Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 13:2 (2024) ► pp.178–200

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

The discursive manifestation of normativities in coming-out-to-family discourses in Japanese social media

ORCiD logo with link | Temple University, Japan
Published online: 12 July 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.22020.sai
Abstract
This study investigates the discursive manifestation of normativities and participants’ orientation to them for identity work in coming-out-to-family discourses in Japanese YouTube videoclips posted by self-identified gay men. The study focuses on how the participants – the YouTubers and their family members – use discourses of normativity as a resource to illegitimize and legitimize sexual identities. It also touches on the conceptualization of homonormativity in the Japanese context. The analysis suggests that in societies like that of Japan, where heteronormative ideals are deeply entrenched in the culture, homonormativity may not be fully conceptualized at the level of local gay male communities, while the dominant heterosexual community, conversely, may have a clear vision of homonormativity for these individuals. It thus further considers the viewpoints that shape normativities for marginalized social groups.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theorization of normativities and coming-out research
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Struggling with sexual identity
    • 4.2Legitimizing sexual identity
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (44)
References
Bannink, Anne & Wentink, Djoeke. 2015. “I need to confess something”: Coming out on national television. Discourse & Communication 9(5): 535–558. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benozzo, Angelo, Pizzorno, Maria Chiara, Bell, Huw & Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka. 2015. Coming out, but into what? Problematizing discursive variations of revealing the gay self in the workplace. Gender, Work and Organisation 22(3): 292–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bie, Bijie & Tang, Lu. 2016. Chinese gay men’s coming out narratives: Connecting social relationship to co-cultural theory. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 9(4): 351–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cashman, Holly R. 2019. What Phoenix’s joteria is saying: Identity, normativity, resistance. Language in Society 481: 519–539. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coimbra-Gomes, Elvis & Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2019. Language, normativity, and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorder (SO-OCD): A corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Language in Society 481: 565–584. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’amico, Emilie, Julien, Danielle, Tremblay, Nicole & Chartrand, Elise. 2015. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths coming out to their parents: Parental reactions and youths’ outcomes. Journal of GLBT Family Studies 11(5): 411–437. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DiDomenico, Stephen M. 2015. “Putting a face on a community”: Genre, identity, and institutional regulation in the telling (and retelling) of oral coming-out narratives. Language in Society 441: 607–628. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellwood, Constance. 2006. On coming out and coming undone: Sexualities and reflexivities in language education research. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 5(1): 67–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fahs, Breanne. 2021. The coming out process for assigned-female-at-birth transgender and non-binary teenagers: Negotiating multiple identities, parental responses, and early transitions in three case studies. Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling 15(2): 146–167. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
French, Alice. 2023. Japan court rules lack of same-sex unions at odds with constitution. Nikkei Asia <[URL]> (June 11, 2023)
Furukawa, Gavin. 2021. Street corners and hugs: Queer Japanese challenges to heteronormativity through social media. In Linguistic Tactics and Strategies of Marginalization in Japanese, Judit Kroo & Kyoko Satoh (eds), 167–188. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Kira. 2013. “It’s a hijra!” Queer linguistics revisited. Discourse & Society 24(5): 634–642. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Middle class timelines: Ethnic humor and sexual modernity in Delhi. Language in Society 481: 491–517. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. Language in the middle: Class and sexuality on the Hinglish continuum. Journal of Sociolinguistics 251: 303–323. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Kira, Levon, Erez & Milani, Tommaso M. 2019. Navigating normativities: Gender and sexuality in text and talk. Language in Society 481: 481–489. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hiramoto, Mie & Teo, Cherise Shi Ling. 2015. Heteronormative love makes a house a home: Multimodal analysis of luxury housing ads in Singapore. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(2): 223–253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
