One of the most-profile experiments in genderless toilets in Japan has ended quickly rather ignominiously. When Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, the latest example of the gentrification of Shinjuku's red-light district, opened in the spring, its decision to have genderless restrooms on the second floor immediately attracted attention -- largely in terms of concerns over female safety. The toilets are all in stalls but the hand-washing station was shared by all users. Soon social media was flooded with footage of men loitering around the entrance and wash basins for seemingly no reason than perhaps to ...

Has the woke brigade, as some disparagingly call it, finally caught up with Japan? The gentrification of Kabukicho is still ongoing and a new commercial complex, imaginatively called Kabukicho Tower, recently opened in the Shinjuku nightlight and red-light district. Many noted that though it has conventionally gendered toilets on the upper floors, its second-floor restrooms are designated "all genders." The only segregation, according to the pictographs, is by whether you want to stand or sit down in the unisex stalls. The restroom has a shared washing station. Some have hailed this as a ...

Things about gender are not always clearcut in Japan. Some of the guys can spend as much time and money on their skincare and hair as the ladies. Styles of haircuts and clothing too are not always divided down the conventional male-female divide, from the male kimono to the elaborate styling of nightclub hosts. And that's before we even get into the deep and rich world of crossdressing and transgender. While we will leave the cultural theory implications about this to the armchair philosophers among our readers, we were delighted to come across this story about the apparent new hit in the ...

This video by i-D features interviews with young people who identity as genderless. The makers say that this "hypnotic youth movement are [sic] rejecting ideas of fashion defining sexuality" and call it "Tokyo's most boundary-pushing scene". The interviews are with four people -- Yutaro, Muyua, Yoshiaki, and Satsuki Nakayama (pictured below) -- who all have quite large followings on social media. Genderless identity has particularly risen to the fore in the Japanese media recently with the popularity of the model and television personality Ryucheru. "When I first wore a skirt, my ...

Overseas there has recently been a lot of talk about making things like public toilets "genderless" so as not to show bias towards people who do not identity by binary genders. Japan has not embraced this kind of debate in the same way, not least because the LGBT community is largely reduced to being a subculture without real legal rights. On the other hand, fluid gender identity has been part of Japanese culture for a long time in Kabuki and so on. In many ways people just don't need all the labels and legal discussions that have obsessed other countries for the past generation. Things ...

Ignition has posted an article about transgender artist Pyuupiru, who makes costumes such as the elaborate "Planetaria" series. The article also provides a glimpse into the domestic arrangements of someone in Tokyo who has undergone sex realignment, living in the suburbs and taking in stray cats. She was born a man, she explains, but always felt she had the soul of a woman. Having suffered for much of her life from obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe depression, she began making art around the same time she began to think about changing her body and identity. Born out of such ...

Illustrator Mao Sugiyama may have been forgiven for considering himself/herself unusual as a transgender who underwent an operation to remove his/her penis and testicles. But then cosplay-dressing Mao took a stage further. In April he organized a "banquet" with his pals to celebrate his new gender alignment by, well, cooking and eating his cock and balls. He was tested for STDs and came out all clear. Even so, the diners signed a waiver absolving Sugiyama from blame if his cock disagreed with their stomachs. The enthusiastic auto-cannibal even tried to burn off his ...