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Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies
In Emergent Genders, Michelle H. S. Ho traces the genders manifesting alongside Japanese popular culture in Akihabara, an area in Tokyo renowned for the fandom and consumption of anime, manga, and games. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in josō and dansō cafe-and-bars, establishments where male-to-female and female-to-male crossdressing is prevalent, Ho shows how their owners, employees, and customers creatively innovate what she calls emergent genders—new practices, categories, and ways of being stemming from the simultaneous fracturing, contestations, and (re)imaginations of older forms of gender and sexual variance in Japan. Such emergent genders initiate new markets for alternative categories of expression and subjectivity to thrive in a popular cultural hub like Akihabara instead of Tokyo’s gay and lesbian neighborhood of Shinjuku Ni-chōme. By rethinking identitarian models of gender and sexuality, reconfiguring the significance of capitalism for trans studies and queer theory, and decentering theoretical frameworks incubated in a predominantly United States academic context, Ho offers new ways of examining how trans and gender nonconforming individuals may survive and flourish under capitalism.
- GenresAnthropologyEthnography
280 pages, Hardcover
Published January 28, 2025
37 people want to read
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June 26, 2025
I came to this book with high hopes. I live in Tokyo now, and as someone who’s spent most of their life in the UK, I’ve been struck by how different gender performance and queer life and expression feels here. It’s not just culturally different, it’s structured differently, the whole concept is different. The usual ideas and stereotypes and assumptions I’d rely on don’t always work. So when I found this book, a recent study published in 2025, written during the pandemic, through a podcast interview of the author discussing her time researching, I was genuinely excited. I was curious about how gender, nightlife, and aesthetic labour intersect in Tokyo, especially in spaces like josō and dansō cafés where gender roles are actively played with. I’ve never been to these bars as I’m too shy. So I thought it would be an interesting look and maybe some motivation. I will say, there are some moments where this book gives a good surface-level look into a world that isn’t widely written about. But that’s kind of where it stops.
One major limitation for me was the lack of deeper engagement with the historical specificity of gender and sexual categorisation in Japan. Modern identity terms like “non-binary” or “transgender” don’t have straightforward equivalents in Japanese cultural linguistics, except maybe for younger people heavily influenced by western culture. Labels like josō and dansō, for instance, have long been used in ways that are more situational or aesthetic than ontological. They often describe what someone does or looks like in a given context, not who they are at the level of inner identity. Categories like chūsei (middle sex/gender) or musei (no sex) existed before, but they don’t function as fixed identities in the way Western queer theory often assumes. That kind of role-based, fluid approach to selfhood has deep roots in Japan’s social history going back to early modern periods where gendered practices were deeply entangled with class, performance, and status. These cultural dynamics weren’t fully explored in the book. I felt that some of the language used around “emergent genders” assumed a Western trajectory of identity politics that doesn’t really hold in this context. A more clear explanation into how identity is produced and understood locally could have made the analysis far more interesting and relevant.
Hence, what frustrates me most is that the author keeps insisting these performances are something new. “Emergent genders,” as the title suggests. But it’s never really clear what that means. These roles are not spontaneous, radical, or even especially new. Rather, they are carefully curated performances shaped by visual culture, consumer demand, and the aesthetic pressures of precarious labour. To describe them as “emergent” risks overlooking the long history of gender performance as labour, not just in subcultural contexts, but in everyday life. In Japan, this is especially visible: from post-war media figures like the gei bōi (gay boy), to the okama, onabe, newhalf, and tarento identities of the 1980s–2000s, the country has long accommodated a wide range of stylised, often entertainment-based gender roles. These were rarely framed as “liberatory” or “queer” by the individuals living them, but instead arose as practical and legible forms of gendered and aesthetic identity within the current existing cultural and economic contexts. That pattern continues today in the josō and dansō cafés. These are not special forms of gender so much as contemporary versions of a long-established tendency to manage difference through aesthetic labour, and tightly bounded visibility.
More broadly, to frame these performances as “emergent” or uniquely subversive ignores that gender has long been a site of regulation and labour for all people. Women, especially in Japan’s post-war corporate and domestic cultures, have historically been expected to perform femininity through appearance, behaviour, and service, often without the recognition that these expectations constitute labour. And while masculinity is often naturalised in discourse, it too requires investment, curation, and constant performance. Under capitalism, gendered presentation is always entangled with questions of productivity, legibility, and value. So when a worker’s ability to “be” a certain gender depends on whether they can afford the necessary aesthetics, clothes, makeup, styling, and their economic success depends on how recognisable and desirable that presentation is to consumers, this does not represent a break from normativity. It represents its continuation. These café roles are not outside the system; they are fully within it, monetising and branding gender in ways that are not necessarily more liberatory than normative roles just more visibly curated and slightly more theatrical.