KENGO. 2019. I came out to my grandma. <[URL]> (April 18, 2023)
Khor, Diana & Kamano, Saori. 2013. Negotiating heteronormativity in the heterosexual mother–lesbian daughter relationship. Japanese Journal of Family Sociology 25(2): 124–134.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kian, Edward M., Anderson, Eric & Shipka, Danny. 2015. “I am happy to start the conversation”: Examining sport media framing of Jason Collins’ coming out and playing in the NBA. Sexualities 18(5/6): 618–640. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kitzinger, Celia. 2005a. Heteronormativity in action: Reproducing the heterosexual nuclear family in after-hours medical calls. Social Problems 52(4): 477–498. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005b. “Speaking as a heterosexual”: (How) does sexuality matter for talk-in-interaction? Research on Language & Social Interaction 38(3): 221–265. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lazar, Michelle M. 2017. Homonationalist discourse as a politics of pragmatic resistance in Singapore’s Pink Dot movement: Towards a southern praxis. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(3): 420–441. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lies, Elaine. 2023. Japan enacts watered-down LGBT understanding law. Reuters. <[URL]> (June 16, 2023)
Miller, Laura. 2004. Youth fashion and changing beautification practices. In Japan’s Changing Generations: Are Young People Creating a New Society, Gordon Mathews & Bruce White (eds), 83–97. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moa and More. 2017a. Gee ga chichi e kamingu auto: Kore ga chichi no hannoo desu [A gay man comes out to his father: This is the father’s reaction]. <[URL]> (August 18, 2021)
. 2017b. Coming out to my mother: This is how my mother reacted. <[URL]> (August 18, 2021)
Motoyama, Kotona. 2019. “Coming out” as a family with an LGB member in Japan: Normalizing strategies and negotiating with social norms. Contemporary Japan 311: 159–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2014. Focusing on normativity in language and sexuality studies. Critical Discourse Studies 11(1): 49–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Language and sexual normativity. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, Kira Hall & Rusty Barrett (eds), 1–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <[URL]> (July 4, 2022)
. 2019. Discursive shifts associated with coming out: A corpus-based analysis of news reports about Ricky Martin. Journal of Sociolinguistics 231: 284–302. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nakamura, Momoko. 2017. Between performed persona and assigned identity categories: Stereotype as identity resource for Japanese business women in leadership positions. In Challenging Leadership Stereotypes through Discourse: Power, Management and Gender, Cornelia Ilie & Stephanie Schnurr (eds), 239–265. Singapore: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pak, Vincent. 2021. Coming out “softly”: Metapragmatic reflections of gay men in illiberal pragmatic Singapore. Gender and Language 15(3): 301–323. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Chase Wesley. 2019. Category accounts: Identity and normativity in sequences of action. Language in Society 481: 585–606. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sambe, Michiko. 2014. Kamuauto Suru Oyako: Dooseeai to Kazoku no Shakaigaku [Parents and Children Who Come Out: A Sociology of Homosexuality and Families]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Heterosexual marriage and childbirth as a “natural course of life”: Parenthood as experienced by the generation before the “LGBT boom.” In Cultural and Social Division in Contemporary Japan: Rethinking Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion, Yoshikazu Shiobara, Kohei Kawabata & Joel Matthews (eds), 183–196. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Takapiro no Nichijoo [Takapiro’s daily life]. 2022. Ima made issho ni kurashite kita chichioya ni gei de aru koto o hanashimashita [I told my father, with whom I lived, that I am gay]. <[URL]> (April 18, 2023).
Tamagawa, Masami. 2018. Coming out to parents in Japan: A sociocultural analysis of lived experiences. Sexuality & Culture 221: 497–520. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wakui, Sachiko. 2006. “Nozomu see” o ikiru jiko no katarare kata: aru see-dooitsusee-shoogaisha no baai [The narrative of self in opposition to one’s sex: The case of a person with “Gender Identity Disorder”]. Shitsuteki Shinrigaku Kenkyuu 51: 27–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wong, Andrew. 2009. Coming-out stories and the “gay imaginary”. Sociolinguistic Studies 3(1): 1–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yatatsu-ya. 2020. Hahaoya ni gee de aru koto o tsutaeru:【LGBTQ】Coming-Out‼ Haha wa idai nari [Telling my mother that I am gay: She is great]. <[URL]> (August 18, 2021)
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue