of course, there are other articles unrelated to
crime. These articles generally turn a curious eye on the person’s turbulent life and
are designed to depict how these women accept or overcome their “wretched sexuality.”
11. Even though these issues were not taken up in the articles of mainstream magazines
I analyzed, it is said that among lesbian/feminists, those wearing such feminine
attire as “makeup, skirts or high-heels” were the targets of criticism (Naha 1987: 104).
While overly mannish behavior was considered a negative trait, excessively feminine
dress code was criticized as well. This shows how the narrowly defined ideal rezubian
image was represented as the norm.
12. All Japanese names in this paper are given in the Japanese convention of surname-given
name.
13. The “coming out” articles on Ikeda Kumiko that appeared in 1998 and 1999 are
the only exceptions. High-school teacher Ikeda published a book in 1999 called
“Sensei no Rezubian Sengen: Tsunagaru tame no kamuauto (A Teacher’s Rezubian
Declaration: Coming out so as to make connections).”

144 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
REFERENCES
Institute of Social Science Research Team “Sexuality: Past and Present,” Chuo University
(Chair: Ishida, Hitoshi) ed. 2004. Lists of Articles on the Social History of
Transgenderism/ Homosexuality in Post War Japan: Part IV. Tokyo: Institute of
Social Science, Chuo University.
Kakefuda, Hiroko. 1992. Rezubian de Aru, to Iukoto. (What it Means to be Rezubian).
Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha.
Ikeda, Kumiko. 1999. Sensei no Rezubian sengen: Tsunagaru tame no Kamuauto (A
Teacher’s Rezubian Declaration: Coming out so as to make connections). Kyoto:
Kamogawa Shuppan.
Naha, Kaori. 1987. “Rezubian Baa no Yoru to Yoru” (Night after Night in Lesbian
Bars). Pp.100-110 in Onna wo Aisuru Onnatachi no Monogatari (Stories of Women
who Love Women: The First Lesbian Report in Japan Containing First-Hand Accounts
of 234 Women), Bessatsu Takarajima 64. Tokyo: JICC.
Sugiura, Ikuko. 2005. “Representation of ‘Re-zu-bi-a-n (lesbian)’ in the Japanese
Press: From the Postwar Period to 1971.” Bulletin of Society for Changing Customs
in Contemporary Japan 11:1-12.
Sugiura, Ikuko. 2006. “Discourses of Rezubian in Japanese mainstream magazines of
the 1970s and 1980s: up to the emergence of lesbian/feminist discourse.” Pp. 491-
518 in A Study on MTF Transvestism and Homosexuality in Postwar Japan, edited
by Yajima, Masami. Tokyo: Chuo University Press.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_09

Possibilities and Limitations
of “Lesbian Continuum”:
The Case of a Protestant Church in Japan
Yuri Horie
SUMMARY. “Lesbian existence” is still invisible in Japanese society,
although Japan is portrayed as being “tolerant” toward homosexuality.
However, there is strong activism that tries to make lesbians visible. An
example is Christian women’s activism against homophobic discourses
in the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ/Kyodan) which is a
Yuri Horie is a doctoral student in Sociology at the Graduate School of Human Sciences
of Osaka University, an ordained minister of the United Church in Christ of Japan
(UCC-Japan/Kyodan), and a representative of ‘Ecumenical Community for Queer
Activism,’ which is the oldest Christian LGBT group in Japan. Her recent research focuses
on the relation between ‘identities’ and communities of lesbians in Japan and the
critical analysis of exclusionary discourses of Christianity from a feminist and/or lesbian
perspective. Her major work is Rezubian to iu Ikikata: Kirisutokyou no Iseiai-
Shugi wo Tou (Living as a Lesbian: Fighting Against Heterosexism in Christianity),
2006, Tokyo: Shinkyo Shuppansha.
Address correspondence to: Yuri Horie, 6-14 Shironosato, Nagaokakyo-shi, Kyoto,
617-0835 Japan (E-mail: ecqa_yh@ybb.ne.jp).
The author would like to thank Taniguchi Hitomi, Honda Kaori, Yagi Kaori and all
the women who have fought together in the resistance activism of the Christian community,
and for the encouragement and courage they have given her in putting this paper
together.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Possibilities and Limitations of ‘Lesbian Continuum’: The Case of a
Protestant Church in Japan.” Horie, Yuri. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington
Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 145-159; and: “Lesbians”
in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano) Harrington Park
Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 145-159. Single or multiple copies of this article are
available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
(EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_10 145

146 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
denomination of Protestant Churches in Japan. This case helps us analyse
the positionality of lesbians in the discourses of Christianity in a
non-Christian society, Japan. Introduced to English-speaking audiences
for the first time, this case shows clearly that the forces which produce
the exclusion of lesbians and gays do not only have a religious origin
but also a social background. This particular religious-social context
sets the gay men as the object of discrimination but brings forth resistance
activism by women–lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. Such
women’s activism against homophobia is analyzed as an example of
the “lesbian continuum” (Adrienne Rich) and the possibilities and limitations
of the continuum are explored. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_10 [Article
copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-
800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights
reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Lesbian existence, Christianity in Japan, lesbian continuum,
solidarity of “women, inclusion/exclusion, invisibility
INTRODUCTION:
IS JAPAN TOLERANT TOWARD HOMOSEXUALITY?
Japan is frequently portrayed as being culturally and historically “tolerant”
toward homosexuality. In some modern “Western” societies,
sexual relations and acts between males, and often females also, have
been prohibited under sodomy laws that included penal sanctions. Indeed,
there have been no such laws in Japan. 1 In addition, in pre-modern
Japanese society, sexual acts between males, such as “Shudo” and
“Nanshoku,” were historically enjoyed as “culture.” This forms the basis
for the discourse that Japan is “tolerant” toward homosexuality.
However, has Japan been really tolerant toward homosexuals, rendering
it unnecessary to mobilize for lesbian/gay human rights? In comparing
the situation of Japanese gay men to their counterparts in the
United States, Keith Vincent has this to say:
In Japan, there are not so many who express homophobic discourse
openly, and the police do not raid gay bars suddenly, nor expose
Hatten-Ba [places of sexual contact where men have sex with men].
The activity of religious organizations which makes homosexuality

Yuri Horie 147
a target for enmity is not found, either. This situation convinces gays
in Japan that their situation is better than that in the United States.
(Vincent, Kazama and Kawaguchi 1997: 110) 2
The last sentence implies that the lack of obvious discrimination creates
the impression that homosexuals are tolerated. Indeed, the discourse
of “tolerance” is faulted because it misses two important points:
(1) it does not take into consideration the asymmetry of heterosexuality/
homosexuality, and (2) it treats “homosexuality” only as sexual acts between
men.
First, the discourse of “tolerance” does not consider the asymmetry
of heterosexuality/homosexuality. The concept of “sexual orientation”
makes it possible to describe sexual desire and sexual consciousness objectively
as mere tendencies. Therefore, by using this concept, even if
the orientation is one that is chosen by an individual, we are able to describe
mere tendencies without recognizing that not all tendencies are
equally valued.
Kazama Takashi, 3 a sociologist and a gay activist, describes the
background and functions of the discourse of “tolerance.” He points out
that “homosexuality as a sexual preference is an argument premised on
the assumption of asymmetry of heterosexuality and homosexuality,
because it does not consider that heterosexuality itself is a preference.”
In particular, “by considering homosexuality to be a sexual preference
and identifying it only with sexual acts, homosexuality is recognized
only as a private issue instead of a public one” (Kazama 2002: 107-
108). He argues that we need to understand the positions of gays and
lesbians in the public sphere as a human rights issue.
From the foregoing discussion, we can see that Japanese “tolerance”
of homosexuality has actually been one factor that prevents the public
discussion of the rights of lesbians and gays in the public sphere. Such a
phenomenon might have led to historical and cultural denial of discrimination
against lesbians and gays as a public issue.
This brings me to the second point: the discourse of “tolerance” as
being limited to men. The discourse of “tolerance” considers the situation
of homosexual men, but not homosexual women, i.e., lesbians. In
the binary analysis of homosexuality/heterosexuality, differences
within the category “homosexuality,” namely differences between gay
men and lesbians, become invisible. The discourse of “tolerance”
makes no reference at all to sexual acts between females, thus rendering
invisible “lesbian existence.” In addition, the “gender order” recognizes
males as sexual “subjects” and females as sexual “objects” (Ehara 2001:

148 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
142). The culture of sexual acts between men–“Shudo”and“Nanshoku”–
eliminated women not only as active sexual subjects but also as partners
in an equal relationship with men. The invisibility of women as lesbians
and as active sexual subjects in a homosexual or heterosexual relationship
in the discourse of “tolerance” implies that we cannot equate lesbians’
human rights claims with those of gay men’s.
The above paragraphs have shown that the discourse of “tolerance” of
homosexuality in Japanese society falls apart in the face of evidence and
logic. Christianity in Japan, as elsewhere, is also responsible for producing
homophobic discourses even today. Christians, including Protestants,
Catholics, and those in Orthodox churches, make up less than 1% of the
total population of Japan. Therefore, one can say that its influence on Japanese
society is small. However, on the other hand, the individuals who
constitute Christianity and Christian churches are also the constituents of
Japanese society. They interact with non-Christians in their daily lives
and are influenced by the social norms in the larger society. Therefore,
the norms of Japanese society also contribute to the underlying constructs
of the homophobic discourses in Japan’s Christian churches.
Christian communities have been formed through bonds among men,
or homo-sociality, just as in Japanese society. Its features are: (1) a
“gender order” which makes men “subjects” and women “objects” (cf.
Ehara 2001), and (2) exclusive discourses against lesbians and gays
formed in the “gender order,” and through which “lesbian existence”
has been erased (Horie 2004). In this paper, I consider the problematization
of lesbian/gay differences through the case of Christianity in
Japan. The case that I will analyse is an incident, cited as a “discriminatory
incident,” in the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ/Kyodan),
a Protestant denomination in Japan. In this case, although a gay man
was targeted as the object of discrimination, the resistance activism was
formed by women, including lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. So,
I analyze such women’s resistance activism against homophobia as a
manifestation of Adrienne Rich’s “lesbian continuum” and describe its
possibilities and limitations.
THE CASE OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST IN JAPAN
“Discriminatory Incidents” in UCC-Japan
In the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ), 4 an incident of discrimination
concerning homosexuals occurred in 1998 when a gay

theological seminarian came out as he took an exam to become a minister.
During a UCCJ Executive Committee meeting, a male Executive
Committee member and a minister named Itoh Mizuo declared, “we
should not admit (into the ministry) people who intend to engage in homosexual
behaviour.” 5 This statement is commonly referred to as the
“Itoh Statement.” Some people at the meeting spoke out in opposition to
his statement. They pointed out that it was discrimination, and withdrawal
of the statement was demanded. The incident was later reported
in the UCCJ newspaper, Kyodan Shimpo, and over 30 letters of protest
demanding that Itoh withdraw his comments were sent to the moderator
of UCCJ and the Executive Committee.
A similar statement was handed out that same year at the 31st UCCJ
General Assembly, signed by Ohsumi Yuichi, a male minister and a
professor of Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. It declared that a homosexual
becoming a minister was “a problem of occupation aptitude.”
Ohsumi stated that homosexuals “are not suitable as ministers, and it is
not necessary to accept them. Even if we refuse to accept them as ministers,
it does not mean their human rights have been violated” (Ohsumi
1998). These have been seen as “discriminatory incidents,” and protests
have been lodged against them.
Gay Males as “Onlookers”
Yuri Horie 149
Although gay men were at the centre of the above “incidents,” most
gay men who had come out of the closet in their own churches kept silent.
They did not continuously concern themselves with resistance activism,
but continued being “onlookers.” Why did this happen?
It is not the case that gay men in Japan do not engage in resistance activities.
A well-known example is the Fuchu Youth House trial (the
Fuchu case), 6 in which lesbian/gay rights were claimed in court for the
first time in Japan. Kazama Takashi, who was a member of OCCUR, 7
the plaintiff, stated that the members of OCCUR “found negative discourses
toward homosexuality, when the trial started in 1991,” and they
“could not find any positive discourses at all.” The act of expressing anger
about what happened means taking a position as a lesbian/gay and
acting from that position. The issue for OCCUR members was the fundamental
one of “developing an affirmative lesbian/gay self” (Kazama
1996: 38-39).
“Anger” is an important human feeling. In expressing anger, one
takes a position and is thus enabled to act. Once one takes a position,
one changes from an object to a subject. In the case discussed above,

150 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
members of OCCUR expressed “anger” in the light of negative discourses
towards homosexuality and in expressing anger, acted to claim
their rights. Founded as an activist group, they have taken up positions
as gay men and lesbians, and are attuned to discriminatory discourses.
On the other hand, remaining an object of the heterosexual discourses of
“tolerance,” and not becoming a lesbian/gay “subject” makes lesbian/
gay expressions of anger impossible. Unlike OCCUR members, most
gay men in the Christian community were not ready to express “anger,”
the “discriminatory incidents” being the first public incidents of discrimination
in the Christian community in Japan. Rather than participating
in the resistance activism against homophobia in UCCJ, most of
them stayed in the position of “onlookers.”
WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY IN THE RESISTANCE ACTIVISM
Motivation Constructed:
From Claim Making to Resistance Activism
In contrast to the gay men who became “onlookers,” women, who
also had to fight against sexism in church and UCCJ, 8 engaged in activities
of claim making in opposition to the “Itoh Statement” and the
“Ohsumi Document,” from the very beginning. They demanded a discussion
of the “Itoh Statement” and the “Ohsumi Document” as “discriminatory
incidents.” More than 30 committees and individuals sent
complaints to the moderator and the executives of UCCJ. All this notwithstanding,
most of the executives of UCCJ did not allocate any space
and time to discuss them as “discriminatory incidents” in public. In insisting
these incidents as discriminatory, the women in these activities
were put in opposition to the executives of UCCJ, and their activism
could thus be seen as resistance activism instead of mere complaints.
The women were able to recognize the “incidents” as discrimination
for two reasons: (1) they could see the common features of both sexist
and homophobic discourses, and (2) they had recognized their subjectivity
through ‘lesbian existence’ in their community. 9
Common Features of Both Sexist and Homophobic
Discourses
Taniguchi Hitomi, an Executive Committee member of UCCJ until
2004 and a layperson and non-lesbian woman who has been fighting

Yuri Horie 151
against sexism, also became one of the leaders in the resistance activism
regarding the “Itoh Statement” and the “Ohsumi Document.” She
pointed out that two features common to both sexist and homophobic
discourses were “issues that touch the core of Christianity”: 10 (1) both
discourses were based on a gaze that saw both lesbians/gays and women
as “sexual existences,” and (2) both could intervene in the private
spheres of both lesbians/gays and women. Taniguchi describes how
Christianity has constructed and re/produced misogyny as “sexual neurosis”
during its history, citing a work by Karen Armstrong (1986).
In Christianity, men have been taught that sex is “something evil,” so
they have hated women who have purportedly led men to succumb to
“dangerous impulses.” From this point, she derives a conclusion: “it
was not possible to direct hatred feelings toward women as ‘sexual existence’
because of the problematization of sexism, but it was still possible,
they thought, to direct hatred feelings toward ‘homosexuality’ as
something ‘sexual’” (Taniguchi 2001:8). The “Itoh Statement” mentioned
“homosexual behavior.” Although the gay man came out saying,
“I am gay,” Itoh’s interpretation was “he engages in homosexual sex
acts.” In this statement, we can see that a homosexual identity is quickly
translated to homosexual behaviour (sex), and since sex is evil by
definition in Christianity, gay men become a symbol of evil.
In addition, Taniguchi points out the power structure that intervenes
in the private sphere. She emphasizes that “we need to return sexuality
to the private sphere from social control by nation states and organizations
which are materially and spiritually ruled by the state” (Taniguchi
2001: 14). The female body has always been made applicable to management
and control by the state, as seen in, for example, the issues related
to reproduction and the sexual enslavement of the “Comfort
Women” by the Japanese Military during World War II (Taniguchi
2001). In this sense, as Taniguchi points out, there cannot be assumed to
be a private sphere in which women’s rights of privacy can be secured,
although it is said that modernization gave men the public sphere and
women the private sphere. At the same time, when lesbians and gays
come out of the closet, some people interpret it as a manifestation of engaging
in sexual acts with same sex persons. Thus, the “partners” who
are not there are being imagined into existence. The very assumption of
sexual relationship already intrudes into the private sphere of gays and
lesbians, or, in other words, the “private” sphere cannot exist for
lesbians and gays.
From the foregoing discussion, we can recognize that there are common
features: for both women and lesbians/gays there are not really effective

