From Danso to genderless: Mediating queer styles and androgynous bodies in Japan

Abstract

This chapter explores androgynous bodies and styles in contemporary Japan through danso (female-to-male crossdressing) and "genderless" (jendaresu). Danso refers to gender-crossing practices by individuals who are assigned female at birth, whereas genderless is a fashion mode which denotes styles that do not distinguish between genders. Drawing on media coverage of danso individuals and genderless joshi (girls) in the 2010s, supplemented by ethnographic research conducted in a Tokyo danso cafe-and-bar, I argue that through their androgynous practices, these individuals construct alternative ways of being before they are labeled as "doing" danso or genderless. Ultimately, I suggest that danso and genderless allow us to rethink the gender binary, particularly in queer studies and transgender studies in a transnational context, and the connections between style and gender and sexual subjectivities.