That’s what I kept running into: the portrayal of these roles as inherently radical or resistant. But when I looked closely at who’s doing this work, that idea starts to fall apart. Most of the performers are young, working precarious jobs, and don’t treat these roles as permanent. Some age out of them, some drift into more stable work where it’s no longer relevant, some just want to pay the bills and move on. The book calls this “trans materialism” and talks about “affective labour,” but it doesn’t really sit with what those terms mean in practice. It gestures at the idea that gender is tied up with capitalism, and of course it is. People perform gender to survive, to be recognised, to belong, and often, just to keep a job, as I’ve explained above. But there’s a difference between exploring gender as a creative or political act, and having to perform it in a particular way because you’re relying on customer tips to afford your next meal. The book doesn’t quite draw that line.
This is especially important in a place like Japan, where gender categories don’t necessarily work the same way as in Western contexts. A lot of labels, gay, nonbinary, transgender, are relatively recent imports, and not everyone uses them in the same way, if at all. For many people here, gender roles are more contextual than fixed. You might perform masculinity in one space, femininity in another, or something in between, depending on who you’re with and what’s expected. That doesn’t make it any less valid, but it does complicate the idea that these café identities are part of some new wave of gender politics. Sometimes they are, especially for younger people starting to pick up on global language around queerness and identity. But often, they’re just roles and jobs in a shrinking economy. Calling them “emergent genders” without fully reckoning with the economic and cultural conditions that shape them ends up flattening something much more ambiguous.
I also struggled with the way queerness is handled. It’s never clear if the people being studied would call themselves queer. In fact, most of them probably wouldn’t. The majority of people working in these places and visiting these places identify as straight and heterosexual. But the author sort of assigns queerness to them anyway, as a kind of theoretical lens. That doesn’t sit right with me. If queerness is about self-determination and refusing the categories we’re forced into, then calling something queer just because it looks different feels backwards, especially if the people doing it are trying to fit in, not stand out.
Finally, I had some issues with the so-called “ethnography.” It doesn’t feel like the writer spent much time in these places. The names of the cafés seem to be made up, and there’s no discussion of how the research was done, how consent was given, or how the author’s presence affected things. There’s a distance in the writing like the cafés are being observed, not lived in. That matters when you’re claiming to write about people’s lives and identities. And ultimately it’s not ethnography.
Overall, I left this book unsure what it was trying to prove. If the argument is that gender is complex and tied up in labour, capital, and aesthetics, then yes, of course. But it’s not enough to say that. I wanted more: more honesty about how power works, more care with people’s stories, and more clarity about what “emergence” actually means. I don’t think this book delivers that.
Maybe if you’re new to these ideas and you know nothing about life in Japan (or just these two bars in Tokyo) there’s something here. But if you’ve read anything about gender as performance, or capitalism and identity, or the ethics of representing marginalised groups, especially in Japan, you might leave feeling like this book poses questions that it doesn’t quite answer.
One major limitation for me was the lack of deeper engagement with the historical specificity of gender and sexual categorisation in Japan. Modern identity terms like “non-binary” or “transgender” don’t have straightforward equivalents in Japanese cultural linguistics, except maybe for younger people heavily influenced by western culture. Labels like josō and dansō, for instance, have long been used in ways that are more situational or aesthetic than ontological. They often describe what someone does or looks like in a given context, not who they are at the level of inner identity. Categories like chūsei (middle sex/gender) or musei (no sex) existed before, but they don’t function as fixed identities in the way Western queer theory often assumes. That kind of role-based, fluid approach to selfhood has deep roots in Japan’s social history going back to early modern periods where gendered practices were deeply entangled with class, performance, and status. These cultural dynamics weren’t fully explored in the book. I felt that some of the language used around “emergent genders” assumed a Western trajectory of identity politics that doesn’t really hold in this context. A more clear explanation into how identity is produced and understood locally could have made the analysis far more interesting and relevant.
Hence, what frustrates me most is that the author keeps insisting these performances are something new. “Emergent genders,” as the title suggests. But it’s never really clear what that means. These roles are not spontaneous, radical, or even especially new. Rather, they are carefully curated performances shaped by visual culture, consumer demand, and the aesthetic pressures of precarious labour. To describe them as “emergent” risks overlooking the long history of gender performance as labour, not just in subcultural contexts, but in everyday life. In Japan, this is especially visible: from post-war media figures like the gei bōi (gay boy), to the okama, onabe, newhalf, and tarento identities of the 1980s–2000s, the country has long accommodated a wide range of stylised, often entertainment-based gender roles. These were rarely framed as “liberatory” or “queer” by the individuals living them, but instead arose as practical and legible forms of gendered and aesthetic identity within the current existing cultural and economic contexts. That pattern continues today in the josō and dansō cafés. These are not special forms of gender so much as contemporary versions of a long-established tendency to manage difference through aesthetic labour, and tightly bounded visibility.