152 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
private spheres, where rights of privacy are protected. Furthermore, lesbians
are excluded both as women and as non-heterosexual existences
from the public sphere, the very place where heterosexualized and male
dominant discourses originate.
Recognition of ‘Lesbian Existence’ and Potential Solidarity between Women
Honda Kaori, a minister and a non-lesbian woman, and a participant
at the very beginning of the resistance activism, encouraged members in
her Kyushu Conference area in the southwest part of Japan to engage in
activities against homophobic discourses, by recognizing “lesbian existence.”
She argued that “we should not allow control of our own
sexualities by others” and “discrimination based on sexualities means
denial of human existences.” Furthermore, Honda emphasized that
“Christianity has continually oppressed our sexualities, and the ‘Itoh
Statement’ and the ‘Ohsumi Document’ are ‘discriminatory incidents’
that can be as located as extensions of Christianity’s history.” Her conclusion
was that we have responsibility to “listen to voices that lost their
lives in those processes” (Honda 2002). Like Taniguchi, Honda
analyzed how sexist and homophobic discourses have the same roots.
Honda’s involvement gives us insights into the significance of the
‘lesbian continuum’ in analyzing women’s resistance activism in the
church. She describes her motivation for engaging in resistance activism
as coming out of a scene from the 31st General Assembly of UCCJ
in 1998 when the “Ohsumi Document” appeared: “I did not do anything,
only gazing at the back of a close friend, a lesbian, who was protesting
against voices that had been rejected and had approached the
moderator who was in front of the hall” (Honda 2002). Honda argued
that she could not protest at that time because she recognized that she
was not a lesbian and that it was so important for her to recognize the
difference between lesbians and non-lesbians. She points out the “reality”
that we cannot assume that there is a monolithic entity called
“women.” Thus, Honda emphasizes that we should start from “Ko” (individuality)
and keep seeking the possibility of struggle based on
recognizing the differences of positions among women.
The resistance activism of women against homophobic discourses
spread not only within UCCJ but also gained ecumenical solidarity of
church women in Japan. Since the 1980s, church women have been
gathering in the Kyoukai Josei Kaigi (Gathering of Church Women),
united in their purposes and dreams to fight against sexism in Christianity,
to empower each other, to network beyond denominations, and to

Yuri Horie 153
have solidarity with other Church women in Asia. In 2000, a gathering
was held in Tokyo that focused on the theme “discriminatory incidents
in UCCJ and women’s activism.” In the gathering, Taniguchi reported
the incidents in UCCJ as related above and Horie reported them from
the perspective of a lesbian (Horie 2001). The latter report included an
analysis of the process of the activism: critiques of discourses and acts
of gay men who were positioned as “onlookers” and non-lesbian
women who emphasize “monolithic women” solidarity. However, after
the report was presented, one of the members, Yamauchi Tomoko, a
minister of UCCJ, spoke out about her own experiences as a female
minister. Here, the intention of the report–recognizing a difference
among “women”–was not transmitted, and in Yamauchi’s response is
embedded a rhetoric of “the sameness of women.” In this sense, coming
out as a lesbian was erased and the discourse of “monolithic women”
became stronger yet again. This means that there were some women
who were unable to recognize that they have been living lives according
to heterosexual norms.
Of course, there were some women who tried to construct bridges
among women. Yagi Kaori, a female minister engaging in the women’s
activism in UCCJ, was one of the staff of the gathering. She recalled:
We had to recognize that various confrontations, cracks, and,
ranks had arisen among women. . . . And in order to overcome
those, a new question was produced: whether to be able to live
peacefully in the positions and with the attributes of “woman” as
recognized socially? (Yagi 2001: 112-113)
That question led to a new agenda of reconstructing bridges across
confrontations, cracks, and, ranks. Again, Yagi pointed out:
The words told, the words exchanged, expressions, motions. To
react to matters with thoughts that are grounded in the heart and
the body. To accept each other as they are, not to control and govern.
This is that I have learned from women’s relations, and it is
what I am aiming at from now on. (Yagi 2000)
Yagi emphasized the necessity of responding in a way that recognizes
the differences among women. Thus, she appealed to women to
embrace other women in affirmation of ‘lesbian existence,’ take a position
in solidarity with other women and seek a way to struggle against
sexism and homophobia together.

154 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
The Exclusion of Women: Background of Seeking Potential Solidarity
As Taniguchi pointed out, there are common features in both sexist
and homophobic discourses, including the exclusion of women and homosexuals
from the public sphere and the imposition of stereotypes,
such as gazes that see both as “sexual existences.” In addition, we have
to see how the discourses view the positions of lesbians. Homophobic
discourses focus on gay men. In such discourse, lesbians are not included
in the conception of the “homosexual.” Such discourses exclude
lesbians, so that they keep lesbians invisible. Further, both sexist and
homophobic discourses were put forward by heterosexual men. Based
on these points, we can recognize that these discourses have two functions:
(1) stigmatizing gay men and hence consolidating the hierarchy
among men, and (2) excluding women, both lesbians and non-lesbians.
We saw two types of women’s attitudes in The UCCJ case: (1) finding
the common features of both sexist and homophobic discourses and/
or recognizing “lesbian existence” in their community, and (2) insisting
on the “sameness of women,” by erasing the coming out of lesbians.
These might look contradictory, but taking into account the situation of
excluded women, we can see that both attitudes are different means of
problematizing heterosexual male dominant norms in UCCJ. Resolving
the contradiction among women with diverse attitudes will help consolidate
resistance activism against sexism and homophobia.
OVERCOMING LESBIAN INVISIBILITY
Possibility of “Lesbian Continuum”
Having sometimes collided and being sometimes disappointed,
women in the UCCJ case still constructed bridges connecting each
other. It was also through this work that they discovered the “hope” that
they could take back “the imaginary domain” that was taken away once.
According to Drucilla Cornell, “the imaginary domain” is the inner
spaces of women that image their own divinities with sexual freedom
(Cornell 1995). Here, in order to instill further “hope” to the work, I propose
that it is possible to recognize women’s activism as instantiating
the ‘lesbian continuum’ and the process of recognizing their ‘lesbian
existence.’ 11
Adrienne Rich explains the concept of “lesbian continuum” as a
means to confront “compulsory heterosexuality.” According to Rich,

Yuri Horie 155
the term “lesbian continuum” encompasses a range–through each
woman’s life and throughout history–of woman-identified experience,
not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital
sexual experience with another woman (Rich 1980/1993: 239).
Rich does not emphasize “genital sexual experience” as the defining
characteristic of “lesbian continuum.” Her description is of a comprehensive
spectrum of women that does not necessarily imply sexual desire.
However, feminism has already created the concept of ‘sisterhood’
to represent of the comprehensive range of the solidarity of women. So
why did Rich create the term ‘lesbian continuum’?
After her paper appeared in Signs, Rich gave a supplementary explanation,
saying that the concept was meant, in part, to challenge the erasure
of “lesbian existence” from so much of scholarly feminist literature
(Rich 1980/1993:227). Robin Morgan’s slogan, “sisterhood is powerful,”
was meant to inspire the solidarity of women and help them make
claims against male dominant society, and liberate them from the oppression.
However, it was later pointed out that differences, such as
race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and so on, posed a problem to
the monolithic representation of “women.” Thus, Rich introduced the
term “lesbian continuum” to emphasize women’s shared situation and
to enable them, whether lesbian or heterosexual, to resist “compulsory
heterosexuality.” She wrote:
Every heterosexual relationship is lived in the queasy strobe light
of the lie. However we choose to identify ourselves, however we
find ourselves labeled, it flickers across and distorts our lives. . . .
The lesbian trapped in the “closet,” the woman imprisoned in prescriptive
ideas if the “normal” share the pain of blocked options,
broken connections, lost access to self-definition freely and powerfully
assumed. (Rich 1980/1993: 244)
In order for the erased “lesbian existence” to become visible in a society
based on heterosexual norms, lesbians have adopted the strategy of
coming out of the closet. Such a process exists also in Japanese society
(cf. Kakefuda 1992). And the practices of coming-out as lesbians in
Japanese society have also influenced Japanese Christians, although
their number is small (Horie 2004). As I cited and analyzed above, there
were some women who had responded to the coming out of lesbians.
They could see the common features of both sexist and homophobic discourses
and recognize their subjectivity through “lesbian existence.”
Thus, we might be able to recognize the resistance activism of women

156 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
as instantiating “lesbian continuum” rather than the mere “solidarity of
women.”
Toward a New Horizon
Looking back at the development of women’s resistance activism in
the Church, we can see that the movement gained strength when the
strategy of fighting heterosexism was added to the struggle against sexism.
Such activism necessitates a rethinking of “the category of
women.” Judith Butler argues:
The feminist “we” is always and only a phantasmatic construction,
one that has its purposes, but which denies the internal complexity
and indeterminacy of the term and constitutes itself only through
the exclusion of some part of the constituency that it simultaneously
seeks to represent. (Butler 1990: 181)
Butler begins with “the speculative question of whether feminist politics
could do without a ‘subject’ in the category of women.” She concludes
that “the tenuous or phantasmatic status of the ‘we’ is not cause
for despair or, at least, it is not only cause for despair” because “the radical
instability of the category sets into question the foundational restrictions
on feminist political theorizing and opens up other configurations,
not only of genders and bodies, but politics itself” (Butler 1990: 181).
Seen from this perspective, women’s activism against homophobia
in UCCJ constitutes first, support for the practice of lesbian coming-out,
and second, a way to seek potential solidarity among women, both lesbians
and non-lesbians, whom Rich described as “imprisoned in prescriptive
ideas of the ‘normal.’” In actuality, through this activism,
some women questioned whether they were really heterosexual, and
some women found that they could not identify themselves as
heterosexual in living their lives.
CONCLUSION
Is Japan tolerant toward homosexuality? Beginning with this question,
I exposed the lack of tolerance hidden in the discourse of tolerance,
and probed the difference between gay men and lesbians through analyzing
a case of discrimination in a Christian Church in Japan. I analyzed
the case of UCCJ and described the phenomenon which arose in

Yuri Horie 157
response to homophobic discourses and acts: (1) gay men forced into
the position of “onlookers,” even though they were the focus of the
case, and (2) women’s activism against homophobia that included
both lesbians and heterosexual women. From this analysis, it can be
seen that the homophobic discourses and acts in Japan express two realities:
(1) gay men are stigmatized as superfluous, and (2) lesbianism
is kept invisible by not being made into a “problem.” In this context, the
resistance activism of women in UCCJ case has tried to problematize
and break out of these realities, instantiating the solidarity of women
along the “lesbian continuum.”
When these streams are considered synthetically, it turns out that
there is a great division between lesbians and gays, even though they
share in some way the same “sexual orientation.” How can such a Japanese
society become “tolerant”? How can lesbians gain visibility? I will
pursue concrete strategies in my future research.
NOTES
1. There was article 266 of the criminal code, “Keikan Jourei,” which is a kind of
sodomy law. However, it was in effect in Japan for only 8 years from 1873 to 1881.
2. What Vincent et al. describe here is the situation for gay men in Japan, and I would
like to add that the situation for lesbians is different. For example, there is no place that
is called “Hatten-Ba” for lesbians or women who have sex with women in Japan. It is
still difficult for lesbians to meet each other without using Internet websites.
3. Japanese names are given in the conventional order of last name followed by first
name.
4. The UCC-Japan is the largest denomination of Protestants in Japan. It was created
in 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Government forced all Protestant denominations
together. Although many churches in Okinawa were part of UCCJ, they were excluded
from it as the war intensified. Thus, after the war, Okinawan churches independently
established “the United Churches in Okinawa” under the U.S. Administration, and
then, they were united with UCCJ in 1969. We recognize it as a new unification.
5. Before this incident, a lesbian had already come out of the closet in 1994 after taking
the minister’s certification examination. On that occasion, it was not considered a
“problem” at all. It shows that only gay men are stigmatized, but lesbians are made invisible
because they are women–not men (Horie 2002; 2004).
6. The Fuchu Youth House is a public youth centre in Tokyo governed by the Tokyo
Metropolitan government. The Fuchu case is a landmark case that a group of lesbians
and gays, OCCUR, claimed their human rights in the Japanese court and won. It was
the case OCCUR vs. Tokyo Metropolitan government from 1991 to 1997 (Vincent et
al. 1997).
7. OCCUR (The Association for the Lesbian and Gay Movement) was established in
1986, as an activist group for lesbians, gays, and people with HIV/AIDS.
8. The Special Committee on Sexism in UCCJ was established in 1988. However, at
the 33rd General Assembly in 2002, this committee was “extinguished” as neo-liberal

158 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
influence rose from 1992 on, although many issues were left unresolved. Some conferences
(area communities) have groups devoted to activism against sexism. From 2005,
these voluntary unions have continued independent networking activities.
9. I have participated in this resistance activism from the beginning as a lesbian and a
minister in UCCJ.
10. Muta (2003) has also analyzed Japanese society in a comparable manner. She argues
that the symbolic institution of the Emperor System–Tennou Sei–has its basis in
heterosexism and sexism.
11. Probably, there comes a question whether it is reasonable to use the analytic concepts
originated in the West in the context of Asia. Kawaguchi Kazuya explains that the
analytic concept of “queer” is of Western origin and is “merely an imported term for
those who live in Japanese society.” On the other hand, however, he also notes that
“there is the pressure of globalization in the world actually,” and the pressure “brings
the society various ‘realities’ in relation to the context of called ‘local’” (Kawaguchi
2003: vii-ix). So, a concept of Western origin does influence and can be used in the
Asian context, albeit not uncritically.
REFERENCES
Armstrong, Karen. 1986. The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity’s Creation of
the Sex War in the West. Doubleday: Anchor Books.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New
York: Routledge.
Cornell, Drucilla. 1995. The Imaginary Domain: Abortion, Pornography, and Sexual
Harassment. London and New York: Routledge.
ECQA (Ecumenical Community for Queer Activism in Japan). 1999-2005. ECQA
Newsletter. No. 08-No. 42.
Ehara, Yumiko. 2001. Jendaa Chitsujo (Gender Order). Tokyo: Keiso Shobo.
Honda, Kaori. 2002. “Kyushu Kyouku Soukai no Houkoku” (A Report of General Assembly
of Kyushu Conference of UCCJ). ECQA Newsletter 24.
Horie, Yuri. 2001. “Maria no Sanka wo Yondemiru: Hitorino Rezubian no Tachiba kara”
(Rethinking Mary’s Hymn: From a Perspective of a Lesbian). Onna no Kotoba- shuu
13: 19-23.
______. 2002. “‘Sisutaafuddo’ to ‘Rezubian Sonzai’: Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan
Douseiaisha Sabetsu Jiken Onnatachi no Rentai wo Chusin ni” (Discussion of “Sisterhood”
and “Lesbian Existence”: The Case Study of the United Church of Japan).
Joseigaku Nenpo (Annual Report of the Women’s Studies Society) 23: 136-154.
______. 2004. “Rezubian no Fukashisei: Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan wo Jirei ni” (Invisibility
of Lesbian: On the Case of the United Church of Japan). Kaihou Shakaigaku
Kenkyu (The Liberation of Humankind: A Sociological Review) 18: 39-60.
Kakefuda, Hiroko. 1992. “Rezubian” de aru to iu koto (What it Means to be a “Lesbian”).
Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha.
Kawaguchi, Kazuya. 2003. Kuia Sutadiizu (Queer Studies). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Kazama, Takashi. 1996. “Undou to Chousa no Aida” (Between Activisms and Researches).
Pp. 65-102 in Toshi no Dokkairyoku (Reading Ability on Cities), edited
by K. Satou. Tokyo: Keisou Shobo.

