I started going to a Japanese speaking group in US . Of course, Japanese textbooks and practice are ALL ABOUT family and photographs and such. Then it gets onto well lets talk about your family and I don’t know how to do this.
In English this can go thousands of ways and there is tons of nuance. Google isn’t really helping here (there is commentary about media representation, cultural issues, legal standing etc, but not really how to talk about it like this).
I just want to talk about me, my married female partner (who I commonly refer to as my wife, partner or spouse depending on the situation), and our daughter. If my wife were male, I wouldn’t have have problems explaining my family tree. But I don’t know the words to explain it because she’s female. Is 妻 okay for me to use?
Right now, I’m not worried about outing myself- I live in the Chicagoland area, am planning on staying here, and I’m not currently looking for work or to move to Japan (if my language skills progress to the point where I could work/move to japan, then I’ll worry about that bridge when I get there, but not now)
I just want to be able to communicate the basic stuff. How do I do that?
I will second this question. I have never found what the appropriate Japanese words are.
There are tons of other LGBT folks here, so I hope that someone has. I would love to have a talk with a queer Japanese person about this, because I am sure that the situation is just as nuanced as it is here.
The extra nuance: when traveling, sometimes 姉妹 is the only safe option.
I did see the term ままたち in the context of multiple female parents to a child. If its actually used it is unknown to me (it was in a fan comic, so WHO KNOWS how useful that is. The context was a letter written by a small child , so only written hiragana) but I LOVE IT.
I’m gay and I’ve been involved with LGBT activism to some degree since I came to Japan, so maybe I can answer something, dunno.
But what exactly do you want to know? I mean, most of the time we just use the normal words that everybody else uses, it’s not like we have a secret code straight people don’t understand. Ok. Maybe we do have it because of words like ノンケ and so on, but no one talks about their families like that, hahahaha.
But seriously, because of the low usage of pronouns, Japanese is very gender neutral when compared to most European languages. In general if people are talking about family/relationship, don’t want to make a statement but still don’t want to lie, they just use non-specific words. 恋人、パートナー、相手、相棒 and etc are all words that can be used without caring about gender. Of course they have different nuances, and referring to your current spouse as パートナー for example sounds pretty cold and may raise some flags depending on the listener. But as a foreigner, most likely the Japanese person will just dismiss it as non-native word choice and won’t think much, on my opinion.
There is nothing wrong with using 彼氏、彼女、旦那、奥さん、妻 and so on while being an LGBT, everyone does that. But of course you will get some confused reactions if you do it out of nowhere without any explanation, hahaha.
About inside-family words, like how a child would refer to their parents, I don’t really know. And LGBT families are a pretty new thing in Japan, so I doubt many people could give a definite answer for that. But again, I don’t see why a child wouldn’t use ママ or お母さん just because they have two. They also have more than one grandparent, uncle, aunt, siblings and so on and no problem with that. Maybe they would just attach the name before it? A母ちゃん and B母ちゃん？ But I digress…
You shouldn’t have to modify your language, really. I live in Japan and when I’m talking about my wife I call her 妻, and my teachers and classmates refer to her as my 奥さん. I’m in language school, so if there were anything awkward about the words I use, multiple people definitely would have corrected me by now. As it is, when I have a new instructor, the first time I say 妻 they double check that I actually mean wife and haven’t mixed up my words, and then usually later on ask if she lives here, and when I say that she lives in America they ask if they can see photos of her.
My Japanese (as, both being from Japan and teaching Japanese) instructor at university did the same. We had to write a little text about our family and turn it in, and when we got it back, she came up to me and asked me in a hushed tone whether I really intended to write おっと. It felt a little awkward, but when I said “yes, I wanted to say ‘husband’”, she didn’t object, so it should be fine.
I have not had this experience in Japanese, but in the other languages I’ve learned.
What I found important is that each expression had its own semantic value when it comes to represent your own openness, that is how much out of the closet you are, and how much in your face you want to be. For a great part, I had to do some trial-and-error soul-searching into what person I wanted to be and once I established that I could then match it to the right expression to properly represent me.
Some languages I speak are geographically from heavily religious and machist countries, some of which do not even recognise same-sex couples or marriages. Although being gay is not illegal (any more), that doesn’t always match people’s attitude. You have then to think about what you want to talk about and what you may decide to keep private in terms of your personal safety, professional career, etc.
I wonder whether there is anything like that in Japan?
Well, Japan does not recognize same-sex couples or marriage either. Unless you consider those cute town-issued certificates that won’t do much for you other than maybe allowing you to get the hospital documents of your partner or so. (That being said, I find the certificates important from a historical point of view. They show that society is changing and there is demand for same-sex marriage, but what they can do for you right now is almost nothing.)
Everything below is based solely on my own experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
About people’s attitude towards LGBT, sexism and etc, from my personal experience as long as you look foreigner, Japanese are willing to accept pretty much anything. You can be gay, Muslim, vegan, transgender, alien, mutant… They will be just like へぇー、世界が広いですね, see it as a “different culture” (even when it is not) and not give it much thought. Don’t try the same being a Japanese national. (Hell, Japanese vegetarians suffer)
Japanese also tend to be a lot more private regarding love matters than western people. When they are married and have kids of course they are open about it, but when just dating even if they are straight Japanese people will often actively hide their partners from other people. It is also not that common to invite your partner to your circle of friends if they don’t have a previous connection, so from my experience (which is pretty much limited to gay cis men) many Japanese don’t feel pressured by the fact they aren’t open at their workplace and will argue why they should do that in the first place, if you ask.
In general, I think Japanese try to not get much into other people’s lives, so as long the said LGBT is not a member of their own family, they are quite chill with it.
