As a queer person living in Kyoto, I really lucked out. Though I worried constantly about the reaction I would receive from Japanese people, the host family with which KCJS placed me turned out to be very open-minded. Whether they really understand it as much as they claim when I say that I’m queer and gender-queer is open to debate, but I know they respect me and make legitimate attempts to make me feel comfortable in a foreign culture that can, given the opportunity, be stifling for members of the LGBTQIA, call it what you will, community.

My perspective of what it’s like to be queer in Japan is, I admit, a bit skewed, because every time I meet someone new, I have to address the issue as immediately as giving my name, and correcting pronouns, which do not, for some people, seem to align with my body type. However, I will say this: in Japan, much more so than in the US, I can easily pass. I often find Kyoto, a city generally infatuated with traditional Japanese culture, to be rigidly fixed on gender roles and differences; once a person thinks you are a certain gender, they hold you to all of that gender’s expectations. Crossing boundaries seems unheard of. For example, for KCJS’s Community Involvement Project, I volunteer at the Manga Museum; when filing out my paperwork, I circled the kanji for “male (男)” instead of “female (女)”. I explained this to my boss, saying that even if it’s confusing, I’m actually male, and if he could please address me as such, I would be incredibly grateful. He said that he understood, and not five minutes later, told everyone else in the room that they should consider me their daughter.

Things like this easily frustrate and depress me, and I face it constantly in Japan, where even explaining the same thing in clear Japanese several times doesn’t seem to do the trick. However, in my experience it is always better to try to address these issues than not to do so. In the instance of my host family, I told my host mother that I only use a name different (and differently gendered) from my legal name, and that I use male pronouns; in turn, she told me she would be uncomfortable with me using the first-person pronoun “boku,” more often used by males than females, and she almost always calls me “this person” or “that person” rather than using any pronoun at all. At the same time, however, when she talks about me as though we’re related, she calls me her son.

As I said before, however, I’m very lucky to have the host family that I do. Other host families are by far not so accepting or understanding. Other students have related to me stories about varied reactions to the idea of gay friends—name-calling, making assumptions about what a gay person must look or act like, even imitating vomiting at the idea of two men together.

For these reasons, in my opinion, it’s important to explain one’s situation to one’s host family as soon as possible, or even to write it on KCJS’s housing request sheet. Don’t be scared away from living with a host family, as it’s an absolutely essential experience for many first-timers in Japan, but do ensure that you’ll get a host family that isn’t closed-minded.

I don’t mean to make it sound as though Kyoto is all negative things for gender-queer people; in fact, there are amazing benefits, as well. I’m often pleasantly surprised to find that fast food places and sit-down restaurants often have a women’s room and a gender-neutral bathroom, taking off the pressure of figuring out which bathroom it might be safer to use at any given point. For queer people in general, acceptance is on the rise, and while, as my host mother likes to tell me, “being gay is a secret,” I’ve met with far less hostility than in the US, where more people are likely to justify discriminatory beliefs with religion.

In my experience, I’ve found that KCJS also does its best to be supportive. At the beginning of the year, I told Shore-san that I don’t use my legal name, and within a few days, my name had been changed on both my mailbox and my locker. My monthly allowance also comes with my preferred name, and these things combined make me feel as though I can be who I really am at KCJS.

To any other queer and/or gender-queer individuals considering studying abroad in Kyoto, I definitely recommend KCJS. The sensei are accepting, and if you have any concerns, they’re always willing to listen. As for Kyoto in general, there will be bumps along the road, and issues that you might not expect, but equally surprising benefits. Just remember that everyone’s experiences are different, and everyone’s only human.