New Half: Japanese Transsexuals and Their Place in Japanese Literature and Society

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2010
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Bi-College (Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges). Department of East Asian Studies
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
In 2008, amidst the continued presence of gays and transsexuals in Japanese media after the "gay boom" of the 1990s, a "New Half' transsexual individual by the name of Tsubaki Ayana wrote a memoir entitled Watashi, Danshikou Shusshin Desu (I Went to a Boys' School), which describes her experience growing up in "the wrong body"--that is, with the male-attributed penis even though she has never considered herself male. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the place that Tsubaki's work has within the body of gay literature, and to trace the ways that gay literature has been shaped throughout different times and within different societies. In doing so, this paper ultimately shows that a link that is amorphous and indefinite--but unquestionably present--exists between works of literature, the historical times that they come from, and the social spaces that they occupy.
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