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INTEREST: Speak Out! Japan's LGBTQ+ Community Responds to Politician Sugita's Discriminatory Stateme

But wait I thought Japan was a magical fantasy land where politics didn't exist and any analysis of political messaging in anime was my devolved western brain making stuff up! /s

"I told the doctor that I had been raped a year and half prior, and he was very confused—so confused he asked if I was the one who raped someone. When I specifically told him that a man had raped me, he became even more perplexed. He said, 'okay,' eventually and moved on to other questions," Matsumoto said.

I mean, these are a handful of random people who aren't exactly popular or well known

Judging from the video (and all the chuckling from the politician and interviewers), I would've guessed that that was just the status quo of the Japanese political system, just like it was the status quo of the American political system 15 years ago. I guess it still is like America 15 years ago where there were no anti-discrimination policies in place for LGBT+ people. I'm glad that there are those pushing for civil right protections, and I support them 100%.

The fact the composer for Dragon Quest , one of the biggest franchises in Japan, can do right-wing interviews and stuff and still keeps his job is pretty telling. That'd never happen here and he'd have been fired immediately.

It's almost funny how not Liberal the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan seems to be.

I get that these names might not be familiar to you. They represent marginalized voices; they're often ignored by people who don't have to deal with the same kind of issues that they do and so others might not take note of them, even when a legislator is speaking about issues that directly effect them. But that's the point of the article. It's worth thinking about WHY you haven't heard of these people.