Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

November 17, 2024. I was waving at the Tokyo Trans March in Shinjuku. The blue, pink, and white flags stood out against the warm summer sunshine.

The Tokyo Trans March is a parade to promote recognition and understanding of transgender people and to secure their safety and rights.It happened to be Transgender Awareness Week (November 13-19) and the weekend before Transgender Memorial Day (November 20).

The parade was made up of several dozen to about 100 people. Perhaps because of some trouble with the organizing group last year, the management structure had been revised this time. The number of participants, which once reached 1,000, was significantly reduced. I think it was the lowest number ever.

However, the scale and the impact were not proportional. The calls and responses of “Let us live!” “Let us live!” were more powerful than ever, roaring off the buildings. I had cheered from the sidelines the previous two times, but honestly, this time it really hit me.

I even felt that the passion and unity was on a different level compared to when there was a wide variety of participating groups and claims.

This was especially evident among the people who seemed to be family members and supporters.

“Hello! We are Tokyo Trans March!”they said, looking me directly in the eye.

When I waved, they waved back twice as hard. Their smiles as they marched showed their determination, strengthened even by the rain.

As I watched the parade go by, I remembered the day I met S-kun and his mother.

S was a trans man. He was not assigned as a woman at birth, but lived his life as a man. He was my mother’s boyfriend. He was closer in age to me, though. It was more than 20 years ago. We lived together for about 6-7 years, starting from my college days.

He had a small family. He was an only child in a single-parent household. He had only seen his father in a photo. He said he had forgotten that too. He had almost no contact with his relatives.

His mother worked both as a receptionist and cleaner at a building and worked a night job to raise him. Her love for him was unquestionable, but she still did not accept his sexuality. She stubbornly called him “S-ko” and forced him to be “feminine,” saying, “You’re a woman.” Even something as simple as changing the skirt of his school uniform would lead to shouting matches. S-kun chose to live apart from his only family, and left home as soon as he graduated from junior high school.

After that, we would contact each other a few times a year, just to let him know that we weren’t dead. We were almost estranged for about 10 years, until he came to live with us.

A few years had passed since I started living with S-kun. He spoke to my younger brother and me at the dining table. His eyes narrowed as he smiled, hiding his awkwardness.

“I wonder if you’d like to meet my mother.”

My mother and the two of us. He wanted to introduce his current family to my mother and reassure her. Perhaps he also intended to give her a final warning that “I’m not going to get married the way you expect me to.”

S-kun confessed that he had been thinking about it for a long time. As his life with us got on track, it seems that his resentment towards his family had turned into impatience.

“I remember this every time a celebrity who was my mother’s age dies,” he exhaled a Marlboro cigarette in an old Shonan dialect. “Okay then.” My brother and I didn’t say anything more.

We met in December in Yokohama’s Chinatown. I still remember that as soon as we passed through the Pailou, the Christmas mood of Japan Boulevard seemed far away. The alleys of the town were painted from red to vermilion. The four of us headed to a small, long-established Chinese restaurant. For S-kun’s mother, luxury was the sweet and sour pork at that restaurant.

Naturally, we were ready for her arrival. S-kun spread his arms and stopped us as we panicked, wondering which seat was at the head of the round table. “Okay. There’s only one thing to be careful of. Don’t mention Kiyokawa Nijiko’s name. Also, Awaya Noriko is taboo.”
Don’t say it now. And there are two. What would happen if someone outside was listening?

Indeed.

“Hello. I’m S-san’s mother.”

Her voice was so deep it made me flinch. The lady who entered the private room was a silver screen actress who had become a leading figure. She had the dignity I expected. She was dressed in a chic set-up, yet somehow glamorous. She even looked thorny.

The three members of the Kusaka family stood upright and bowed deeply. As soon as she sat down, she called the waiter in a high-pitched voice, without even looking at us, let alone the menu,”I decided what you want to order here” 

After S-kun finished the basic introduction of his family, it was time for her solo performance. She rested her chin on the table and continued to talk nonchalantly. She didn’t even care when the food was brought out. We had no time to pick up our chopsticks, and we were completely absorbed in listening. She told us a number of stories that all began with “I.” 

