Surviving Discrimination in Transgender Communities: An Analysis of Japanese Nonbinary Online Communities from 2005 to the 2010s

This study aims to clarify how nonbinary individuals in Japan have created their spaces in online communities while facing discrimination. In transgender communities, stories that do not conform to the norm of binary gender transitions have been shared through online networks. In Japan, communities of people with gender identity disorder began to form around the year 2000, and transgender individuals used personal websites to disseminate information. However, much of this community-building left nonbinary individuals, such as those identifying as X-jendā, neither female nor male, largely invisible. The practices of nonbinary people who faced exclusion and struggled to find their place while creating online spaces in Japan remain unclear. Therefore, this study analyzes texts and discussions on platforms such as the social networking service mixi, the anonymous bulletin board 2channel, and Twitter (now X) from around 2005 to the 2010s, as well as data from interviews with transgender/nonbinary individuals about those online discussions.

The analysis reveals that around 2005, mixi and 2channel functioned as spaces where X-jendā individuals could share their processes of identity formation. However, around 2010, discussions about the definition of X-jendā began to arise on 2channel, and on Twitter, comments reflecting binary transgender individuals’ difficulty in understanding nonbinary people started surfacing. Comments on 2channel in the latter half of the 2010s show an increase in discriminatory interpretations, such as labeling nonbinary identities as chūnibyō (a term mocking self-consciousness) or as an escape from gender roles. These biased discourses resulted in both the movement within nonbinary online communities to clarify the definition of X-jendā and the creation of the norm that various personal definitions of X-jendā should be respected.

This study sheds light on nonbinary individuals’ discriminatory online experiences and contributes to understanding the prejudicial behaviors and community-building efforts within Japan’s trans/nonbinary communities, often overlooked in English-speaking contexts.