Yuri Horie 159
______. 2002. “(Dansei) Doseiaisha wo Masshou suru Bouryoku” (Violence that
Erase (Male) Gays). Pp. 97-120 in Jissen no Fiiludo Waaku (Field Works of Practices),
edited by H. Yoshii and T. Yamada. Tokyo: Serika Shobo.
Kyoukai Josei Kaigi (Gathering of Church Women) 2001 in Tokyo. 2002. Onna no
Kotoba-shuu (Women’s Voices) 13.
Muta, Kazue. 2003. “Danjo Kyoudou Sankaku Jidai no ‘Jotei’ Ron to Feminizumu”
(The Argument Related to the “Female Emperor” and Feminism in the Age of Gender
Equality in Japan). Gendai Shisou 31(1): 115-129.
Ohsumi, Yuichi. 1998. “Douseiaisha no Kyoushi Shikaku ni Tsuite” (On Qualification
of Ministers: Homosexuals). Document Distributed at the 31st UCCJ General Assembly.
Rich, Adrienne. [1980] 1993. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”
Pp. 227-254 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by H. Abelove, M. A.
Barale, and D. M. Halperin. New York and London: Routledge.
Taniguchi, Hitomi. 2001. “Kyadan noSekushuaru Mainoritii Sabetsu Jikenni Tsuite”
(On the Discriminatory Incidents in the United Church of Japan.) Onna no Kotobashuu
13: 5-15.
Vincent, Keith, Takashi Kazama, and Kazuya Kawaguchi. 1997. Gei Sutadiizu (Gay
Studies). Tokyo: Seidosha.
Yagi, Kaori. 2000. “Onna-tachi no Kankeisei no Nakade” (Between Relationships of
Women). ECQA Newsletter 14/15.
______. 2001. “Tottemo Nagai Henshuu Kouki” (A Very Long Editorial Postscript).
Onna no Kotoba-shuu 13: 111-113.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_10

The Lesbian Rights Movement
and Feminism in South Korea
Soo Jin Park-Kim (Park Tong)
Soo Youn Lee-Kim (Siro)
Eun Jung Kwon-Lee (Yuri)
SUMMARY. The lesbians’ rights movement in South Korea has undertaken
various projects for solidarity with feminist movement groups for
over 10 years. In spite of these efforts, lesbian issues have been blatantly
Soo Jin Park-Kim majored in Sociology and has a master’s degree in NGO Studies.
She worked at the Lesbian Counseling Center in South Korea from May 2000 to September
2005. Also, she has been working at the Lesbian Institute for Lesbians since
November 2003. She is interested in historical studies of lesbians’ lives and keeping
records of lesbians’ lives.
Soo Youn Lee-Kim organized Flyinggurl, Korea’s first lesbians’ rights movement
club in a university, at Ewha Womans University in 2001. She is working at Lesbian
Counseling Center in South Korea and the Lesbian Institute for Lesbians, and is in a
Master’s Degree Program in Women’s Studies as well. She is planning to work on a
new methodology that fully reveals Korean lesbians’ experience.
Eun Jung Kwon-Lee majored in psychology and now is in a Master’s Degree Program
in Women’s Studies. She has been working at the Lesbian Counseling Center in
South Korea and the Lesbian Institute for Lesbians since March 2005. She is interested
in the history of lesbians’ rights movement in South Korea.
Address correspondence to: Soo Jin Park-Kim, Lesbian Institute for Lesbians,
Gwang-Hwa-Moon Post Office Box, 1816, Chongno-Gu, Seoul-city, South Korea (Email:
lifl2003@empal.com).
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “The Lesbian Rights Movement and Feminism in South Korea.” Park-
Kim, Soo Jin, Soo Youn Lee-Lim, and Eun Jung Kwon-Lee. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian
Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 10, No. 3/4, 2006, pp. 161-
190; and: “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance (ed: Diana Khor, and Saori Kamano)
Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 161-190. Single or multiple copies of
this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00
a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_11 161

162 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
excluded from all the agendas of women’s rights. The same thing has
happened in Women’s Studies. Some feminists express homophobic
thoughts without understanding the reality of lesbians, and other
young scholars take on a lesbian identity temporarily as a sign of being
progressive and liberated; in neither situation are they committed
to dealing with the oppression of lesbians or seeing lesbian rights as a
feminist concern. In order to further lesbian rights there are two strategies
possible: forming a movement only for lesbians or forming solidarity
with feminists. In the latter case, a concern about lesbian rights
will help achieve the goals of a true feminism as patriarchy is built upon
heterosexism. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_11 [Article copies available for a fee
from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
Website:
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Lesbian rights movement in South Korea, Lesbian Institute
for Lesbians, Korean Women Sexual Minority Rights Organization
Kirikiri, Lesbian counseling center, feminist movement, women’s studies
As activists in the lesbians’ rights movement, we explored the tensions
and connection between lesbians’ rights and feminism 1 in South
Korea 2 in three inter-related sections in this paper. The first section,
written by Park-Kim Soo Jin, presents survey results that show the lives
of lesbians in South Korea and explores how the feminist movement in
South Korea has excluded the lesbians’ rights movement. It is followed
by Lee-Kim Soo Youn’s exploration of how the same exclusion of lesbians
and lesbians’ concerns has happened in Women’s Studies as well.
Kwon-Lee Eun Jung 3 brought the discussion to a conclusion by exploring
how Lesbian Rights Movement and Feminism should relate to each
other in South Korea.
THE LESBIANS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT
AND FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN SOUTH KOREA
The State of Korean Lesbians’ Rights
For the longest time, Korean society had been “ignorant” about homosexuality
and homosexuals. It was only around the early 1990s that a
homophobic ideology began to be formed. It ran like this: “AIDS is the

plague of homosexuals.” Logically, there needs to be recognition of homosexuals
before homophobia is possible. And in Korea, people have
only begun to recognize the existence of homosexuals nowadays; they
didn’t know that homosexuals have been present throughout history.
Homosexuals in Korea likewise have not been able to get proper information
about their identities, and most lesbians hardly have any institutions
or friends that can give us support and protection. We cannot
learn anything about homosexuality in school in the twelve years of education
4 and we try to deny ourselves or try to kill ourselves because we
ourselves can easily think that we are abnormal and perverted as we
have been taught. 5 Not only the schools but also a lot of youth counseling
centers and psychiatrists say that we are perverts. 6 All this means
that homosexuals are in a dismal condition.
Lesbians are in even worse condition because people do not know
about the difference between lesbians and gays. Even many lesbian and
gay activists share this ignorance, saying that to claim lesbian rights independently
is to engage in meaningless separatist politics or pose a
reckless challenge to the gay and lesbian movement. However, we can
confidently say that lesbians and gays have different substantial conditions,
and a lesbian agenda should be treated as women’s agenda.
In 2004, the Lesbian Institute for Lesbians, LIFL, and the Lesbian
Counseling Center in South Korea surveyed 561 lesbians who were
mostly in their twenties and thirties. The research title was “Research of
Actual Condition of lesbians in South Korea, 2004.” It was the first
study of its kind and the purpose was to evaluate the actual condition of
lesbians and use it to make a database for the development of policy and
agenda. In view of the difficulty of lesbians’ coming-out, we could not
identify a population, so we used ‘non-probability sampling,’ ‘judgment
or purposive sampling,’ and ‘quota sampling’ together. ‘Judgment
or purposive sampling’ was used to investigate eight selected lesbian
bars. ‘Quota sampling’ was used to select the percentage of each area.
The survey included 57 questions, each with 6 response categories, and
we calculated the frequency distribution using SPSS software. Next, the
results of the survey will be presented in detail.
Religion
Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 163
The negative discourse produced by Korean religious institutions
reached the degree that threatens homosexuals’ rights in Korea. Particularly
the homophobic discourse of Christianity is becoming extreme:
many conservative Christians say that homosexuals are the beings of

164 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
social evil, and that homosexuals go against nature. In short they stigmatize
homosexuals continuously. But as the research result shows, lesbians
are Christians (23.9%) and Catholics (9.3%). The fact that
lesbians exist in the Christian community is clear, and this should offer
a basis to criticize the religious discourse of homosexuals in Korea. 7
“When Did You First Experience Being Troubled with Your Sexual Identity?”
The majority of respondents (69.3 % (n = 389)) reported first being
troubled with their sexual identity in their teens. Korean society denies
that there could be “true” homosexuals in their teens since almost all
psychiatrists and counselors advise that “it could happen in the process
of growth” and “when they grow up they can love the opposite
sex naturally.” However, more than 50% of lesbians surveyed have
experienced their first couple relationship with a same-gender partner
in their teens, suggesting a more serious commitment than the
“experts” have claimed. Further, a sizeable minority of lesbians
(29.6% (n = 166)) started to be troubled with their sexual identity after
they had turned twenty, and an equal number experienced agony in their
twenties and thirties. These results also challenge another conventional
idea that homosexuality is innate and that sexual identity is something
fixed; 8 further, people can choose whether they are going to live as heterosexual
or homosexual. If we had included more lesbians in their forties,
this point could be proved even more convincingly.
Experience of Couple Relationship
The vast majority of the lesbians (95.0% (n = 533)) reported having
been in a couple relationship, among whom the majority (56.9% (n =
301)) reported their first couple relationship in their teens, 39.3% (n =
208) in their twenties, 2.5% (n = 13) in their thirties, 1.1% (n = 6) before
they were ten, and 0.2% (n = 1) in their forties.
Experience of Self-Denial
Half of the lesbians (50.3% (n = 282)) reported experiencing “selfdenial.”
They denied themselves as lesbians because “they feared that
family members or friends might know” (29.6% (n = 143)), “they did
not have confidence to live as lesbian” (23.2%(n = 112)), “they thought
that homosexuality was abnormal” (19.3% (n = 93)), “they could not

admit to themselves that they are lesbians” (14.3% (n = 69)), and “their
religion did not accept homosexuality” (6.2% (n = 30)).
These kinds of reasons show how deep-rooted homophobia makes
lesbians deny themselves; widespread homophobia makes lesbians homophobic
towards themselves as well. Lesbians fear themselves and
feel abnormal themselves. In other words, we have internalized homophobia
to the extent that we cannot easily accept ourselves and be proud
of ourselves. Indeed, about 40% of the lesbians who had been in a relationship
with the opposite sex said that they had done so even though
they did not want to because they wanted to deny their sexual identity.
Social/Cultural Difficulties
The lesbians surveyed felt pain with respect to “the relationship with
family” (74.7% (n = 414)), “marriage with the opposite sex” (34.8% (n =
193)), “friendship” (33.9% (n = 188)), “life at the workplace” (32.6 %
(n = 181)), “relationship with relatives” (24.4% (n = 135)), “thoughts of
abnormality” (21.1% (n = 117)), and “life at school” (15.5% (n = 86)).
Specifically, they found it difficult “when they had to be aware of
how other people saw them” (52.2% (n = 289)), “when they had to hide
their relationship” (50.5% (n = 280)), “when they did not have any institution
or person to get advice from” (19.0% (n = 105)), “when they
could not easily confess their love” (18.6% (n = 103)), “when they
could not get proper information” (10.8% (n = 60)), “when they could
not meet people who share similar thoughts” (10.3% (n = 57)), “when
they could not continue the relationship with their partners because of
their/their partners’ homophobia” (8.5% (n = 47)). 9
Mental/Emotional Difficulties
Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 165
The lesbians experienced mental and emotional difficulties “when
they heard homophobic words from their family or friends” (67.4% (n =
349)), “when they were fearful just because of their sexual identity”
(49.4% (n = 256)), “when they wanted to kill themselves” (23.2% (n =
120)), “when they tried to injure themselves” (14.3% (n = 74)), “when
they felt compelled to try to harm themselves” (12.4% (n = 64)), “when
they were physically threatened by others including their family members”
(10.6% (n = 55)), “when they tried killing themselves” (9.7% (n =
50)), “when they were excluded from the group they belonged” (9.3%
(n = 48)). 10

166 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
It is not surprising that lesbians experience mental/emotional difficulties
in the situations listed above. All this can be attributed to a systematic
repression that stems from heterosexism and a homophobic
society. In addition, there is the ideology of the ‘normal nuclear family
model’ which excludes other patterns of life. All these ideas are learned
in school and propagated in and reproduced by the mass media continuously.
This shows that homophobia is not simply discrimination but
also an institutionalized strategy of oppression.
Difficulties of Coming Out
Respondents said they could not come-out easily because “they already
knew well how deeply and firmly homophobia is rooted in this
society” (37.6% (n = 211)), “they were afraid to face changes in their
acquaintances” (29.8% (n = 167)), “they were afraid to be punished or
fired–they feared being hurt” (22.3% (n = 125)), and “they feared that
they might be stigmatized, which would show that they are perverts”
(3.7% (n = 21)).
Discriminations and Harm
A little less than a quarter of the respondents (22.5% (n = 126)) reported
experiencing discrimination or having been hurt because they
were lesbians, while the vast majority of the lesbians (73.6% (n = 412))
reported not having such experiences.
The discrimination or negative experiences these 126 lesbians reported
included “conflicts among family members or friends or other acquaintances”
(54.0% (n = 67)), “mental/emotional uneasiness” (47.6% (n
= 59)), “threat of being outed and intimidation” (28.2% (n = 35)),
“disadvantages in organizations including schools and workplaces”
(28.2% (n = 35)), “sexual violence” (12.9% (n = 16)), and “blackmail”
(1.6% (n = 2)). 11 The Lesbian Counseling Center in South Korea reported
receiving complaints of many cases of sexual violence and other
discrimination and violence related to “outing intimidations.” 12
Despite the discrimination and threats, the vast majority of the lesbians
(90.8% (n = 115)) did not report seeking help from institutions or
police when they were harmed. Eighty-seven out of 115 answered the
question that asks the reason and among them, those who said that they
did not seek help cited reasons like “they thought they could not get any
help” (33.3% (n = 29)), “they could manage it by themselves” (31.0% (n =
27)), “they did not know there might be any kind of institutions which

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 167
could help them” (17.2% (n = 15)), ‘they feared they had to come out or
they would be outed” (12.6% (n = 11)).
As these answers shows, lesbians are afraid of active solution basically
because of the fear that their lesbian identity might be known. A
plan to address these issues is urgently needed.
Lesbian Rights Movement and Feminist Movement in South Korea
What the survey shows is that lesbians’ rights are being threatened in
this society, and something has to be done. Indeed, lesbians have been
crying out loud and fighting for lesbian rights. Since the lesbian rights
movement will be taken up by Lee-Kim Soo Youn in the next section,
the full story will not be covered here. Suffice it to point out that there is
a lesbian rights movement in South Korea, constituted by the Lesbian
Counseling Center in South Korea, LCC; the Center for Women Sexual
Minority Rights in Busan; the Ewha Lesbian Rights Organization
Flyinggurl, the only lesbian movement organization in a university; and
the newly founded Lesbian Institute for Lesbians, LIFL. These groups
have been active in championing lesbian rights. In particular, the activities
in the 11-year herstory of the LCC corresponded to the herstory of
the whole lesbian rights movement in South Korea, having had more
than 1000 members, many dozens of volunteer activists, and a few paid
coordinators. It has initiated and executed many projects and produced
new agendas constantly. Its periodical publications, Phone Friend
Group service 153, interviews with magazines and newspapers, and
opening a bar only for lesbians all helped to show isolated lesbians that
“there are many lesbians besides me.” Through the center’s activities,
the public have gotten to know more about the existence of lesbians and
lesbians could get together in brighter places out of the closets.
The problem, however, lies in the fact that lesbian organizations have
been alienated and excluded, and they do not have allies to work together
with them in these activities. Patriarchy got in the way of working
with gay rights group, and homophobia obstructed working with
feminist groups. Since 1994, the lesbian rights movement in South Korea
has been just like an isolated island. 13
In some aspects, the lesbians’ rights movement could have worked
together with the gay rights movement, in spite of the situations from
which lesbians were once again made invisible by negative discourses
like “homosexuals are HIV producers” and the reality that the gay
elite’s coming-out represents all lesbians and gays’ coming-out. But as
the break-up of the very first lesbian and gay rights movement group,

168 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Chodonghoe, showed, lesbians and gays could not communicate well.
For example, when they held fund raising events, the financial aid was
always from the gay bars and to that extent projects for gays were selected
preferentially while projects for lesbians were excluded. Lesbians
were having a tough time, feeling powerless and inferior (Lee
1999). Patriarchal attitudes, the disregard of lesbians’ own method of
movement, the thought that the coming-out in public is the real comingout,
14 and ignorance of sexual violence against lesbians afflicted lesbian
activists.
At the same time, working with feminists is also not a reality. Most
feminist organizations in South Korea are ignorant of homosexuals or
very homophobic. LCC had survived many conflicts with feminists.
Feminist groups have excluded lesbians and they have not considered
the lesbian agenda as women’s agenda.
Below are a few cases that show how we’ve been excluded.
1. A feminist activist was half-coerced into coming out to her companions
in the feminist group where she had worked for several years.
And then she had to leave the organization. The reason was simple.
Other activists said that they could not work with lesbians. There are
many lesbians in many feminist organizations but they cannot come out
because there is also deep-rooted homophobia among feminists, just
like at work or in school.
2. Jang Min-Ah, who worked in LCC in 1998, is currently working at
Busan Human Rights Center for Female Sexual Minorities. Jang Min-
Ah asked to join KWAU (Korea Women’s Associations United), but
KWAU informed her that after an internal discussion, “they can’t accept
her joining” the organization.
And in 2005, KWAU invited LCC, together with other feminist
movement groups, to discuss KWAU’s future. LCC activists had tried
to join KWAU in 1998 but had been rejected, and so they couldn’t help
but be critical of KWAU. LCC activists requested KWAU to show that
they accept their responsibilities and apologize for what has been happening
since 1998, but KWAU didn’t admit their mistake in rejecting
LCC’s joining KWAU.
3. The “Head of the Family System” in Korea defines a “normal family”
as consisting of a heterosexually married couple and their children,
endorsing the “father” as the prime authority in this patriarchal system.
Many women’s organizations have struggled to change this system for
more than 10 years, and finally, in March 2005, the government decided
to abolish it, and a new system is being developed to replace it.

