Kazuyoshi Kawasaka and Stefan Würrer Introduction: A new age of visibility? LGBTQ+ issues in contemporary Japan The 2010s was an epoch-making decade for LGBTQ+ people in Japan. The cultural and political representation of sexual minorities became mainstream in many areas of Japanese society in ways that were reminiscent of, but considerably differ- ent from, earlier periods. While LGBTQ+ issues in Japan have received scholarly attention since the 1990s¹, there is little scholarship in English that focuses on de- velopments after 2000, let alone the 2010s. With this volume, we aim to bridge this gap by shedding light on political and cultural representations of and by sexual minorities in Japan from the 2010s, making available in English novel perspectives on LGBTQ+ issues in Japan. In the following sections, we outline the major socio- political developments in the Japanese LGBTQ+ context during the decades leading up to the 2010s, to provide the necessary context for a more nuanced understand- ing of the issues discussed in the papers included in this volume. Early activism: Challenging the heterosexist status quo Japan never criminalized sexual activities between same-sex partners, nor did it out- law cross-dressing, except for a short period between 1872 and 1880. In addition, Jap- anese law provides the option of adult adoption, a system sometimes used by same- sex couples to circumvent property, inheritance, and other family-related issues such as hospital visitation rights or legal guardianship of one’s partner. Since the author- ities do not prosecute sexual minorities and adult adoption of one’s same-sex part- ner is possible, Japan might be considered “tolerant” toward LGBTQ+ people. But tol- erance implies prejudice. Moreover, modern Japanese society has been shaped by male-centered, heterosexist, and cis-genderist norms based on the ideal of the het- erosexual family and tends to stigmatize non-normative expressions of gender, sex- uality, and kinship (Lunsing, 2001). The social acceptance of sexual minorities is also often unfairly distributed by gender, as well as by class, race, ethnicity, and nation- 1 Baudinette, 2021; Chalmers, 2002; Frühstück, 2022; Lunsing, 2001; Mackintosh, 2010; Maree, 2020; Martin et al., 2008; McLelland, 2000, 2005; McLelland et al., 2007, 2015; McLelland & Dasgupta, 2005; McLelland & Mackie, 2015; Pflugfelder, 1999; Reichert, 2006; Roberson & Suzuki, 2003; Suganuma, 2012; Summerhawk et al., 1998; Vincent, 2012; Welker 2019, 2022. Open Access. © 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110767995-004