A rape survivor’s letter to the police officer — Dear Officer, When you came to my apartment, I felt relieved. I was thinking, finally, I was safe. That feeling of safety was shuttered when I noticed you were constantly avoiding using the word “rape” to refer to what had happened to me an hour prior. When I said, “the…

A couple days ago, a graduate student from France studying journalism, Elina Pernin, interviewed me via e-mail. I asked them if I could share the interview on my blog and they kindly agreed, so here’s the interview. — Could you present yourself and tell me what you’re doing in life? Where do you live and where are you from? I am Masaki C. Matsumoto. I am a freelance writer and speaker on issues pertaining to gender and sexuality politics, while also being the owner and co-manager of a…

An undergraduate student currently undertaking a class assignment asked me these questions and they kindly gave consent to my sharing their questions & my answers on my blog. — 1. Representation of the LGBTQIA+ community has been prominent in the media for many years. What are your thoughts on the current representation of queer relationships in the media? Do you think the representation is mainly positive?

When I started college, there already existed prides and rainbow flags. I didn’t have to create queer spaces to join or queer symbols to identify with. They were there, and I’d join rainbow-filled events and groups. And I was constantly disappointed with how those events were trans-indifferent, gay men-centered, obsessed…

When we queers are loved and accepted by our families, we often see it as a beautiful thing, maybe even as one of the most desirable moments that can ever happen in a queer person’s life. We feel nothing but happy for the queer kid, when we hear stories like…

Language is a weird thing. It’s external but also integral to our human psyche. By the time you’ve learned to speak, you become situated, recognizably to all including yourself, in the world. But if language has such a formational functionality, it must mean that when we learn a second language…

A guest lecture at Aoyama Gakuin University — On Thursday, December 14, I went to the Shibuya campus of Aoyama Gakuin University to give a guest lecture in a gender & law class (taught in English). It was a big class, consisting of approx. 140 students, mostly beginners-level ESL speakers. That made giving the lecture quite a challenge…

I was interviewed by a student in the UK and here are excerpts from my answers. On recent changes in Japan regarding LGBTQ politics First and foremost, the acronym LGBT has gotten currency in mainstream media. Many people now know what it means or at least have heard of it and have a vague idea of what it…

An unofficial feminist sequel to Doraemon: Part 1 — Well, it doesn’t bother me much any longer now, but when the series began, I felt a massive amount of fury deep inside and it rose from the bottom of my stomach up my heart and throat. I had never expected my name to be used that way. I had…