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 169
In the process of developing a new system, Korean female organizations
representing KAWU were busy in proposing a system to the government,
but they still regard heterosexual relationships as normal.
Some NPOs, including LCC, have instead been insisting that what is
needed is “individual identification registration” rather than “heterosexual
kinship,’ because an “individual identification” system does not assume
that only heterosexual relationship is possible. This issue is still a
source of sharp conflict.
4. The Ministry of Gender Equality is the department that distributes
funds to women like the Korea Foundation for Women does, but they
have never distributed any funds to lesbian organizations. When I asked
the reason why we could not get funds from the ministry, they answered:
“You know, the members of the distribution subcommittee are
quite homophobic.” People do not help us because they are ignorant or
have phobia of homosexuals.
5. In March 2004, the application of one of the activists of the Center
for Woman Sexual Minority Rights to join a program offered by the
Busan Women’s Center was rejected. So, the Center for Woman Sexual
Minority Rights reported the Busan Women’s Center for their violation of
rights to the National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea,
and the Commission confirmed that it was an act of discrimination. In
the process, the Center for Woman Sexual Minority Rights asked the Ministry
of Gender Equality whether a lesbian right organization is a
women’s organization or not and got an answer from the ministry like
this: “a lesbians’ rights organization is a women’s rights organization in
the broader sense.” Then in a narrower sense, is a lesbians’ rights organization
not a women’s organization?
There are many more cases I can list but let me stop and point out the
fact that we can say clearly that “lesbian issues are women issues,” and
that we need support and help from feminists. What is feminism? It is to
find out the cause of women oppression, and to point out “that is wrong”
when we are wronged. When we talk about feminism, we face “male
domination,” continuously reproduced by patriarchy. And what consolidates
patriarchy is heterosexism and the institution of marriage. The
ideology of love and marriage is embedded in the myth that the world
made by heterosexuals is the only happy world. So, we cannot help but
continue to fight.
We cannot manage fully all the things that we have to deal with. I
think that if feminists try to find out the causes and conditions of
women’s oppression, they should look upon lesbians. This requires
thorough self-reflection everywhere at any time. Then they can under-

170 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
stand various women’s conditions more accurately and more concretely.
That is why I can anchor my hope on feminists.
LESBIANS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT
AND WOMEN’S STUDY IN SOUTH KOREA
In the foregoing section, the relationship between the homophobia of
women’s organizations and the lesbian rights movement in South Korea
was scrutinized. In this section, Women’s Studies and the academic feminist
circle in South Korea deal with lesbian issues will be examined.
With the sexual discourse of the 1990s, women’s studies in South
Korea started to concentrate on “the lesbians.” Until then, there was not
any interest in lesbians even in Women’s Studies, and women’s studiesrelated
research and books written before the 1990s seldom included
anything on lesbians. In this section, I will introduce the background in
which Women’s Studies in South Korea began to look closely at lesbians
and examine the changes in social discourse about lesbians. These
changes offered an opportunity to correct distorted views on lesbians
and influence the lives of many lesbians. By observing the changes and
the responses of Women’s Studies to these changes, I will look at the relationship
between lesbians and Women’s Studies, and the principles
Women’s Studies should be true to.
The Appearance of “Lesbian Rights” in the 1990s:
The Beginning of Korea’s First Lesbian Rights Movement Group
The 1990s saw changes in lesbians. Various groups of lesbians that
were present in the first half of the 1990s started to become official.
There had been informal, “reunion” type of groups in the past, but because
they did not have a social, critical mind to demand the “rights” of
lesbians, they did not possess the characteristics of a “movement.”
Past lesbian groups had a stronger characteristic as a “personal escape,”
for lesbians to express feelings that were repressed and to solve
problems of isolation and insecurity. Lesbians could communicate
with each other without being isolated, and during the process they
could develop pride in themselves through these groups. The pride attained
through these groups helped develop their consciousness of lesbians
as an oppressed minority. This lesbian group consciousness
formed by community activities was not itself connected to forming a
political consciousness to seek recognition of and obtain their rights in

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 171
the community, or to make a political movement. However, it did become
an important basis for the first Korean lesbians’ rights movement
group, Kirikiri, to politicize lesbian rights and make a movement.
Kirikiri, the first Korean lesbians’ rights movement group, was
formed in November 1994. Not only did it offer a place to communicate
for lesbians to affirm their identities and meet each other, it also offered
personal consultations and counseling to help them deal with various
types of social discrimination. Socially, they went through groups’ and
individuals’ coming-out movements, and led protests against distorted
reports by the media. These activities by Kirikiri became a start for the
“lesbian rights concept” to take root in Korean society. Lesbian issues
started to be recognized as human rights problems of an oppressed minority,
personal problems rather than or matters pertaining to abnormal
sexuality (see Kirikiri 1999; 2005 for detail).
Lesbian Rights and Academic Feminism
With the start of Kirikiri, the Korean academic feminist circle began
to show interest in lesbians. However, this was not a result of the rapid
response of the feminist circle to political issues concerning Korean
women. Rather, the reason why the feminist circle became interested in
lesbians was that the primary activists of Kirikiri have studied or were
related to Women’s Studies, and were feminists who were members of
feminist activist groups. Kirikiri’s key members demanded feminist
groups not to neglect issues concerning lesbians and to show more concern
about the restraints imposed on lesbians in the Korean society. It
was these efforts of the feminists in Kirikiri that managed to hasten the
response of the academic feminist circle.
However, despite the efforts of the feminist group, concerns of the
feminist circle on lesbians of those days faded after the introduction of
lesbian feminism from the West. As noted earlier, before the 1990s, theories
and studies on lesbians were unknown in the Korean society. In
1997, Kim Ji Hye, a previous Kirikiri member, made public a Master’s
Thesis she completed at Ewha Womans University, entitled “A Study
of the Development of Lesbian Theory and Its Historical and Political
Implications.” This was the first thesis on lesbianism to come out in the
academic feminist circle, and the academic world at large. Through this
thesis, Kim Ji Hye urged the feminist circle to put more emphasis on
Korean lesbian issues, and to analyze Western lesbian theories and
introduce them in a way that fits the Korean situation.

172 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
In the thesis, Kim indicates the following reasons as to why the Korean
feminists have neglected lesbian issues: (1) sexual discourse based
on heterosexism, and (2) politics of sameness. Feminist sexual discourse
in Korea has focused on rape, sex crime, sexual harassment and
so on, and hence leading feminism to naturally concentrate on the difference
in power between men and women. Therefore, sexuality in feminism
has come to mean heterosexuality, and this has forestalled a
criticism of patriarchal heterosexism. Moreover, as a result of feminism’s
concentrating on the power between men and women, a homogeneous
category of “women” (in opposition to “men”) became
absolute (Kim 1997). This places lesbians outside of the category of
“women,” and at the same time makes the alienation of lesbians seem
reasonable.
Kim Ji Hye’s thesis was instrumental in spurring interest in and laying
the basis for theories on Korean lesbian issues. However, the academic
feminist circle did not show any changes even after Kim’s paper.
The circle, besides showing no interest in Korean lesbian issues, did not
even feel any need to theorize such issues. From their point of view, lesbians
were apparently not individual “women” who have been suppressed
and have suffered discrimination, and about whom feminism
needs to be concerned.
The insufficient recognition of the academic feminist circle of lesbians
can be observed by the episode of the Korean Association of
Women’s Studies (KAWS) and the Kang Suk Ja incident. KAWS was
established in 1984 and its membership reached 124 the next year. In
2003, 743 individual members and 64 groups have joined, making it
Korea’s largest feminist academic society. In November 2001, Kang
Suk Ja, a member of KAWS, presented a paper called “Critical Study of
Lesbian Feminism: A Comparison with Korean Women’s Experience,”
at the Fall Annual Conference.
Kang (2001) described Korean lesbians as an abnormal group–a
product of Western theory that does not fit Korean society. She tried to
prove how much the Western lesbianism does not fit in with Korean reality
and explain how sexual equality is actually embedded in Korean
traditional ethics, Confucianism, and its heterosexism. From the beginning,
she described Korean lesbianism as an indiscreetly imported
Western culture that did not exist in the Korean history, which of course
is not true.
Kang distorted and denied the existence of lesbianism itself for her
own argument. This was possible only because she knew nothing of the
reality of lesbians and had never heard about it.

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 173
Indeed, she was so ignorant as to stately announce that the only lesbians
she knew were “some lesbians I met briefly in bars during travels
abroad.” This ignorance notwithstanding, she divided Korean lesbians,
whom she apparently had never met before, into “real lesbians” and
“political lesbians,” and described the real lesbians as people with abnormal
sexual desires who cannot be thought of as agents of feminist
movements. In her paper, lesbians were merely “free-riders of feminism”
and passive beings “hidden behind shields of feminism.” Moreover,
she did not hesitate to assert violent opinions such as “marriage is
the foundation of morality which is essential. Heterosexual is the fundamental
rule” and “if my daughter refuses to get married and becomes a
lesbian, I would disagree for the conscience as a scholar.”
In response, Kirikiri demanded Kang and KAWS withdraw Kang’s
volitional claims, and to make an official apology. However, Kang replied,
“In the future, present your thoughts openly in your own name
and in theory,” and KAWS requested Kirikiri members who major in
Women’s Studies to register at the academy and use the official channel
to activate debates on sexual identities. Busily explaining their views,
these academic feminists paid little attention on the reality of lesbians
who had to endure violence in the name of feminism. They put more
weight on who made the criticism, not on the content of the criticism.
They apparently did not feel the need to consider the statements of a
mere lesbian group that were not members of the academy or famous
women’s studies scholars. Their behavior violated the feminist principle
of revealing invisible experiences of female oppression and demolishing
patriarchy. KAWS, as the “Korean feminist community,”
ignored lesbians for the fact that they are not “feminists.” They demanded
Korean lesbians to “come out” and criticize in real names
through the academy, but they had no idea that this request itself was
impossible to most Korean lesbians, given the homophobia in the Korean
patriarchal society. Afterwards, Kirikiri proposed a refutation to
the response of Kang and KAWS’s, but was ignored.
This incident also shows the vulgarity of the level of Korean feminism’s
understanding of lesbians. Unfortunately, Kang Suk Ja’s paper
that was presented through KAWS, which was known as Korea’s ‘largest
Women’s Studies rendezvous,’ was the first and only paper on lesbianism
in the history of KAWS to date. The significance of broaching the
subject of lesbianism was unfortunately erased by the glaring misunderstanding
of the subject in the paper. One feminist’s ignorance distorted
the reality of Korea’s oppressed lesbians, and as a result denied the existence
of lesbians. “Forced silence” and “denial of existence” were Ko-

174 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
rean lesbians’ chief conditions of oppression. However, Kang saw these
not as a result of oppression but as a natural property of lesbianism. Her
stance clearly supported patriarchal heterosexism, but the feminists
involved apparently did not even realize that they had sided with these
forces.
The Inflow of Western Sexual Politics Discourse:
“A Lesbian” as a Sexually Liberated Woman
With the popularity of “sexuality politics” discourse of the 1990s,
theories of sexuality were actively taken up in various fields of studies,
including Women’s Studies. After the mid-1990s, as Western sexuality
politics discourses represented by Foucault were introduced, the discourse
of homosexuality became popular in colleges. During this period,
there was heightened interest in homosexuals, lesbians, queers,
and bisexuals, and related terms also came to be commonly used. Moreover,
homosexual groups such as Yonsei University’s Come Together
and Seoul National University’s Maum 001 were formed, and the media
vied with one another to broadcast programs on homosexuality as the
public interest in homosexuality increased. At that time, sexuality discourse
was also popular in academic feminism, and in particular, there
was lively discussion on relationships in the lesbian community and
“separatism.” This shows that Korean Women’s Studies not only contributed
to making sexual politics fashionable but was also in turn affected
by it.
This popularity of sexual discourse became a basis for feminists to
visualize “lesbians” and also turned lesbians into a topic of public interest.
College lesbian feminists revealed themselves as lesbians, and their
coming-out had the effect of being a “symbol of progressiveness,” because
these feminists had apparently had broken free from the sexual restraints
of traditional Korean Confucianism. They realized that Korean
patriarchy is deeply related to Confucianism, and by taking on the name
of “lesbian” or “bisexual,” they were therefore refusing “subordination
of women’s sexuality to men,” “conservatism in sexuality,” and so on
rooted in Confucianism. As a result, they could “prove” that they were
sexually liberated women who had refused sexual suppression. 15
However, these “coming-outs” were not actually helpful in improving
the general rights of lesbians, although such events evidently revealed
a few lesbians specifically. Kim Ji Hye, a lesbian activist and
theorist, stated that what was left after the 1990s sexual politics discourse
was only an insincere phrase, “I’m bisexual.” What Kim meant

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 175
was that inspired by the sexual politics discourse, the social interest in
homosexuality increased. College feminists, intending to appear “sexually
liberated,” identified themselves as lesbians or bisexuals and came
out. However, this “popularity” was not based on earnest thoughts or
critical thinking about patriarchal heterosexism but lesbianism was
used only as a tool to show their “progressiveness” in taking control of
their sexuality. I am not asserting that all lesbians should have coherent
political principles when they identify themselves as lesbian; rather,
what I want to say is that those feminists I mentioned earlier treated the
“problem” of being a lesbian very lightly. The “popularity” of “lesbians”
in those days made “choosing” to be a lesbian seem like a matter of
getting certain “privilege,” albeit in an awkward way. What was hidden
was that espousing this kind of attitude was possible only for certain
feminists–those who have a chance to be educated in college and thus
are exposed to newly imported Western sexual politics discourses. As a
result, these young feminists became even more ignorant of the “average”
lesbians’ experiences of repression that is being constantly reproduced
in a homophobic society. In other words, being indifferent to
most Korean lesbians who cannot even dream of coming-out, college
feminists usurp “being lesbians” to mean “sexually liberated women.”
Not only was such “identity” problematic, it also did not last long.
Four-year-lesbian 16 feminists are those who identify themselves as
lesbians only in college years. They identify themselves without engaging
with Korean lesbians’ oppressed experience. They do not want to
concern themselves with the wretched reality of other lesbians. They
are not sad but proud because they are lesbians. Their lives are different
from the rest of the lesbians who do not have any resources to have selfesteem
as lesbians. These four-year-lesbian feminists cannot be found
in any lesbian communities after their graduation because they stop living
as lesbians once they are out of the university, perhaps realizing they
would not be able to use their lesbian identity to show their progressiveness
in the homophobic society. Society outside colleges is not so
radical as to allow them to live as “sexually liberated lesbians.”
We can see this kind of problem not only from these “vanished lesbians”
but also from the lesbians who continue to live as lesbians and
‘practice’ lesbianism. The Western post-modernism, post-constructivism,
and psychoanalytic feminism that they have accepted in their college
years have given them some kind of radicalness. Some of them
were fascinated by this radicalness and rushed to “practice” it. However,
the lesbian that appears in Western theories came to them not as
“reality” but as a “symbol” that represents radicalness. Therefore simi-