More broadly, to frame these performances as “emergent” or uniquely subversive ignores that gender has long been a site of regulation and labour for all people. Women, especially in Japan’s post-war corporate and domestic cultures, have historically been expected to perform femininity through appearance, behaviour, and service, often without the recognition that these expectations constitute labour. And while masculinity is often naturalised in discourse, it too requires investment, curation, and constant performance. Under capitalism, gendered presentation is always entangled with questions of productivity, legibility, and value. So when a worker’s ability to “be” a certain gender depends on whether they can afford the necessary aesthetics, clothes, makeup, styling, and their economic success depends on how recognisable and desirable that presentation is to consumers, this does not represent a break from normativity. It represents its continuation. These café roles are not outside the system; they are fully within it, monetising and branding gender in ways that are not necessarily more liberatory than normative roles just more visibly curated and slightly more theatrical.
That’s what I kept running into: the portrayal of these roles as inherently radical or resistant. But when I looked closely at who’s doing this work, that idea starts to fall apart. Most of the performers are young, working precarious jobs, and don’t treat these roles as permanent. Some age out of them, some drift into more stable work where it’s no longer relevant, some just want to pay the bills and move on. The book calls this “trans materialism” and talks about “affective labour,” but it doesn’t really sit with what those terms mean in practice. It gestures at the idea that gender is tied up with capitalism, and of course it is. People perform gender to survive, to be recognised, to belong, and often, just to keep a job, as I’ve explained above. But there’s a difference between exploring gender as a creative or political act, and having to perform it in a particular way because you’re relying on customer tips to afford your next meal. The book doesn’t quite draw that line.
This is especially important in a place like Japan, where gender categories don’t necessarily work the same way as in Western contexts. A lot of labels, gay, nonbinary, transgender, are relatively recent imports, and not everyone uses them in the same way, if at all. For many people here, gender roles are more contextual than fixed. You might perform masculinity in one space, femininity in another, or something in between, depending on who you’re with and what’s expected. That doesn’t make it any less valid, but it does complicate the idea that these café identities are part of some new wave of gender politics. Sometimes they are, especially for younger people starting to pick up on global language around queerness and identity. But often, they’re just roles and jobs in a shrinking economy. Calling them “emergent genders” without fully reckoning with the economic and cultural conditions that shape them ends up flattening something much more ambiguous.
I also struggled with the way queerness is handled. It’s never clear if the people being studied would call themselves queer. In fact, most of them probably wouldn’t. The majority of people working in these places and visiting these places identify as straight and heterosexual. But the author sort of assigns queerness to them anyway, as a kind of theoretical lens. That doesn’t sit right with me. If queerness is about self-determination and refusing the categories we’re forced into, then calling something queer just because it looks different feels backwards, especially if the people doing it are trying to fit in, not stand out.
Finally, I had some issues with the so-called “ethnography.” It doesn’t feel like the writer spent much time in these places. The names of the cafés seem to be made up, and there’s no discussion of how the research was done, how consent was given, or how the author’s presence affected things. There’s a distance in the writing like the cafés are being observed, not lived in. That matters when you’re claiming to write about people’s lives and identities. And ultimately it’s not ethnography.
Overall, I left this book unsure what it was trying to prove. If the argument is that gender is complex and tied up in labour, capital, and aesthetics, then yes, of course. But it’s not enough to say that. I wanted more: more honesty about how power works, more care with people’s stories, and more clarity about what “emergence” actually means. I don’t think this book delivers that.
Maybe if you’re new to these ideas and you know nothing about life in Japan (or just these two bars in Tokyo) there’s something here. But if you’ve read anything about gender as performance, or capitalism and identity, or the ethics of representing marginalised groups, especially in Japan, you might leave feeling like this book poses questions that it doesn’t quite answer.
March 5, 2025
Emergent Genders is an interesting look at gender crossings and markets but unfortunately lives in the Jack Halberstam “Trans men talking to cis women about trans women” school of trans studies.
The author fails to name transmisogyny on at least four occasions and at one point sites a study done by a cis male psychologist that argues that trans women actually choose to do sex work because it makes them feel attractive and then has the audacity to say “and this is why we should listen to trans women” (paraphrasing) as if this isn’t the oldest transmisogynistic stereotype
the book excels at seeing transmasculine or otherwise FtX gender crossers as people with agency but fails to see transfeminine people the same way
The author fails to name transmisogyny on at least four occasions and at one point sites a study done by a cis male psychologist that argues that trans women actually choose to do sex work because it makes them feel attractive and then has the audacity to say “and this is why we should listen to trans women” (paraphrasing) as if this isn’t the oldest transmisogynistic stereotype
the book excels at seeing transmasculine or otherwise FtX gender crossers as people with agency but fails to see transfeminine people the same way
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews