The Experience of Women Whose Partners Have Come Out as Transgender : A Challenge to the Existing Family Image in Japan

トランスジェンダー　デ　アル　パートナー　ニ　カミングアウト　サレタ　ジョセイタチ　ノ　ケイケン　ニホン　ニ　オケル　キソン　ノ　カゾクゾウ　ヘノ　チョウセン

Zhao, Yingying

オオサカ ダイガク ダイガクイン ニンゲン カガク ケンキュウカ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

トランスジェンダーのパートナー

カミングアウト

ジェンダー・トランジション

近代家族

transgender

women with transgender partners

coming out

gender transition

modern family

Articles

This article focuses on women in Japan whose partners have come out as transgender. The purpose is to describe the situation of these women, which has long been overlooked in Japanese society, by revealing their feelings, including their worries, and how they maintain their relationships. Toward this end, interviews were conducted with four cisgender women who had transgender partners, either at the time of the study or previously. The following results were obtained. First, the women provide more support than their transgender partners, but they do not perceive this as inequality. Second, their problems are considered personal rather than social in Japan, which exacerbates their worries. Third, they see their transgender partners as “family members to protect” and do not seem to place much emphasis on reciprocity within the relationship. Based on these fi ndings, the women’s behavior appears to be associated with mental satisfaction and gender role expectations. Moreover, due to the invisibility of transgender people in Japanese society, their partners are also marginalized and their troubles have become more serious. The women in this study came to the view that they are challenging the existing family image by transforming their relationship with their partner as a “family member to protect.” This suggests that the social environment surrounding the couples and families made up of cisgender heterosexual people in Japan (or, more broadly, in Asia) may also affect the partnerships of transgender people.