176 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
lar to the “four-year lesbian feminists,” they also pay no attention to
concrete aspects of oppression of and discrimination against lesbians in
Korea. They frequently take up themes like “symbolism of lesbian sexuality,”
“lesbian as subversive subject,” and “gender play,” but do not
show any interest in topics like “discrimination against Korean lesbians”
and apparently consider them boring. Some self-identified lesbianfeminists
claim various emblems of sexuality and perform drag queen
shows at feminist events, saying that it is a practice of subversion. However,
we wonder if this “gender play” could help subvert the patriarchy
and heterosexism. It is hard to trust those feminists, as they do not show
any interest in understanding the oppression of lesbians in Korean society
but only advertise themselves as “lesbian feminists” and concern
themselves with being part of the symbolic subversion. Even though
“diversity of sexuality” and “lesbians” are now popular terms among
college feminists, there is nothing about Korean lesbians in this
connection.
Lesbians as “Sexual Minorities”
As mentioned earlier, feminists in Korea are ignorant of the situation
of lesbians and as a result they show hostility towards the lesbians’
rights movement. At the same time, feminists and lesbian feminists who
claim to be critical of heterosexism, in other words, feminists in the
academy connected to women’s studies and lesbian feminists, are fascinated
to hear the sexual political theories of Korean gay men in academy,
queer theory, Western lesbian theory and sexual minority groups.
These feminists categorize lesbians as a “sexual minority” for their convenience,
but they never wonder if such categorization reflects lesbians’
reality or if it can help describe the experiences of lesbians. That is why
there is the irony that feminists could be so interested in sexual minority
groups and yet do not care about lesbians. “Sexual minorities” include
lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and transvestite, but these feminists
cannot really understand the difference between lesbians and sexual minority
as a whole. 17 To them, lesbians are an oppressed group similar to
gay men and transgender people. They are the same as the average Korean
who does not recognize the fact that there are issues that specifically
concern lesbians–issues that cannot be understood properly if they
were only treated as “sexual minorities’” issues.
In the thinking of the feminists and lesbian-feminists discussed
above, all the sexual minorities suffer the exact same oppression, and
there is no consideration of the particularity of the conditions of lesbians

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 177
at all. These feminists only see heterosexual women as agents of
women’s liberation, and that only heterosexual women are the women
they think they should focus on; lesbians are not “women” suffering under
sexism in this account. Behind the consideration of lesbian issues as
merely sexual minorities issues therefore lurks homophobic thinking, as
the following case shows.
The Korea Foundation for Women (KFW) gives financial support
only to large-scale women’s organizations. In 2002, Kirikiri applied for
the fund for the first time in the herstory of South Korea’s Lesbian
Movement. That is to say, Kirikiri was the first lesbian organization
which applied for the fund. However, their application was rejected.
Kirikiri’s activists learned unofficially that the foundation’s refusal was
based on the homophobia of the distributors. And so Kirikiri criticized
them strongly through a public statement.
After three years, in 2005, the foundation decided to give their fund
to a sexual minorities group. This was not only very interesting but also
nonsensical and absurd: a lesbian organization applied for the fund in
that same year, but a foundation purportedly for women funded instead
a sexual minorities group, which is not a women’s organization.
One might interpret it as KFW’s willingness to change in light of
Kirikiri’s criticism, or at least to “prove” that they were not homophobic.
However, their decision indicated that they could not distinguish a
lesbian organization from a sexual minorities’ organization; or rather,
the foundation showed that it did not consider lesbians as women, and
hence a “lesbian organization” is not a “women’s organization.” Apparently,
for them, lesbians are only sexual minorities, not women.
What the foregoing case and discussion show is that the “gender perspective”
in women’s studies has not been applied to sexual minorities
discourse. The lesbian feminists involved have never joined the lesbians’
rights movement and they even blame lesbian activists that they are
too keen and aggressive and do not try to ally with the feminists. This
shows how these feminists lack introspection and are inadequate in their
political practice.
If Korean Women’s Studies or feminists had included lesbians in the
category of “women,” this kind of (mis)recognition would never be
possible. As women have been defined as “the Other” vis-á-vis men in
the patriarchal society, lesbians have been defined as “the Other” vis-ávis
heterosexuals in the heterosexist society. Lesbian issues are treated
as insignificant and left out of the limelight, just as women’s issues have
been treated as trivial matters for the longest time.

178 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
There are few feminists who know thoroughly the contents and the
accomplishments of the eleven-year-old lesbian rights movement in
South Korea. Most have only negligible knowledge of the movement
and its accomplishments. The lack of interest in learning about lesbian
rights means that they have not considered lesbian issues as women’s
issues. “The Other” has to be defined by the Subject and can only obtain
its meaning through a relationship with the Subject. Just as most male
historians have not focused on the differences and diversity among
women, treating women as just “women” and not allowing for “female
individuals” in history, many feminists in Korea regard lesbians as one
homogeneous group. Lesbians are “Others” for many feminists; for
them, differences and diversity among lesbians are not important. If lesbians
had been recognized as “women” (and hence “subjects”) in Korean
feminism, it would have been impossible that feminists could not
distinguish the different political meanings between lesbians and sexual
minorities.
Considering that sexual minority is the largest repressed group in society,
and that heterosexuality itself is the common foe, it is fair for feminism
to ally with “sexual minorities” and try to alleviate the repression.
At the same time, however, feminists should also distinguish lesbians
from sexual minority groups and ally with the most radical lesbian
groups. As long as lesbians are classified only as ‘sexual minorities’ by
feminists, ignoring the fact that they are “women,” lesbians will not
have a voice in society and will be left out as “the Other.”
Why is it that feminists do not try to understand the situation of the
lesbians and show such hostility towards them? We do not hesitate to
criticize a feminism that excludes and is violent towards lesbians in the
name of feminism. Since the exclusion of lesbians is a big mistake for
feminism, we are convinced that our criticism would help advance feminism.
The reality is, however, some feminists take such criticism as an
attack on them. Let me support my claim by discussing a controversy
that occurred on the Internet recently.
There was a debate in a major on-line feminist community, Unninet,
over “lesbians vs. lesbian feminists.” It began with a posting by Park-
Kim Soo Jin entitled “There has been no lesbianism for us.” It was written
right after the Kang Sook Ja incident, and the main point was about
how feminism excludes and neglects lesbians. In her writing Park Kim
strongly insisted that if feminism does not think seriously of the experiences
of the lesbians, it should no longer be called feminism. Moreover
she harshly criticized that lesbian theories from such feminism would
only be a burlesque.

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 179
In response, one self-identified “lesbian feminist” wrote a document
refuting Park Kim’s argument, saying that her writing had no basis and
that she was only trying to separate “practical lesbians” from “theoretical
lesbians” without any reasons. After this, Park-Kim’s board was
“burnt to the ground.” Many lesbian feminists issued criticisms and attacks
on Park-Kim over a couple of months. They accused Park-Kim for
insisting on baseless theories and misjudging feminists who were academics.
They even insulted Park Kim by calling her delusive. Without
any understanding of the real situation of Korean lesbians, these lesbian
feminists failed to accept criticism of themselves and disregarded other
lesbians’ experiences of repression. Identifying themselves as lesbians
also, they further justified such lack of understanding.
Towards Feminism, and Korean Lesbianism
Korean society has a very different history of feminism than that in
Western countries. In the case of the United States, for example, women
who were involved in the civil rights movement eventually found the
need for women’s rights. They began to focus on education for women
and questioned the history that has been neglecting women. Thus, feminism
began from the need for women’s rights. Similar to this, lesbianism
also began among the lesbians as they felt the need for protecting
their own rights (Korean Women’s Institute 1985). However, in Korea
feminism did not develop from the women’s rights movement. Instead
it was formed by about twenty professors of Ewha University, under the
name of “Women’s Studies.” So in Korea, feminism first began as a
subject that was taught in college, and not from the need for women’s
rights.
Then what does the process of feminism in Korea suggest? It could
mean that there are built-in limitations in feminism in Korea as it is
more likely to focus on academic matters rather than on women’s rights.
Of course, this is not to say that Korean feminism cannot overcome this
limitation by acting positively to involve non-academic women who
have been neglected. Lamentably, there has not been much effort in
doing so.
To overcome the weakness of feminism in Korea, the inclusion of a
lesbianism based on reality is crucial. It is high time that feminism
stopped being represented only by heterosexual feminists and lesbianism
stopped being defined by the experiences of a particular group of
lesbian feminists of privilege. To achieve this change, it is important to
look closely at the discrimination against lesbians and find out why such

180 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
discrimination occurs. It is also important to have more opportunities
for Korean lesbians to talk about their experiences and feminists should
also focus more on their situations rather than analyzing Western theories.
If feminism keeps shunning this group of oppressed women and ignoring
their lives and experiences, it can no longer be called
“feminism.” Now, we need to reflect on feminism and it is time to think
again what feminism is and whom it is for.
The Future of Lesbianism and Lesbians’ Rights Movement in Korea
As presented earlier, a survey on lesbians was conducted in March
2004. Five hundred and sixty-one Korean lesbians responded to the survey,
and according to the results, 6 out of 10 have heard homophobic insults
from their family or strangers and were terrified. In addition, 6 out
of 10 experienced denying their sexual identities since they feared that
they would be revealed to be lesbians by others and they were not confident
in living admitting their sexual identity as “lesbians.” According to
Kirikiri, much of the damage suffered by lesbians cannot be known because
the threat of “outing” (non-consensual revelation of sexual identities
to the public) has made victims afraid to seek help or sue the
assaulters; lesbians are the victims of many more crimes such as rape
and robbery because of their sexual identity as lesbians. This result of
the research reflects the reality of lesbians who are still threatened by
severe violence and discrimination.
I truly respect lesbian activists who have contributed to the Lesbian
Counseling Center in South Korea (previously Kirikiri), Busan Center
for Women Sexual Minority Rights, and Flyinggurl, Ewha Lesbians
Human Rights Movement Organization. The reason why I respect them
is that they have been trying to improve the alienated reality of lesbians
from the viewpoint of lesbians themselves and by making known their
experiences. We think their continuous efforts are indeed the most powerful
strength that can give lesbians a better future.
Consequently we, the Lesbian Institute for Lesbians (LIFL), would
like to tap this source of energy, do our projects based on lesbians’ experiences,
and have faith in our activities. Our projects will be designed
and created by lesbians to restore the herstory of lesbians and reveal the
view of lesbians through such a “herstory restoration.”
In addition, our projects will be done in a way that is critical of mainstream
studies, including a feminism that theorizes for the sake of theorizing,
theories that are merely loquacious, and selfish habitual research
for privileged people only. We will make studies that contribute to ac-

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 181
tion and change society. There is no doubt that our projects will contribute
to emancipating lesbians and all women from discrimination
ultimately.
HOW SHOULD FEMINISM IN KOREA
AND LESBIANS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT MEET EACH OTHER?
The earlier sections showed how the feminist movement in South
Korea has excluded lesbians’ rights movement and how the same exclusion
of lesbians and lesbians’ concerns has happened in Women’s Studies
as well. I will bring the discussion to a conclusion by exploring how
the Lesbian Rights Movement and Feminism should relate to each other
in South Korea.
The History of Neglect and Exclusion of Lesbians:
What Has Happened in the Feminist Movement
and Women’s Studies in Korea?
Like most feminists, I still remember the very first time I encountered
feminism, which was the most amazing experience I have ever had.
Sometimes I felt stifled back then but I couldn’t name it precisely. Feminism
explained what my symptom was about. It said I was in pain because
the society was sick, not because I had a problem. It said I was
angry because they did not treat me right and it was not my fault. Feminism
also told me that I do not have to feel nervous about fitting myself
into the patriarchal standard of women and that I am okay not to do what
they expect me to do. It was a transformative experience and encouraged
me to live a new life and be strong. Of course being a feminist has
not meant having a totally better life than before but it has become the
backbone of my life because I could be prouder and healthier about myself
and stop blaming myself for being discriminated against or for loving
other women “abnormally.”
However, as I learned more about feminism in Korea, I soon realized
I wasn’t included among the “women” they referred to. I thought feminism
was my story at first, but unfortunately it turned out to be my misunderstanding.
All the issues feminists were concerned about were
related to and for heterosexual women. The story of myself, a Korean
lesbian who is definitely a “woman” and homosexual, wasn’t left out by
someone’s mistake. It just was not there in the first place.

182 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
The Lesbians’ Rights Movement has undertaken various projects for
solidarity with feminist movement organizations for over 10 years.
“Breaking down heterosexism and patriarchy,” which is distinctly a
women’s agenda, has been the foremost principle of the lesbian rights
movement. This notwithstanding, the “women’s rights agenda” has blatantly
excluded lesbian issues. Even in the feminist movement, which is
supposed to trace the origin of sexist oppression and discover its mechanisms,
lesbians are but a “foreign body” that simply does not belong.
The same thing has happened in Women’s Studies. Unlike Women’s
Studies in the West that has theorized lesbianism as radical politics
against patriarchy, Korean Women’s Studies showed ignorance and
disregard lesbians from the beginning. Apparently unworthy of Korean
Women’s Studies, studies about the realities of Korean lesbians’ lives
have not progressed much. Also, it is hard to find lesbian issues as an independent
subject in the Women’s Studies curriculum. It is true that academic
feminists became more concerned about lesbians under the
influence of Western sexual political discourse introduced in the mid-
1990s, but all we could hear about lesbians from Women’s Studies was
“plurality of sexuality.” They just approached lesbian issues theoretically,
not taking into consideration Korean lesbians’ lives under the
heterosexist patriarchy. Still, we cannot find any movements to place
lesbians’ rights squarely in a feminist agenda.
Feminism, however, is neither for some “special” women nor for
strengthening heterosexism which is closely connected with sexist oppression.
Feminism in Korea today seems just irrelevant for those who
are in disadvantaged conditions and accordingly neglected. It is clear to
lesbians that they are never going to be liberated within the existing heterosexual-supremacist
patriarchy through this type of feminism.
Korean Feminism Is Getting Lost: What Is Feminism Anyway?
At the moment you leave the matter because you do not want to be involved
in conflict or dilemma, feminism moves away from you. Let’s
say the world we are living in is tilted to one side by patriarchy and we
are trying to make a horizontal [non-hierarchical] order to examine our
own tilt. Feminism makes this possible very wisely. However, because
we exist in a lop-sided world already it’s really hard not to struggle with
pursuing one’s ideal horizontal [non-hierarchical] world. What you
have to do first of all in this kind of situation is to check how tilted your
body is; in other words, “introspection.” Being a feminist not only
means understanding sexist oppression, but also means recognizing

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 183
how yourself is practiced in patriarchy and ‘what you have more’ than
others. The more you claim against oppression without inspecting your
own tilt in reality, the more you are getting distant from your goal (Joe-
Lee 2005).
We are not afraid to assert that feminism in Korea today has to ask itself
again what feminism is. It’s not that we want to devalue all the excellent
results the feminist movement and Women’s Studies have
accomplished so far. The ways toward women’s liberation could be diverse,
but at the same time, feminists must not exclude from the feminist
agenda the liberation of lesbians just because it’s disadvantageous ‘strategically,’
or that it’s not feminists’ problem, or it’s not something they
are willing to understand.
What is feminism? To me, feminism means all kinds of action aimed
at straightening the world polluted by patriarchy. The patriarchal logic
of power constantly distinguishes men who have power from men who
don’t have power and estranges many people (women, the physically
challenged, patients, children, the old, etc.) from the society (Joe-Lee
2003). It means from the position of “minority in large numbers,” questioning
society’s standard that defines what value is important and what
is not, being sensitive about the generally accepted ideas that patriarchy
circulates, and reflecting on ourselves about how we actualize feminist
thought in our everyday lives.
Although people in power are not righteous, norms of heterosexuality
are justified in the name of common idea, tradition and even instinct.
The patriarchal order has established itself especially through a family
system built by paternal, monogamous, and heterosexist marriage and
discriminates against those who live outside such a system, stigmatizing
them as “abnormal” and “deviant” (Joe-Lee 2003). That is to say, these
social systems have a great impact on sexist oppression. No wonder
feminism should oppose them; it can’t be feminists’ final goal to gain
equal rights within the existing heterosexual-supremacist patriarchy.
Korean feminism has done a lot to contest patriarchy, but something
was missing. To challenge sexism they placed women in a monolithic
category. Specifically, Korean feminists have not challenged the whole
structure, but they just carried on a movement for heterosexual women
within the heterosexist system. As discussed in the previous two sections,
we have witnessed how a number of heterosexual feminists were
or are unwilling to acknowledge that their method of movement could
be oppressive towards other women whom they have failed to notice.
This shows that feminists’ analysis about invisible patriarchal mechanisms
is not thorough enough and that feminists are too accustomed to

