Tokyo, Japan – When Japanese book publisher Kadokawa announced last year that it would publish a translation of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, it sparked a culture war clash rarely seen in Japan.
Transgender rights activists staged a protest outside Kadokawa’s offices in Tokyo, while social media users accused the publisher of bigotry – from platforming a “trans hater” to “inciting discrimination through public relations.”
Within days, Kadokawa announced that it had canceled the planned release and apologized for the concern.
“We had planned to publish the translation in the hope that it would help readers in Japan deepen their discussions about gender issues based on events in Europe and the United States,” the publisher said in a statement in December.
“But the title and sales copy ultimately caused harm to those directly involved.”
Shrier, a former Wall Street Journal opinion columnist, condemned the move as an example of mob-driven censorship.
“Kadokawa, my Japanese publisher, are very nice people. But by giving in to an activist-led campaign against irreversible harm, they are emboldening the forces of censorship,” she wrote on X.
“America can learn a lot from Japan, but we can teach them how to deal with censored shoutouts.”
Kadokawa, my Japanese publisher, are very nice people. But by giving in to an activist-led campaign against irreversible harm, they are emboldening the forces of censorship.
America can learn a lot from Japan, but we can teach them how to deal with censored whiners. https://t.co/ReogpOaQtD
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) December 5, 2023
When a rival publisher, Sankei Shimbun Publications, announced it would publish the book instead, the firestorm continued to rage.
The publisher, known for its conservative editorial line, said it received an email threatening arson against bookstores that carried the title.
Sankei Shimbun refused to give in to activists’ demands and published Shrier’s book earlier this month under the revised title Girls Who Want to Be Transgender: The Tragedy of a Fad Fueled by Social Networking, Schools, and Medicine.
The controversy surrounding the book Irreversible Damage follows a scenario that has become familiar in the United States and other Western countries, where factions on the left and right disagree over the line between protecting marginalized groups and preserving free speech.
But such culture war battles have been unusual in Japan, where companies are generally reluctant to get involved in politics or hot-button social issues, highlighting how national boundaries are increasingly blurring in the age of social media.
“Some of the US obsession with culture wars and identity politics and representation carries over to Japan,” Roland Kelts, whose book Japanamerica examined the growing influence of Japanese culture in the US, told Al Jazeera.
“Japan has always had a permissive attitude towards gender and gender play. Now it is coming to the surface of logic and meaning through a bilingual younger generation.”
“The mere existence of an East-West dialogue between Japan and the US on sensitive contemporary issues is more important to me than the content of the dialogue or the platform for it,” Kelts added.
Japan has its own history of book bans and successful boycott campaigns.
From 1911 to 1945, the Tokko, also called the “thought police,” was tasked with suppressing political groups and ideologies that conflicted with the “national essence,” resulting in the banning of literature such as Genzaburo Yoshino’s children’s novel “How Do You Live?” led was considered subversive due to its anti-authoritarian messages.
More recently, books that cast Japanese culture and history in an unsavory light have found it difficult to reach bookstore shelves, including “The Rape of Nanking” by Iris Chang, which was withdrawn in 1999 by its future publisher, Kashiwashobo became.
Kelts said there is “no decisive superiority” between U.S. and Japanese publishers when it comes to upholding libertarian principles, even though U.S. society places a strong emphasis on free speech.
“Japanese publishers fear right-wing retaliation and violence; “American publishers fear cancellation by the left,” he said.
“In this time of blinders, cancellation becomes a badge of honor, also because the offended parties are so poorly trained,” he added.
“When you cancel a work of art or entertainment, you give it a platform in a media world suffocated by content, and if your whining is ill-informed, all the better for your opponent. “That alone is good advertising.”
Although there is a long history of transgender people in the public eye in Japan, including Aya Kawakami and Tomoya Hosoda, elected officials in Tokyo and Saitama, respectively, the country is not widely considered a bastion of LGBTQ rights.
But legal and social mores have gradually shifted toward greater acceptance.
In October, Japan’s Supreme Court struck down a law requiring transgender people to undergo sterilization surgery in order to legally recognize their gender.
Several lower courts have also ruled that the nationwide ban on same-sex marriage is discriminatory, although the government refused to change the law.
Japan’s Diet, the lower house of parliament, is currently considering proposals for a revised law, including the possibility of mandatory hormone treatment, which the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has recommended against.
In a survey by Japanese national broadcaster NHK last year, only 9 percent of Japanese believed that the human rights of sexual minorities were being protected.
A Jiji Press poll that same year found that only 17 percent opposed passing an LGBTQ rights law.
Tokyo Rainbow Pride has also become one of Asia’s largest annual LGBTQ events, while Kawasaki’s Kanayama Matsuri, a popular festival where community members carry model penises on floats, has become a de facto celebration of Tokyo’s gay, drag and Trans communities have become dozens and dozens attract thousands of visitors every year.
“Culturally, in Japan we have no problem accepting any kind of sexual orientation,” Yuko Kawanishi, a sociologist and researcher who specializes in cross-cultural mental health issues and gender issues, told Al Jazeera.
“Because of our tendency to emphasize the collective – the nail that sticks out gets hammered in – it is a difficult country for anyone outside the majority norm, not just members of the LGBTQ community.”
“Japanese people are historically non-confrontational,” Kawanishi added. “Most people still want to come to some sort of consensus.”
Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer in Japanese studies at Kanda University, said Kadokawa’s publication of Shrier’s book would have gone largely unnoticed had it not been posted on social media.
“[Kadokawa’s account] “I published strongly worded endorsements of the book’s anti-transgender ideology,” Hall told Al Jazeera.
“Through these posts, transgender activists became aware of the book and launched a protest campaign – an example of how people exercise their right to freedom of expression in a democratic society.”
Hall, whose research focuses on conservative activism in Japan, said he believes right-wing publisher Sankei as well as conservative commentators and influencers have used the controversy to their advantage.
“The conservative activists involved in ushering in the Western ‘culture war’ discourse are successfully making money from their own book sales and publishing articles attacking LGBTQ rights activists,” he said.
“Since there is money to be made by stoking anger over this issue, don’t expect it to go away any time soon.”