“I love painting. I paint myself. I actually prefer oil painting, but the smell bothers me in the housing complex. So I have to make do with paints. Ah, I want to move to Paris.”

“I’m not educated, but even if I went to university, it’s only useful for a few people. Most people are idiots. You guys should be careful not to become like that.”

 “In that respect, Van Gogh was great. What’s great about him is that he didn’t become great until he died. I can understand how he felt. Lately, I’ve been reading his letters before going to bed. I want to hurry home today and read the rest.”

She gulped down a glass of beer instead of water. I took the opportunity to speak to S-kun with my eyes.(Oh, S-kun must have had a hard time.) He blinked slowly.

The sweet and sour pork, dumplings, and chili shrimp all went cold without anyone touching them. The steamed xiaolongbao dumplings had lost their moisture. It was bad. Putting the food aside, I couldn’t achieve my goal of reassuring S-kun’s mother. If
something happened to S-kun, we might have to contact each other. If we didn’t build a relationship of trust here, he would be in trouble.

It seemed that they were thinking the same thing. My mother and brother exchanged glances with me. Eldest son, do something. Big brother, do something.

I took a gamble.

“Auntie, have you seen ‘Man of Fire(Lust for Life)’?”

Of course I hadn’t seen it. It was a movie about Van Gogh’s life. It must have been. It was a pretty old work. It must have been. So she must know. I assumed.

Smileeeee.

I laughed. Finally, S’s mother laughed. It seemed that I was accepted as someone she could talk to. Maybe she was lonely, too.
S blinked repeatedly. (Musuta! You did it!) Everyone is always so easygoing and leaves it to others.

From there. The actor looked just like Van Gogh himself, and it was a masterpiece, and the conversation continued, and I was sure that the brothers must have been very good at school if they had watched that movie. He went on to praise the Kusaka family, saying that they looked like a warm family, and that they must have been. In the end, he was so moved that he said, “I was also a single parent, so I really understand your difficulties,” and he and my mother became friends through tears.

My brother and I took the opportunity to spin the table and stuff our faces with food. The sweet and sour pork from Chinatown was exceptional, even when it was cold. S-kun was also laughing as he added sugar to the Shaoxing wine.

“I’ll pay for this. I hate being treated.”

And so, I ended up saying goodbye to her, who hates both seeing people off and being seen off, in front of the restaurant. You go to the right, I go to the left.

In a voice that was almost drowned out by the December crowd, but as if handing it over firmly, she said,

“My daughter is like this. I love her, so please take care of her.”

She bowed deeply enough to see the crown of her head. She put both her fingertips together in front of her stomach. Those were probably three fingers. She didn’t say, “She’s a clumsy girl.” On the contrary, she never told me a story about “S-ko” until the end. It was her way of blessing S-kun and us. As I bowed back, I finally realized.

After that, the dinner became an annual event. From dispelling anxiety to showing filial piety. She seemed to be looking forward to it very much. She said she was saving up money to treat her. I heard that she had also carefully stored away in her dresser the New Year’s cards we had sent her. Those New Year’s cards that began with “Auntie”. We may have been like grandchildren to her.

Tokyo Trans March 2024.
This time, we were able to do something that we couldn’t do in the previous 1,000-person parade. We tried to find S-kun and S-kun’s mother along the route of the march. There was no way they would be there. In the first place, those two are not that kind of people.
Even if they were there, we, who had been separated as a family for some reason, had no words to say for reunion.

But still. I vividly imagined the two of them, especially S-kun’s mother, waving flags and shouting slogans. Because she was “Man of fire” who burn brightly once she was ignited. That voice, which carries like an actress, suits the parade well. I have decided to go again next time. I may be waving to S-kun, S-kun’s mother, and ourselves.

fin.