184 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
those mechanisms to acknowledge the benefits they get from
heterosexism. It is heterosexism that mainly maintains patriarchy in so
many things such as sexist marriage, family system, employment relation,
virginity ideology, laws and so on. However, Korean feminism has
not actively criticized heterosexism that makes it possible men to control
women sexually, economically, and socially. Maybe feminist thinkers
and activists simply don’t understand how essential it is to challenge
compulsory heterosexuality for feminism. Maybe they just do not want
to meddle with it. Maybe they want to avoid more intense attacks on
feminism. Whatever their excuse is, treating heterosexual women’s
rights as absolute and universal while remaining silent about lesbian
oppression will do awful harm to the original meaning of feminism.
The lesbian rights movement has asserted that lesbians’ rights issues
are plainly part of women’s agenda and that feminism should accept
this. But this assertion is still denied. We feel sad because claiming that
feminism should study about as many women as possible and act for
them is not something menacing to feminism, but a productive critique
of a feminism that needs to get back on track. Women are biologically
the same, but cannot help having differences in their social conditions
like class, sexual identification, age, religion, educational background,
whether they get married, where they live, and so on. Devising theories
and politics only for heterosexual women is a failure to see diverse
mechanisms of sexist oppression and an abandonment of the original
radicalness of feminism.
Diverse Ways to the Same Goal That the Lesbians’ Rights
Movement and Feminism Can Choose
Unlike in the West, where lesbianism and feminism have engaged
with and helped each other grow through fierce discussions and struggles
after the 1970s, the relationship between lesbians’ rights activists
and feminists in Korea has never been straightforward. Even though
lesbian activists have made an effort to be in solidarity with feminists
for the last 11 years, apart from engaging in theoretical discussion, lesbians
and feminists have not had much chance to meet and debate with
each other. Lesbians are still in a low position, having to ask for
understanding and solidarity.
To overcome this sad and also somewhat infuriating situation, we
lesbians’ rights activists can either keep trying to have solidarity with
feminism or start brand new actions solely focusing on lesbians’ rights
rather than dissipating our energy in something hopeless. In order to

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 185
find out what is proper for individual activists’ perspective, we need to
take a good look at these two strategies.
As discussed in the first section, while sometimes solidarity with
gay men is possible for lesbians, as they both are homosexuals, it
doesn’t happen every time. Their ideas about the movement are different
because gay men have also been socialized in a sexist world.
In a male-dominant society, lesbians are placed in a more marginal
position and are oppressed in a somewhat different way. Unless he
has seriously examined his sexist thinking, a man does not need to
acknowledge or give up the economic, sexual, and emotional benefits
patriarchy offers. This is why lesbian activists’ point of view is
not the same as that of gay activists who are not advocates of feminist
politics. Therefore, we cannot address lesbian issues just thinking
that they are only about sexual oppression. We need to keep in mind
that the problem of being and living as lesbian is also about women’s
oppression under sexism.
If feminism tries to end heterosexism by embracing non-heterosexual
women, it will be meaningful because that’s the way real feminism
should go. By confronting homophobia and by focusing on lesbians’
rights that have been excluded from women’s rights for so long, feminists
can develop a theoretical analysis of heterosexism, which is deeply
implicated in patriarchy, and feminism will in turn be enriched. Solidarity
between lesbian activists and feminists is essential to challenging
heterosexual-centric patriarchy.
To achieve this solidarity, the lesbians’ rights movement could keep
teaching “Correct Understanding of Homosexuality” to feminist organizations,
advocating women and other minority’s issues, holding forums
for productive discussion between lesbians and feminists.
Feminist thinkers could re-write the primer of feminism that also embraces
lesbian issues. When the patriarchal mass media or people attack
feminism by saying “feminists are all lesbians,” feminists should take
an active offense against the enemy’s homophobia rather than defending
itself with a denial of the statement. It is also important to train feminist
instructors to be anti-heterosexists.
To solve women’s diverse problems including lesbian issues, lesbian
activists and feminists could search for what to do more specifically and
efficiently. For example, if lesbian rights movement can be together
with feminist organizations like the Ministry of Gender Equality or Korea
Women’s Associations United (KWAU), which are influential on
feminist movement and policy for women, lesbian rights will have the

186 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
possibility to be on the primary agenda and it will affect lesbians’ lives
greatly.
On the other hand, we can also start a unique movement of lesbians,
by lesbians and for lesbians rather than wasting our energy for something
we cannot be sure of. As a good example showing the practical effect
of this kind of strategy, we can think about how Ewha Womans
University has become the so-called Mecca of Asian feminism, how
feminist movement in Ewha is more powerful compared to that in other
coeducational universities and why it still remains a women’s university.
At Ewha, women study with women, discuss with women and live
their everyday life with women while preparing to enter “the society.”
Such a community represents resistance against the sexist culture and
also means that women can prepare for the “actual fight” by unearthing
their potential. Of course, it does not mean that sexism does not exist
just because all members of the community are women and it’s true that
many women have graduated without being aware of their potential.
However, still, Ewha has some special power because it is a women’s
university. That is to say, having an alternative women’s system removed
from a male-dominant system can be an effective approach to
weakening male authority.
Likewise, if lesbian oppression is rooted in the heterosexist patriarchal
system, the ultimate solution would be to oppose heterosexism and
fight against it. If feminist activists and thinkers in Korea keep refusing
to introspect or are not willing to be in solidarity with lesbian rights activists,
we will have to consider them as supporting heterosexism and
consequently, it’ll be hard not to break with them. This is when a unique
lesbians’ rights movement could be set up as the challenge against
heterosexual-supremacy.
There are many things we can do to support this approach, from criticizing
the heterosexist, women-exploiting, institution of marriage more
keenly and incisively to creating Lesbian Studies based on Korean lesbians’
reality. We can set up a lesbian community where lesbians can be
relatively free from homophobia and hatred toward women, and do not
have to care about how others see us. We can organize meetings for
those who want to enjoy their hobbies with other lesbians. It’s important
to have a place for raising lesbians’ self-esteem. Places we can experience
and have fun with lesbian culture like lesbian film festivals, lesbian
cultural festivals, or lesbian camps are also needed. Lesbian
schools can be built for young lesbians who have been terribly suppressed
by school. Specialized counseling for lesbians would also be a
good idea.

Which Way Should We Choose?
Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 187
There is no right answer actually because the two strategies I
sketched above are different plans of action with the same goal, and
therefore it does not matter whether one chooses one of them or combines
them. There are certainly other methods beside these two. How
one chooses depends on each movement group’s material foundation
and perspective of the movement. 18
There is already a distinct lesbian movement and in a society where
Confucianism is still powerful. No matter what strategies we choose,
the lesbian rights movement will progress more effectively only if we
all understand lesbians’ experience just as it is. The presence of such a
movement surely does not weaken the feminist movement; eventually it
is for the liberation of “all” women.
What is more important is that feminists who have made terrible mistakes
based on their heterosexist thinking and homophobia must admit
their faults and introspect. If one does not look back to one’s past and
think again, one does not have a future. Feminists repeatedly complain
that they don’t understand “whom” lesbian activists have made an attack
against. They even reproach lesbian activists for being too aggressive,
too hostile to feminism and over generalizing all feminists to be
homophobic. Surprisingly enough, this is so similar to what we used to
hear from anti-feminists around us. What does this mean?
Patriarchy has created divisions among women, and a feminist crosses
these barriers to build solidarity with women. Korean feminism, however,
has not yet raised any questions in argument about heterosexism,
which is one such barrier that divides women. Instead, it has naturalized
it, and has thought of our critique as an accusation. Faced with this, we
feel that the future is bleak. Even when they know in their mind that
heterosexism is wrong, a lot of feminists passively support heterosexism
by not being interested in or not considering lesbians’ rights movement
seriously. It might be a convenient move, but it’s not feminism worthy of
its name. Women who claim to be feminists while perpetuating homophobia
are as misguided and hypocritical as those who want sisterhood
while holding on to white supremacist thought (hooks 2000).
Men as a group fear letting go of the benefits that patriarchy offered.
Maybe heterosexual-feminists fear letting go of benefits that heterosexism
guaranteed in the same way. However, we believe in their capacity to introspect
and change because we do no doubt their desire for the liberation
of all women. We sincerely expect them to break free of heterosexual-supremacy
thinking and come close to us. That will strengthen the solidarity
of all women and lead us closer to our shared goal.

188 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
NOTES
1. In this paper, we used the term “feminism” to refer to the feminist movement
and women’s studies all together.
2. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at “Women’s World 2005–9th International
Interdisciplinary Congress on Women,” held in Seoul, Korea in June 2005.
We are three activists from the Lesbian Institute For Lesbians, LIFL, who contributed
these three writings under the umbrella title, “Lesbians’ Rights Movement and Feminism
in South Korea.”
3. All names in the text are given in the Korean convention of last name first and
first name(s) second. The exceptions are the authors’ names in the title line of the paper
The “I” in each section referes to the author of that section.
4. Only 6 years of elementary school is compulsory education but most people in
South Korea graduate from middle school (3 years) and high school (3 years).
5. For example, Korean society regards homosexuality as abnormal and perverted,
and most homosexual juveniles also think of their identities as abnormal and perverted.
We have seen how prejudice and stereotypes of homosexuality in Korean society have
made many juveniles try to change themselves to heterosexuals and hate or deny their
identities.
6. Many counselors and psychiatrists in Korea judge that homosexuality is “temporary”
and “abnormal,” and they are interested only in changing homosexuals to heterosexuals.
7. According to the result of a sample research of 30,000 people by the Korea Statistics
Office in 1999, the percentage of the people who have religion is 53.6%. Our survey
shows that lesbians in Seoul are consisted of 23.9% Christians, 20.1% Buddhists,
9.3% Catholics, and 1.3% of other religions.
8. The coexistence of the assertion that “homosexuality is innate” and a prejudice
that “there aren’t any homosexuals in teenagers” is paradoxical.
9. 554 women answered the question on the areas of social difficulties and the subquestion
on specific reasons for such difficulties. In both, women were asked to choose
up to 3 items, and on the average, they chose 2.5 items.
10. The question on mental/emotional difficulties allowed for up to 3 answers. 518
women answered this question and on the average, they chose 2.2 items.
11. 124 lesbians answered the sub-question on specific discriminations that asked
them to choose all the items that apply to them.
12. According to Kirikiri (2004), 50%, 31%, and 19% of interview cases are of hate
crimes, outings, and sexual violence, respectively.
13. After the breaking-up of the very first group of lesbians and gays’ rights movement
in South Korea, Chodonghoe, in 1994, Korean Gay Men’s Coalition Chingusai
was organized in January 1994 and Korean Women Sexual Minority Rights Organization
Kirikiri (now LCC) was organized in November 1994. According to Lee Hae Sol,
Jeon Hae Sung, one of the founding members of Chodonghoe, put an ad in the newsletter
of Chingusai to gather lesbians to form a lesbians’ organization. And then five lesbians
got together in November 1994. They needed almost one year to get together. It
was quite a difficult beginning but their gathering was a herstorical moment.
14. Gay men’s coming-out can be easier than that of lesbians’ because gay men
have more advantageous political, financial, social, and cultural conditions than lesbians
in this male-supremacy society. And even if gay activists and lesbian activists
come out people only remember gay men’s coming-out. How and why could this hap-

Park-Kim, Lee-Kim, and Kwon-Lee 189
pen? What about the lesbians who have come out through television programs and the
other events? Where have they gone? Why is queer theory of the gay elite getting famous
and lesbian theory of the lesbian elite ignored? All these questions are connected
with the privileged position of gay men vis-à-vis lesbians in Korean society.
15. Korean society is very conservative as it was greatly influenced by Confucianism.
Confucianism induced women to be passive and ignorant of sex, and even fear it.
These teachings of Confucianism were maintained through families in Korean society
and as a result, women in Korea have conservative minds without having to think about
it in their own will.
16. It is a sarcastic term to criticize the women who have spent college years as lesbians
but choose to be heterosexual as soon as they graduate. A character in a TV sitcom
about life of lesbians in the United States (The L Word) uses this expression.
17. Last year in April there was a forum about “are lesbians a sexual minority?” The
forum was held under LIFL and four of the lesbian groups came together to discuss lesbians
being considered as a sexual minority. The discussion included what kind of political
position lesbians can be in as a sexual minority and what effects it will have on
protests.
18. Strategies of embracing, expansion, and creation are altogether important. And
every activist can choose her own position in this spectrum of strategies. There could
also be many questions like these: “Am I going to be in the position of feminist and then
embrace lesbian issues for the extension of feminism?” “Am I going to be in the position
of lesbian first and then embrace the feminism for the expansion of the lesbian
agenda?”, “Anyway, do I have to choose by all means?” “Do I want to do as I please?”,
“Aren’t there enough to do only when I focus on the ‘lesbian’?” “Isn’t it a natural consequence
that feminists and lesbian activists would meet eventually even if we don’t
discuss how and we don’t think that is needful?” The agendas, agents, alternative plans
of movements can vary; they do not have to be identical. It is same for the lesbian rights
movement. This concern is also for the feminists themselves. They should ask themselves:
“are we going to take lesbian issues for the women agenda? Why?” “what can I
do to understand lesbians conditions more sincerely?” “how can feminism and lesbian
issues meet?” etc. The answers would be in their will to try.
REFERENCES
hooks, bell. 2000. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. Cambridge, MA:
South End Press
Joe-Lee, Yo Wool. 2003. “Yusungjoouiran Mooutinga?” (What Is Feminism?). Ilda
(Feminist Online Journal), September 22, 2003 (http://www.ildaro.com/
Scripts/news/index.php?menu=ART&sub=View&idx00004&art_menu=7&art_
sub = 10).
Joe-Lee, Yo Wool. 2005. “Gominhanin Yusungjooui: Yusungjoouinun Jisik Anin
Sungchal” (Feminism Is Introspection, Not Knowledge). Ilda (Feminist Online
Journal). April 19, 2005 (http://www.ildaro.com/Scripts/news/index.php?menu=
ART&sub=View&idx=2005041900005&art_menu=12&art_sub=10).
Kang, Sook Ja. 2001. “Lesbian Yusungjoouiui Bipanjuk Gumto: Hankook Yusung
Gyumhumgwaui Daebi” (Critical Study of Lesbian-Feminism: A Comparison with

