I first learned about Okiyo’s story from the advice of Susan Stryker, who pointed me to a single paragraph in Todd Henry’s article “Between Surveillance and Liberation: The Lives of Cross-Dressed Male Sex Workers in Early Postwar Japan” (The Transgender Studies Reader 2 edited by Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura, 2013) about the Ueno Park riot Okiyo instigated. I do not believe a single paragraph is adequate to describe a historical pre-Stonewall LGBTQ+ riot. I knew there must be more to the story. I also wanted to dive deeper into Henry’s questionable description of danshō as “crossdressed male sex workers,” as many of these individuals would later identify with the English terms transsexual and transgender.
Okiyo’s story was one of the most frustrating to track, as I ran into numerous problems with sources. Japan has extremely strict copyright laws, making access to digital information difficult. As I mentioned in the book, Okiyo’s records were also bombed by the US in their massacres against the civilians of Osaka. Finally, only one Japanese scholar is studying transgender history, Junko Mitsuhashi, whose limited work helped me locate additional sources for Okiyo’s story. There are a handful of Western scholars studying queer and trans people in Japan, although their work on danshō is limited. And, of course, I also don’t speak Japanese, but I found a colleague who would translate.
In Before Gender‘s original manuscript, I went off on a tangent about how Japan’s draconian copyright laws prevented historical research (thankfully for you, my editor made me cut that bit!). When I finished Before Gender‘s first draft, digital materials from the Japanese National Diet Library (NDL) were only accessible in three locations across the US. When I started writing about Okiyo, it was only two. By sheer luck, the Met Library, a thirty-minute subway ride from me, obtained access before I completed the manuscript. I woke up early in the morning to make the trek several times. The NDL’s digital collections contain over 2.5 million items, but only 20% are available online. The other 80% are withheld due to Japan’s strict copyright law. This was a huge (and unnecessary) barrier to finding information. Aside from the news collection, all items were from 1968 or older, meaning most copyright holders are not profiting from the works, anyway. Many of the withheld materials were also out of print and “orphan works” (“works that are likely still protected by copyright, but have no identifiable copyright owner”). In the US, orphan works are often digitized. In Japan, however, they are strictly withheld. This means only people who can physically go to the limited viewing locations can access these works.
This image comes from a screenshot of a digital copy of her book, Sengo fūzoku taikei: Waga megami-tachi (A survey of entertainment after the war: My goddesses). “Because of this heroic episode, Okiyo was regarded as a hero by danshō all over the country,” Keiichi wrote. The book is still available in Japan and in Kindle format globally.
“Eiichi Tanaka in the forest that night, beaten by a danshō. People bitterly laughed [at him] (November 22, 1948).” Note that Ueno Park was colloquially known as the “forest of danshō.”
