1/30 Being Lesbians in Japan: Claiming Lesbian Lives and Negotiating Heterosexual Norms Diana Khor and Saori Kamano (Unpublished Manuscript, 2008) Abstract Drawing from interviews with 22 lesbians in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan, this paper explores how lesbians negotiate heterosexist norms and claim their lives and identities in the family of origin and at work. The homosocial environment makes it relatively easy for lesbians to pass as single women, and yet at the same time, single women are also stigmatized in failing to live up to heterosexist ideals. It is therefore significant that the lesbians interviewed tended not to emphasize an affirmation of their identity but rather their partnership with a woman, as well as identification with other women on the basis of shared oppression and constraints in a gender-segregated and unequal society. While the indirect exchange in the family of origin should be considered in the context of the silent communicative rules in Japan rather than deemed ineffective, the parents’ ambivalence and the integration of a daughter’s partner into the family as a daughter could suggest either absorption, and hence undercutting, of the transgressive (lesbianism) into the familiar (kinship), or a genuine acceptance of the daughter’s partner and honest concern for the daughter, given stigmatization of women who deviate from the conventional life course in Japan. Note: This paper was written in 2008 based on the presentation at the International Conference on LGBT Rights, 1st World Outgames Montreal 2006, July 26-29, Montreal, Canada. (Presentation Title: Kamano, Saori and Diana Khor. 2006, “‘Coming out’ for Lesbians in Japan: Meanings and Implications” (Panel: Multifaceted Lesbian Lives in Japan Today))