190 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Korean Women’s Experience). Paper presented at the Fall Annual Conference of
Korean Association of Women’s Studies.
Kim, Ji Hye. 1997. Lesbian/Feminist Gwanjumesu Bon Sugoo Lesbian Ironui
Baljeongwajunggwa Yuksajuk Uiuie Dahan Youngoo (Study about the Historical
Significance of Western Lesbianism in the Perspective of Lesbian/Feminist). Master’s
Thesis, Ewha Womans University.
Kirikiri. 1999. “Hankook Lesbian Inkwonoondongui yucksa” (Herstory of Lesbian
Rights Movement in South Korea). Ttodarun Sesang (Another World) 7th issue.
Seoul: Ttodarun Sesang.
Kirikiri. 2004. Kirikiri Sangdam Sarejip (Collection of Kirikiri Counseling).
Kirikiri. 2005. “Hankook Lesbian Inkwonoondongui Sipnyunsa” (10-year-herstory of
Lesbians’ Rights Movement in South Korea). Woorisidaeui Sosooja Undong (Minority’s
Movement in This /Our Age). Seoul: Ihaksa.
Korean Women’s Institute. 1985. Yusunghak Kyogwagwajung Gabal Mit Pyungga
(Development and Evaluation of Women’s Study Curriculum).
Lee, Hae Sol. 1999. “Hankook Lesbian Inkwonoondongui Yucksa” (Herstory of Lesbian
Rights Movement in South Korea). Hankook Yusung Inkwonoondongsa
(Herstory of Feminist Movement in South Korea). Seoul: Hanwool Academy.
Lee-Kim, Soo Youn. 2003. “Welcome to LIFL.” Lesbian Institute For Lesbians. (http:/
/lesbian.or.kr/htm/em2-3.htm).
Park-Kim, Soo Jin. 2004. Hankook Lesbian Inkwon Siltaeae Kwanhan Youngoo
(Study of Lesbians’ Realities in South Korea). Master’s Thesis, Sungkonghoe University.
Park-Kim, Soo Jin. 2005. “Lesbian Ironiran Mooutiuya Hanunga? 2.” (What Needs for
the Lesbian Theory?) Lesbian Institute For Lesbians. (http://lesbian.or.kr/htm/
em2-3.htm).
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_11

BOOK REVIEWS
WILD WOMAN: NATALIE BARNEY GIVES UP A FEW
SECRETS. Reviewed by Mary Eichbauer.*
WILD HEART, A LIFE: NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY AND
THE DECADENCE OF LITERARY PARIS. Rodriguez, Suzanne.
New York: HarperCollins, 2003 paperback. (Hardback title: Wild
Heart, a Life: Natalie Clifford Barney’s Journey from Victorian
America to the Literary Salons of Paris, 2002.)
WILD GIRLS: PARIS, SAPPHO, AND ART: THE LIVES AND
LOVES OF NATALIE BARNEY AND ROMAINE BROOKS.
Souhami, Diana. New York: St. Martin’s, 2004.
During her lifetime, she was one of the best known Americans in
Paris. Natalie Clifford Barney knew everyone, and everyone knew her.
Strangely, at her death in 1972 (at the age of 95), she was almost forgotten.
Without her powerful presence to support it, Natalie’s legend withered
and died. Since the 1970s, a handful of books–by, among others,
George Wickes, Jean Chalon, Karla Jay, and Anna Livia–have done
their best to revive her story. Susanne Rodriguez’s biography, Wild
Heart, a Life: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary
Paris, and Diana Souhami’s fictionalized biography, Wild Girls: Paris,
Sappho, and Art: The Lives and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine
Brooks, are the two latest additions to Natalie’s bookshelf.
People who live their lives, as Natalie did, wrapped up in the minds
and hearts of others, with little thought of preserving a reputation or
passing on a legacy, often leave confusion when they go. “My life is my
work,” she wrote in her published memoir, Souvenirs indiscrets. “My
writing is only the result, the accompaniment.”
Available online at http://jls.haworthpress.com
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_12 191

192 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
Natalie’s life was full of love, friendship, and pleasure, while her
work, even the best of it, consists of fragments and gestures. During her
lifetime she published love poems, volumes of “pensées” (epigrams),
and a spare, personal novel about androgyny. She also left two memoirs
(one published, one not), many published “portraits” of friends and lovers,
some unfinished pieces, and several thousand unpublished letters.
Until now, George Wickes’s biography of Natalie, The Amazon of Letters
(long out of print), was the only full-length biography of Natalie not
written by a close friend.
Because Natalie’s major accomplishment was her Friday afternoon
salon, much of what we know about her comes from reminiscences by
friends, acquaintances, and lovers, each with a unique view of “the Amazon.”
Natalie’s legacy desperately needed someone to sort out the
chaos and separate fact from fiction. Suzanne Rodriguez’s Wild Heart
surpasses and corrects previous writing about Natalie by adding a formidable
array of facts gleaned from detailed research. Although not free
from minor errors, Rodriguez’s book gives us the most complete portrait
of Natalie and her “wild heart” that we are likely to get anytime
soon.
Beginning with Natalie’s ancestors on both sides of the family, Rodriguez
lays out the background, and the personalities, that set the stage
for Natalie herself. On Barney’s maternal side, there was the adventurous,
entrepreneurial Samuel Pike and his bookish, possibly agoraphobic
wife, Ellen Miller; on Barney’s paternal side, pioneer great-grandparents
gave birth to E.E. Barney, who made a fortune manufacturing luxury
railroad cars. Like all the girls she grew up with, Natalie Barney was
born to luxury and privilege. It was what she did with her social and
natural advantages that made her unique.
Once out of her parents’ control–which only happened with her father’s
death when Natalie was 26–Natalie put down roots in Paris, her
second home since childhood, and began her triple career of lesbian
lover, writer, and saloniste. Her salon was one of the few where Americans
and others not privy to the inner circle of the French intelligentsia
could come and go freely. Her infatuations were many, and most spent
themselves quickly. Many love affairs later developed into deep friendships.
She encouraged women writers with her attention and money,
and was immortalized in novels by Radcliffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, and
others. Even during her lifetime, she was an iconoclast whose life exemplified
a lesbian lifestyle pursued without fear. For this reason, Natalie’s
life has often been over-idealized.

Book Reviews 193
Natalie sets and springs traps for the biographer. In her own time, she
was a living legend, and existing writing about her is full of inaccuracies
and myths; her own writing can be incomplete, self-serving, or theatrical.
Natalie was a self-promoter, using her native wit to seduce women
to her bed and to convince men to help her advance her fame as a writer
and a saloniste. Rodriguez’s book is especially valuable because it does
not deny Natalie’s selfish, uncaring side. Rodriguez makes it clear that
Natalie was spoiled, that she didn’t always treat people right, that she
liked to control her lovers and keep them for herself, while refusing to
be monogamous. Her self-proclaimed lack of jealousy is a myth.
Natalie was jealous, and Natalie was manipulative. Rodriguez points
out dramatizing or self-serving errors in Natalie’s description of what
happened in her relationship with Pauline Tarn (Renée Vivien) and
others.
Rodriguez makes Natalie’s triumphs more meaningful by refusing to
deny the conflict and pain Natalie experienced in breaking away from
the conventional path her parents had laid out for her. Wild Heart traces
her early struggle to live a lesbian life: her close escapes from marriage,
and the anger and prejudice she had to face, even from those closest to
her. Despite some very public affairs with women–and some very public
gossip–Natalie was able to use her native powers of persuasion effectively,
playing her parents against one another to ensure that her
money was not cut off. If she learned one thing from her pampered
childhood, it was how to get her own way.
In her writing, Natalie is open about conflicts with her father, but in her
published work she never mentions that her mother was not easily won
over to her cause. Rodriguez shows that Natalie’s mother was never completely
comfortable with her daughter’s life choices. Despite her own unconventional
life as an artist, playwright, and philanthropist, Alice
Barney was horrified to discover that Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de
Femmes (Some Portrait-Sonnets of Women)–a book Alice had illustrated
at Natalie’s request–was a tribute to women the young Natalie had loved,
and not platonically. Mother and daughter sometimes exchanged bitter
words. After one serious falling out, Alice took a half-finished play of
Natalie’s and rewrote it, putting her own name on it as sole author.
Rodriguez is also frank about Natalie’s Anti-Semitism during the
Second World War, and her loyalty to Ezra Pound at the peak of his fascism.
Rodriguez links Natalie’s failure to understand what was going on
in Europe, despite her own Jewish heritage, to two factors. First, Rodriguez
claims, Natalie was confused by politics (she was witty, but apparently
had trouble thinking through complex ideas). The second factor

194 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
was her lifelong lack of empathy for the mass of humanity. Rodriguez
speculates that it originated with the snubs Natalie suffered from Washingtonian
society after gossip about her “misbehavior” had spread from
Paris. Natalie could be kind to individuals, but had trouble comprehending
the suffering of many. As Rodriguez puts it: “Little by little, as the
years passed, Natalie would harden her heart and narrow her vision until
only the inhabitants of her circle held reality. The world at large would
come to have little meaning for Natalie Clifford Barney.” Perhaps this
selective empathy also served as a survival mechanism for Natalie, allowing
her to put herself and her loved ones before others, and thus allow
her “wild heart” its freedom. Unfortunately, it could also severely
limit her ability to see the bigger picture.
The many new details in Wild Heart inspire further questions about
Natalie’s work. The historical context provided is useful, but the book
could have used a closer analysis of Natalie’s place in the literary scene.
As Rodriguez correctly states, Natalie’s ambition as a writer was
small–her (somewhat ingenuous) goal was to preserve the spontaneity
of her original inspiration, an idea that did not always serve her well.
She took advantage of her connections in the literary world and her notoriety
to get published, but, even as a novice, she didn’t let any of the
famous writers she knew suggest revisions for her work.
It would be interesting to know how many doors were closed to
Natalie as a woman writer, despite her apparent standing in the literary
scene. (Rodriguez mentions that Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de
Bergerac, did not reply to Natalie’s request for a meeting.) Did the men
who befriended Natalie and attended her salon consider her a shallow
thinker? Did the writers she invited to her salon respect her intelligence,
or did they consider her a muse–one with money–who could introduce
them to the right people? (One would love to know exactly what Natalie
said during her salons that was considered so brilliant, but, aside from
her written aphorisms, that information might be lost.) Did she really
possess a keen critical judgment, or did she often base her analyses
more on her heart than her intellect, as she probably did when she remained
loyal to Ezra Pound? Answers to these questions will have to
wait for a subsequent work. For now, despite minor errors and unanswered
questions, this is the best overall biography of Natalie Barney.
Diana Souhami’s Wild Girls: Sappho and Art: the Lives and Loves of
Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks can’t seem to decide whether it
wants to be a work of scholarship, fiction, or autobiography. To its subtitle,
“The Lives and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks,”
we might add “and Diana Souhami,” because it contains, between chap-

Book Reviews 195
ters, brief scenes from what one presumes to be Souhami’s own lovelife.
These snippets interrupt the flow of the narrative, and their purpose–perhaps
to create parallels between lesbian lives in the past and today–is
never quite clear. Most of the passages seem to concern failed
relationships or ambiguous gender identities. Only one mentions
Natalie, comparing her openness about her lesbianism with a story in
which the narrator (Souhami?) and her lover, on vacation, are shabbily
treated at hotels because they are lesbians. In a footnote, Souhami points
out that even Natalie sometimes hid what she was by messing up the
second, untouched bed while on a trip with another woman. Even so, the
passage adds little meaning to the text surrounding it.
The main narrative itself simply retells Natalie’s life in brief, followed
by Romaine Brooks’s. Romaine, an artist with a unique individual style,
was a woman troubled by the double doom of hereditary insanity and an
abusive childhood. As Souhami retells it, Romaine’s life takes on the character
of a gruesome and melancholy fairy tale. Romaine and Natalie’s relationship
was probably the longest and most significant in both women’s
lives; inevitably, because of their different desires and temperaments, it
ended badly. Souhami picks and chooses incidents to highlight from
Natalie and Romaine’s complex story and compresses the rest. In fact,
much of the narrative is simple paraphrase with the occasional quotation,
especially from Natalie’s Souvenirs indiscrets and Romaine’s unpublished
autobiography, both of which are only sporadically cited in the notes.
Occasionally, Souhami compresses too much. “Disturbed by Romaine’s
silence, in December Natalie journeyed to Florence from Switzerland
believing that Romaine would not refuse to see her. But
Romaine did refuse” (Souhami). Compare with Rodriguez, writing of
the same incident: “Romaine, sinking each day deeper into a depressive
state, refused to see the doctors Natalie sent, and sometimes refused to
see Natalie herself” (Rodriguez). The fact is that Romaine refused to see
Natalie during part of her visit, not all of it, as Souhami implies. It
makes a good story, but unfortunately it isn’t true.
“Wild Girls” is an attractive, but misleading, epithet. Souhami focuses
on the star-crossed aspect of Natalie and Romaine’s long love-affair,
rather than its wildness. Passages describing the relationship’s
decline, caused by a complex web of problems, are poignant, if not always
accurate. Particularly affecting are Souhami’s descriptions of Romaine’s
slow lapse into solipsism, while Natalie, always occupied with
another lover but still claiming to love Romaine best, tries to pull her
back into life. “Romaine neither painted nor drew, and no visitor dared
approach her. . . . Nothing in her formative years had shown her how to

196 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
trust people or feel safe in their company. Natalie was the only person
who ever got truly close to her, the only one who refused to be rebuffed.
But even Natalie foundered against Romaine’s intractable neurosis. It
was there like a rock formation. With her love she hoped to erode it”
(Souhami 189-90). It is poetically expressed and true, as far as it goes.
But a real biographer would have gone further. In blaming Romaine’s
mental illness for her breakup with Natalie, Souhami never asks what
might have happened if Natalie had been able to give Romaine the monogamous
relationship she always craved. Instead, Natalie had begun a
new love affair at the age of 79, a love affair that became more firmly established
as Natalie got older and needed more care. Here is Rodriguez’s
different take: “Given their ages, [Romaine] assumed that they
would remain together until their deaths. Now, just as in their youth, she
found herself forced to share. No matter how much Natalie insisted that
Romaine alone was her life’s major love, the only one who really and
truly mattered, it still hurt. . . . [A]s Natalie wrote to Romaine ...,
‘Nothing and no one is–or ever will be–as dear to me.’ She meant it, too.
The great tragedy of her life was that Romaine did not believe her” (Rodriguez
343, 345). Rodriguez, whose goal is accuracy, not poetry,
paints a more complex picture of their breakup.
Souhami based her book on Natalie and Romaine’s letters (preserved
at the McFarland Library at the University of Tulsa), along with Romaine
Brooks’s unpublished autobiography, Natalie’s published and unpublished
works, and internet research, which provided dates and basic details
for the footnotes. Disturbingly, no internet source is acknowledged
anywhere in the text or notes. In general, the book is characterized by
sloppy research, inaccurate or inadequate citations, and errors caused
by compression or fictionalization. Souhami exhibits poor judgment
about what merits a footnote and what doesn’t. One is grateful for a
gloss on Henry Segrave or Tancred Borenius, but is it helpful to read a
note saying that Rasputin was a “Russian miracle worker,” and do we
really need the complete lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne” just because it is
mentioned in the text?
Wild Girls is not a work of scholarship, but a personal reaction to a
partially fictionalized narrative. If only it didn’t try so hard to straddle
the line between these divergent forms, it could have been instructive
and engaging. Souhami’s retelling of Romaine’s tragic story, and of the
slow decline of her ability to function in the world, is emotionally valid.
I wish that Souhami had gone a bit further to the wild side herself instead
of just skirting its borders. If only she had expanded her personal

Book Reviews 197
reminiscences in a more related way and forged a true poetic connection
with Natalie and Romaine, instead of writing a hybrid work.
Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks certainly merit scholarly attention,
but they also deserve to be brought into our century as emotionally
relevant figures. We need to learn about their personal and cultural
lives, their artistic pursuits in a time when women–let alone womanloving
women–could hardly get the public attention they deserved. On
the other hand, we need to feel how the lives of these women–their love,
their courage, and even their shortcomings–still touch the lives of
women today. Let us hope that others will be inspired by these very different
books to wrest a few more secrets, a bit more poetry, from the extraordinary
lives of Natalie Barney and her circle.
*Mary Eichbauer, PhD, lives and works in northern California. Currently, she
works as a part-time researcher for Continuing Education at Stanford University.
Address correspondence to: Mary Eichbauer, 213 Military East, Benicia, CA
94510 (E-mail: gg-mee@ix.netcom.com).
DETECTING DANGEROUS DAMAS. Reviewed by Sara E. Cooper
and Rosa A. Martinez.*
WITH HER MACHETE IN HER HAND: READING CHICANA
LESBIANS, by Catrióna Rueda Esquibel.
With her pen in her hand the author Catrióna Rueda Esquibel warns
her reader from the very beginning about what she will attempt in her first
book. A sinvergüenza in the very best sense of the word (a woman without
shame) she has been digging up the dirt, worming her way into tales
of wanton women, and teasing out alternative truths that will set our teeth
on edge. She is on the search for some seriously dangerous damas. Inspired
by the words of Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Esquibel dares to interrogate
beyond the usual role of a scholar and becomes literary detective, unearthing
the real story about the history of Chicana lesbians in art and literature.
Quoting Ortiz Taylor in the epigraph of her prologue, Esquibel hints
about the critical methodology that she will create and follow for this book:

