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INTEREST: Idolm@ster Voice Actor Shiki Aoki Comes Out as Transgender Man


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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:47 pm Reply with quote
Wonderful and nice role model for those who seek support.
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Amy192



Joined: 20 Sep 2019
Posts: 67
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:53 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
OHH...Ok, might be fixed now!

Yeah, it's gone now Smile
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yurigasaki



Joined: 06 Apr 2015
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 2:04 pm Reply with quote
This is so fantastic! I'm really happy he's able to be open about it and that his agency are supporting him. Fingers crossed he gets to play some cool dudes in the future too LOL
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Ryuji-Dono



Joined: 26 Apr 2018
Posts: 1207
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 2:44 pm Reply with quote
Congrats to him! Very Happy
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:03 pm Reply with quote
Congrats!

I do hope someday he'll undergo hormone therapy, if he wants to. It must be hard to have a career where a voice change could negatively affect roles and such (fortunately, I did not have that issue when I underwent hormone therapy, though it's kind of an ongoing thing forever, but I'd say it took a good year to 18 months to get my voice to finally settle down), but I hope he does whatever he wants on his journey.

And I'd DEF love for him to get some more male roles!
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capt_bunny



Joined: 31 May 2015
Posts: 364
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:12 pm Reply with quote
So proud of him!!
Gender identity is hard and often have many years of people questioning, wondering. The beautiful thing about acting is that the roles we play aren't ourselves. I hope he does get some male roles soon. ^^
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Hellsoldier



Joined: 21 Jun 2013
Posts: 752
Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:52 pm Reply with quote
All power to you, man.

The number of famous LGBTQ+ people in Japan is increasing, and so is the media content that addresses the subject matters. There are a lot of supporters in Japan, now it is political will that is lacking. Hope Shiki-kun gets the Japan he and all the others deserve in the near-future.
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AsuraTheDestructor



Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 466
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 8:58 pm Reply with quote
I'm glad he came out, but he looks so sad in the thumbnail, almost as if he expects to be treated badly. I hope he'll be ok. Sad
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Sakagami Tomoyo



Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 940
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 10:24 pm Reply with quote
#HayamiLover wrote:
I did not understand only one thing. He was in a relationship with a girl and considered himself a lesbian, but thought about attracting to him as a girl only when he was invited to go out with a boy?

Did I understand the sequence of post correctly?

Basically. But you need to bear in mind that during adolescence, figuring yourself out is a tricky process anyway, and considerably more so when sexual orientation and/or gender identity is not cishet. (And is still pretty tricky when one starts to question their gender/sexuality as an adult.) As noted, without much general awareness of LGBTQ+ at the time, quote, "he thought that he was a lesbian, but it did not sound quite right to him." There's a good chance it just didn't occur to him that gender identity could be part of the equation until the boy asked him out, either at which point he realised there was more to it or by which point issues of gender identity had otherwise come to his attention. Or he just hadn't thought things through that far when he dated the girl.
Hellsoldier wrote:
The number of famous LGBTQ+ people in Japan is increasing, and so is the media content that addresses the subject matters.

More likely, the number of LGBTQ+ people (or proportion of them in the population) remains more-or-less the same, it's just that more people are being open about it. Or conscious of it, for that matter. Either way, it is good that there is more media that addresses it positively.
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Clyde_Cash



Joined: 03 Dec 2011
Posts: 376
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 10:44 pm Reply with quote
As a trans woman and lesbian, my hat's off to Aoki. I came out as trans almost a year ago. In a couple weeks, I should get to start hormone therapy. So far, my family has been supportive; I've also been seeing a gender therapist and two psych NPs while using an IPL device for hair removal. I've chosen to wait til I start HRT before I make the name change official, upgrade my wardrobe beyond underwear, etc.
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DavetheUsher



Joined: 19 May 2014
Posts: 505
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 3:00 am Reply with quote
zawa113 wrote:
It must be hard to have a career where a voice change could negatively affect roles and such


There's more to being a seiyuu than the voice acting though, especially in an idol franchise. Will Aoki still feel comfortable wearing a matching dress like the rest of cast during concerts? What about acting overly cute and girly at live-performances that idols are expected to do? What about fan meet ups and handshake events? It could lead to awkward situations. Lots of factors to consider with something like this. The seiyuu is usually meant to be a real life representation of their character.
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Wakazhi



Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Posts: 203
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 5:48 am Reply with quote
"...sexual orientation and gender identity are entirely separate."
"...he thought that he was a lesbian, but it did not sound quite right to him."

If I find an anime or manga that's about a sexual relationship between a trans male and a cis female, would that be yuri or not? There seems to be some discrepancy In Aoki's logic, unless I'm misunderstaning something.
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#HayamiLover



Joined: 22 Jul 2018
Posts: 796
Location: Eastern Europe
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 7:04 am Reply with quote
@Sakagami Tomoyo Thanks for the answer. I thought about something similar, but it seemed strange to me that he had not thought about this before. However, if he found the answer he needs, then the rest is superfluous.

@Wakazhi I can assume that at that time Shiki-san simply did not think about it, and his girls perceived him as a butch lesbian. In Japanese queer culture, there is such a term as "tachi" - a dominant lesbian who uses ikemen charm to charm feminine girls (neko). So, I think, these stereotypes could be the reason that his girls did not think about his gender identity, and he himself for a long time considered himself a lesbian.

If you want to see how it works, then you can look at Kaoru in BanG Dream! Her personality and interaction with other girls is a rather amusing parody of these stereotypes, even when you remember that she does it unintentionally.
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yurigasaki



Joined: 06 Apr 2015
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 7:54 am Reply with quote
Wakazhi wrote:
"...sexual orientation and gender identity are entirely separate."
"...he thought that he was a lesbian, but it did not sound quite right to him."

If I find an anime or manga that's about a sexual relationship between a trans male and a cis female, would that be yuri or not? There seems to be some discrepancy In Aoki's logic, unless I'm misunderstaning something.


You're misunderstanding, yes. What Aoki's saying is that gender and sexual orientation don't really have any correlation to each other. Just because someone is a woman doesn't mean by default she's going to be attracted exclusively to men, or want to partake in a monogamous relationship with a man.

In the example you've given, no, that wouldn't be a yuri – it would probably fall under the umbrella of LGBTQA+ manga because of the presence of a trans lead, but a trans man is a man. Yuri is about relationships between women. Ergo, a relationship between a trans man and a cis woman would not be a 'yuri' relationship and it'd be pretty transphobic to call it one (as it essentially says that a trans man is the same as a cis woman, which is definitely not the case).

In Aoki's case, the issue seems to have been that he misunderstood his discomfort with men being attracted to him. Initially, he thought this was because he was a cis lesbian because he was relatively comfortable having a relationship with a girl, but the actual issue was that he was uncomfortable with the idea of people being attracted to him as a girl. Because he wasn't a girl (but hadn't quite twigged that yet), the idea of someone viewing him as a girl and a desirable girl at that wigged him out a bit. As Aoki himself says, he's pansexual, so he's fine with dating men,
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tomdean



Joined: 22 Jan 2018
Posts: 125
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 12:05 pm Reply with quote
DJStarstryker wrote:
since it would affect their career and popularity.


Actually maybe they allowed him to talk just to boost his popularity. They lose nothing if the move goes wrong, but huge gain if more people becoming his fans - think of all those fujoshis
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