Family Bonding in the Lives of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Gender-Variant Individuals

In nineteenth-century Japan, a small number of parents raised their anatomically male children as girls and their anatomically female children as boys. Experts have studied this custom with a focus on its symbolic and religious meaning as well as on its connection with gender identity. However, scholars have not yet investigated the complex ways in which gender-variant individuals bonded with their families. By scrutinising three highly relevant cases in the written text and illustrations of the fictional epic The Chronicle of the Eight Dog-Heroes (Nansō Satomi hakkenden, 1814-1842), the written text and polychrome printing in newspaper Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun 813/1874 and a series of articles in newspaper Yomiuri shinbun 13-15/06/1884, the paper shows how the subjects and their families took part in rites of passage that were usually performed for the opposite sex. Furthermore, the paper explores how parents taught their children gendered skills such as sewing, reading military books and fighting which were commonly imparted to members of the other sex. The paper also studies how the subjects and their families participated in pilgrimages and shared domestic tasks following gendered conventions to which members of the opposite sex normally adhered. Additionally, the paper analyses the emotions the gender-variant individuals and their families developed during these activities, which the sources describe as “filial piety” (kōshin) and “love” (koi). In conclusion, the paper suggests that the subjects, like their cis-gender counterparts, related with their families thanks to domestic occupations, religious celebrations, rites of passage and the emotions the actors felt. By conducting this research, the paper advances our knowledge about the lived experiences and literary representations of gender-variant individuals at the closing of the premodern age and the early years of the modern era.