198 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
There is, let us say, a mystery at the heart of the fiction we are
reading. The reader–the detective–goes in search of clues. How
does she know what is a clue and what is a simple object or event,
innocent of significance?
The master detective assumes initially there is no such
thing as an innocent object or event. She stops along the way interrogating
lamp-posts and dead cats incidentally making herself ridiculous
to passersby. But gradually, through great patience and
a little luck, she amasses enough by way of object and event that
when spread out all across her bed, or her breakfast table, or even
her living room carpet they begin to group themselves into little
piles of similarity. Aha, says the detective . . . (xiii)
Each of the eight chapters is a case study, cross-examined and “told
over a cup of Joe,” as the Chicana “girl dick” says jokingly: “It won’t
have the narrative closure you’ve come to expect, or begin at the beginning.
In the beginning was the word, don’t you know that by now? So
I’ll start with the word, and make flesh out of the details. If you want
more that, you’ll have to go to the source” (xiv). Her book is not compiled
evidence to prove one great thesis; rather, she makes available to
her readers a number of possibilities and perspectives that have escaped
widespread notice until now. With Her Machete in Her Hand is not just
about “reading Chicana lesbians,” as she also discusses works by
straight male and female writers. She is not attached to one particular
definition of lesbian to the exclusion of others, but instead complicates
the generic definition and proposes a broader perspective along the lines
of “nonlesbian,” “lesbian-friendly” and “lesbian.” Like any good detective,
Esquibel allows her experience to inform her search for clues, but
keeps a clear understanding of each case as its own set of occurrences
and mysteries, victims and villains.
Harking back to Ortiz Taylor, we remember that Esquibel is proceeding
on the assumption that nothing is automatically innocent,
nor can anything escape concentrated scrutiny. Yet this goes far beyond
a mere queering of the text, a strategy that we have come to expect
in a postmodern age when it is fashionable to find hints of sexual
deviancy and double entendre in anything from Golden Age Hollywood
film (think Pillow Talk or The Wizard of Oz) to classic novels
and epic poetry (even Beowulf has been queered). The critic’s detective
persona has developed a modus operandi that serves her well in
the layout and internal progression of each chapter. To start she deviates
from the traditional reading and telling of mythical figures like

Book Reviews 199
La Llorona, introducing an alternative and postmodern perspective
through Chicana writers like Monica Palacios, Sandra Cisneros and
Gloria Anzaldúa. After she has prepared her reader with this history,
she extends this study into the following chapter and begins with a
fairly standard exposition of the theme and thesis of the chapter.
In her section titled “Black Velvet Fantasies,” she introduces the general
concept of the Aztec princess Ixtacihuatl, “the fourth figure,” as one
of the icons that traditionally supports and encourages a passive and
eroticized vision of the Chicana woman (43). Then she goes on to describe
the historical basis of the Popo and Ixta story, its subsequent theorization
by philosophers, and the incorporation of the visual image into
popular culture, especially films of the 1950s and a series of calendars
popularized by Jesus Helguera. Esquibel cogently deconstructs the
myths and their cultural appropriation, sharply questioning why viewing
the dead Ixta is so pleasurable to the spectator. The next set of clues
are found in a homosocial mural by Mañuel Cruz and a more likely homosexual
male depiction of the legendary pair by Joey Terrill. Up to
this point, the author has spread out the historical, philosophical, social,
and political context that surround the Aztec princess, looking critically
and suspiciously at each and every element before her. Only now will
she begin to uncover and analyze female-centered renditions of the
Ixtacihuatl legend, in the digital art of Alma López and Terri de la
Peña’s short story “La Maya.”
In the case of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Esquibel walks the reader
through a century-old investigation, pointing to sources that aim to define
Sor Juana as lesbian, heterosexual, or asexual; then, Esquibel proposes
a rereading through Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Estella Portillo and
Maria Luisa Bemberg. She uncovers the contradictions to expose the
underlying ambiguity. Not all of the cases are so ambiguous, however,
such as with the analysis of Cherrie Moraga’s A Mexican Medea. Here
the critic cum-detective takes a hard line in defining sexual identity,
suggesting that “with the seduction of Jason, Medea loses her legitimate
claim as the lesbian” (36), because this is central to a more sympathetic
reception of the butch character Luna, who otherwise may be kept at the
fringes because of her gender performance.
The chapter interrogating girlhood relationships introduces a much
more pliable definition of lesbian in order to explore both overtly lesbian
texts such as Emma Pérez’s Gulf Dreams and Terri de la Peña’s Margins,
but also the mainstream and assumedly heterosexual novels The House
on Mango Street and The Last of the Menu Girls (by Sandra Cisneros and
Denise Chávez, respectively). In her queering of the “Sally Stories” in

200 “Lesbians” in East Asia: Diversity, Identities, and Resistance
The House on Mango Street, the term “lesbian” is flexible, and focuses on
“intense girlhood friendships” and more general “the desire between
girls” (91). Esquibel searches for clues that indeed support her discovery
of female-centered desire. She makes clear, in the words of critic Bonnie
Zimmerman, that she is not “demanding a plot ...thatthewriterhasnot
chosen to create” but am “picking up on hints and possibilities that the author,
consciously or not, has strewn in the text” (94).
Esquibel’s approach will make this book a favorite for many types
of readers. On the one hand, the author sets up a comprehensive and
coherent context that helps to introduce and explicate some of the
lesser-known authors (anyone outside of the beloved Moraga and
Anzaldúa) in the area of Chicana lesbian literature. On the other hand,
the hundreds of cultural and literary allusions add depth for the seasoned
reader and scholar in the field. Also included in the book are a
helpful chronology of Chicana lesbian fictions and an extensive bibliography
of primary and secondary sources. In terms of style, With Her
Machete is eminently readable, and sometimes downright fun. Less
technically precise than lesbian Chicana critic Yvonne Yarbro
Bejarano, Esquibel is equally well-versed in theory and contemporary
literary criticism. She employs a historical bent reminiscent of Vicki
L. Ruiz, and a playful style like that so successfully employed by
AnaLouise Keating. From one of her mentors, Tey Diana Rebolledo,
she has taken a bit of the merciless taskmistress who notes the failings
of even favored artists, writers, and critics.
Overall, Esquibel’s ten years of research and preparation have paid
off. She convinces the reader that fascinating lesbian writers, voices and
characters abound, and may be uncovered by a dint of diligent searching.
She introduces us to several engaging texts that invite closer inspection,
and may even prompt some of us to open up our own detective
agency. Yet some questions remain unanswered. The conclusion, while
an interesting look at Anzald�a’s lesbian appropriation of the corrido
form, never really says what the author has concluded about “reading
Chicana lesbians” after her multiple case studies. Where do we go from
here? Does the reader now assume the role of master detective, left
alone to research what the author has left uninvestigated? Why does she
repeatedly mention Shiela Ortiz Taylor’s works, but never go into depth
with her? Finally, why does Esquibel shy away from the queer theorists
and their terminology, when there seems to exist so many parallels with
her own work? Given the obvious talent of this young scholar, one
hopes that this is her version of a cliffhanger, and that these questions

Book Reviews 201
and more will be answered in the next installment of Reading Chicano
Lesbians.
*Sara E. Cooper, PhD, is Associate Professor of Latin American literature and
multicultural and gender studies at the California State University, Chico, specializing
in gender and sexuality in Cubana and Latina cultural production.
Rosa A. Martinez, BA, is now writing her thesis on “The ungraspable phantom of
life; and this is the key to it all: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Contemporary Feminist
Thought” for her Master of Arts degree in English literature at the California State
University, Chico.

1) MANUSCRIPTS. Manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate to the Editor, Esther
D. Rothblum, PhD, San Diego State University, Women’s Studies Department,
5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-8138. All editorial inquiries
should be directed to the Editor. Books and other materials for review purposes
should be submitted to the Editor. A COMPLETE INSTRUCTIONS FOR AU-
THORS FORM IS AVAILABLE FROM THE EDITOR. PLEASE INCLUDE A
STAMPED SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE.
2) ORIGINALITY. Submission of a manuscript to this journal represents a certification on the part of
the author(s) that it is an original work, and that neither this manuscript nor a version of it has been
published nor is being considered for publication elsewhere.
3) COPYRIGHT. Copyright ownership of your manuscript must be transferred officially to
The Haworth Press, Inc., before we can begin the peer-review process. The Editor’s letter acknowledging
receipt of the manuscript will be accompanied by a form fully explaining this.
All authors must sign and date the form and return the original to the Editor as soon as possible.
Failure to return the copyright form in a timely fashion will result in delay in review and
subsequent publication. [SEE “MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION FORM”]
4) REPRINTS. The senior author will receive two copies of the journal issue as well as complimentary
reprints of his or her article. The junior author will receive two copies of the journal issue.
These are sent several weeks after the journal issue is published and in circulation. An order form
for the purchase of additional reprints will also be sent to all authors at this time. (Approximately
4-6 weeks are necessary for the preparation of reprints.) Please do not query the Journal’s Editor
about reprints. All such questions should be sent directly to The Haworth Document Delivery
Service, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 USA, 1-800-
HAWORTH or FAX 1-607-722-1424, E-mail address: docdelivery@ HaworthPress.com.
5) COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSIONS. For permission to reprint articles that have appeared in
Haworth journals, please contact: Copyright & Permissions Department, The Haworth Press, Inc.,
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 USA.
6) LIBRARY PHOTOCOPYING. ATTENTION LIBRARIANS: If your library subscribes to this
journal, Haworth® waives all photocopying fees or any royalty payments for multiple internal library
use. By “internal library use” we mean:
• photocopying multiple copies of any article for your reserve room or reference area
• photocopying of articles for routing to either students or faculty members
• multiple photocopying by students for coursework
• multiple photocopying by faculty members for passing out to students at no charge or for
their own files
• other traditional internal library multiple use of journal articles
For detailed information on the Instructions for Authors for Journal of Lesbian Studies, please go to:
http://haworthpress.com/AuthorEditor/Journals/IFAmaster.asp?sku=J155

Journal Ordering, Copyright, and Document Delivery Information
1) JOURNAL OF LESBIAN STUDIES TM
(ISSN: 1089-4160, Electronic ISSN: 1540-3548) (Imprint:
Harrington Park Press®) is owned and published by The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice
Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 USA.
The Journal of Lesbian Studies is the only professional journal devoted exclusively to the lesbian
experience. The content of articles focuses primarily on women who identify as lesbians. The
journal serves as a vehicle for the promotion of scholarship and commentary on lesbianism from
an international perspective.
2) BUSINESS OFFICE: Except for overseas sales representatives, all subscriptions and advertising
inquiries should be directed to The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY
13904-1580 USA. Telephone (607) 722-5857.
3) SUBSCRIPTION CYCLE: � Academic year basis (first issue in each volume begins in
September or Fall season)
D Calendar year basis (first issue in each volume begins in
January or Spring season)
� Irregular (first issue in each new volume will be published
on a to-be-announced date after publication of the final issue
of the preceding volume)
4) FREQUENCY: D Quarterly (4 issues per volume)
� Triannual (3 issues per volume)
� Biannual (2 issues per volume)
Additional volumes in any subscription year may be issued; these will be noted on renewal notices.
5) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: Subscriptions are on a per volume basis only. The following
prices are for the current volume only for the USA. Subscriptions must be prepaid.
US$: 48.00 individuals (paid by personal check);
US$: 95.00 institutions (examples: corporations, departments, institutes, social &
health service agencies/hospitals);
US$: 235.00 libraries and subscription agencies (e.g., whenever purchased either directly
or through a subscription agency).
6) CANADIAN ORDERS: Price of journal is 45% above domestic USA rate; Canadian G&S Tax of
6% must then be added (GST# R129786984), plus an additional 8% province tax in these four Canadian
provinces: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Labrador.
7) PAYMENT: U.S. and Canadian funds accepted; please add in current exchange rate if paying by
Canadian check or money order.
8) OUTSIDE USA AND CANADA: Price of journal is 55% above domestic USA rate.
9) POSTAGE & HANDLING: 10% postage & handling charge is included in journal subscription
rates. Journals are mailed via consolidated air mail outside the USA and Canada.
10) BACK VOLUMES: 55% above the current subscription rate.
11) SUBSCRIPTIONS THROUGH AGENCIES: Subscriptions through any subscription agency
subject to publisher’s credit check of subscription agency and payment record history of subscription
agency. Renewals through agents must be prepaid 60 days prior to renewal cycle of journal,
which is: November 1 for calendar-year journals and July 1 for academic-year journals. Library
subscribers will be notified if subscription agent does not remit renewal payments on this schedule.
All cancellations requiring refunds are subject to a 25% processing fee.
12) CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please notify the Subscription Department, The Haworth Press, Inc.,
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 USA of address changes. Please allow six weeks
for processing; include old and new addresses, as well as both zip codes.
13) COPYRIGHT © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may
be reproduced beyond limits set by fair use, or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. See also paragraphs 14 and 15
for obtaining photocopies. Printed in the United States of America.
Journal ordering, copyright, and document delivery information continued

14) LOCAL PHOTOCOPYING, DOCUMENT DELIVERY, FAIR USE, ANTHOLOGY PUB-
LISHING:
a) LOCAL PHOTOCOPYING may be done at no charge for classroom/educational/interlibrary-loan
use within the limits allowed by fair use statutes.
b) DOCUMENT DELIVERY is provided by the Haworth Document Delivery Service, 10 Alice
Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. Telephone orders and all major credit cards accepted.
The Haworth Press, Inc. has not licensed any document delivery service, firm, library, or organization
for the preparation of photocopies for the purpose of document delivery. Sole exception
is the Original Article Tear-sheet Service of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).
ISI’s right to prepare photocopies cannot be sold or licensed to a third party.
c) BEYOND FAIR USE photocopying requires a rights & permissions fee of $2.50 per copy, per
article or portion thereof with a minimum $25.00 rights & permissions fee on each request for
services, payable directly to the Publisher.
d) ANTHOLOGY PUBLISHING fees may be obtained from RuthAnn Heath, Rights & Permissions,
The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580.
15) SUB-LICENSING: The Haworth Press, Inc. can provide all photocopies of its materials through
its own Haworth Document Delivery Service. Official Sub-Licensee for Article Photocopies: Institute
for Scientific Information (ISI)/Research Alert, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
19104-3302 (USA) and all allied ISI services.
16) CLAIMING: The Publisher will, at no charge, replace any missing issue within one year of the
original mailing date.
17) GRACING: Journal issues are not “graced”; i.e., the first issue of a new volume is not mailed until
payment is received.
18) DISCLAIMER: The development, preparation, and publication of this work has been undertaken
with great care. However, the publisher, employees, editors, and agents of The Haworth Press and
all imprints of The Haworth Press, Inc., including The Haworth Medical Press® and Pharmaceutical
Products Press®, are not responsible for any errors contained herein or for consequences that
may ensue from use of materials or information contained in this work. Opinions expressed by the
author(s) are not necessarily those of The Haworth Press, Inc. With regard to case studies, identities
and circumstances of individuals discussed herein have been changed to protect confidentiality.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Offers by
Advertisers in Haworth Press journals are made by the Organization named therein and not by The
Haworth Press, Inc. The Haworth Press, Inc. disclaims any responsibility on its part for the fulfillment
or performance of any such offer. All inquiries with respect to such offer should be made directly
to the Advertiser. The publisher and its editorial staff do not endorse and make no warranty,
express or implied, with respect to any third-party products, services or offerings advertised in this
journal.
19) LIBRARY PHOTOCOPYING: ATTENTION LIBRARIANS: If your library subscribes to this
journal, Haworth® waives all photocopying fees or any royalty payments for multiple internal library
use. By “internal library use” we mean:
• photocopying multiple copies of any article for your reserve room or reference area
• photocopying of articles for routing to either students or faculty members
• multiple photocopying by students for coursework
• multiple photocopying by faculty members for passing out to students at no charge or for their
own files
• other traditional internal library multiple use of journal articles