I’m an 18 year old lesbian in America and I plan to move to Japan after getting my biology bs here. However recently people close to me are encouraging me to rethink my decision saying that Japan is too “conservative” or even “anti-lgbt”. It’s been my dream since middle school to live in Japan, I love the culture and the nature and just really want to live there. I especially would like to be a biologist there and study stuff like fish or salamanders or cranes. But the constant pressure is making me rethink my decision. Can someone tell me if I should move to Japan? The realistic problems I would face there? And any other options?
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**Japan or no Japan?**
I’m an 18 year old lesbian in America and I plan to move to Japan after getting my biology bs here. However recently people close to me are encouraging me to rethink my decision saying that Japan is too “conservative” or even “anti-lgbt”. It’s been my dream since middle school to live in Japan, I love the culture and the nature and just really want to live there. I especially would like to be a biologist there and study stuff like fish or salamanders or cranes. But the constant pressure is making me rethink my decision. Can someone tell me if I should move to Japan? The realistic problems I would face there? And any other options?
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If it doesn’t bother you that the country is conservative (no same-sex marriage etc.) then the problem I see is that there’s not many jobs for biologists. At the very least you would need to speak fluent Japanese to have a chance at that.
I’m a lesbian who moved to Japan with my wife last year. Here, we have effectively none of the rights that a hetero couple would have. Tax benefits, insurance, all of that stuff treats us as if we don’t even know each other. If we were to have a child, only one of us could be the official parent. If one of us was hospitalized, the other could be denied visitation.
That being said, we still love our lives here. I’m doing what little I can do to try to advance LGBT rights, and I have hope that the government will realize that *need* to acknowledge that we exist out there. People are extremely supportive, and we have encountered very little by way of opposition from the general public that we’ve encountered – even in very small rural towns.
Honestly, in your case, I think the job will be the bigger hurdle. To work in biology and be anything more than a zookeeper, I imagine you’d need to have pretty high level Japanese skills. Now, this is just a git instinct, since I’m in software and don’t know for sure. Hopefully someone in the field finds this post and can chime in.
In this field you would have to be at least fluent in Japanese and should have a few years experience to make you worth hiring over a native Japanese person. Not to mention way lower salaries in comparison to the United States or the burden of sponsoring a visa. If you want to experience living in Japan try an exchange year or semester in college and see if it’s really for you. Usually same tuition as long as it’s a partner university. Alternatively you could become an English teacher through the JET program or other programs to work and live in Japan that way. Although, you will need a bachelors degree to get a work visa. I’m telling you all this so you understand the implications of wanting to do something like this, you could eventually do something in your field in Japan it would just be way harder. Also as for the anti-lgbt stance it still strongly exists among the older generation but the younger generation is a lot more accepting. I don’t think you would have a good life being openly gay outside of maybe Tokyo? Others problems you’ll face will be language related, cultural misunderstandings & differences , and homesickness. If you want to live in Japan start learning Japanese and the social culture ASAP and plan out the rest in advance.
If you were looking to move here right now, I’d say don’t do it. There’s little chance to get a good (or maybe even any) job in your field and LGBT issues would probably interfere with you living in a way that you could feel comfortable with.
But you have 4 years to improve your Japanese as the job marketplace continues to react to the aging Japanese population and LGBT issues are a hot button issue right now, so that may change as well. So there’s no reason to give up on it right now. But I’d probably keep in the back of my mind that being a person who frequently vacations to Japan rather than lives in Japan isn’t the worst thing in the world.
As a fellow lesbian biologist who spent several years in Japan, it was not something that was sustainable for me long-term but I still had a wonderful time in the years I spent living there. I was living in a rural area which allowed for a perfect experience for a wildlife biologist, but not so much on the gay aspect of things. I was single when I moved to Japan, spent 2.5 years there, didn’t even attempt date anyone. It just wasn’t really an option for how remote I was living, then COVID hit and seeking romantic companionship in a nearby city wasn’t even on the table anymore.
That aside, like I said, my experience was wonderful. People for the most part are conservative, but in my experience aren’t outwardly violent/aggressive towards gay people like the conservatives in my home country (USA) are.
Progress is being made, I virtually participated in a few hearings in favor of gay marriage being legalized, but there’s still a ways to go. It’s just something to keep in mind in terms of your love life/future moving forward if you want to stay long term.
Plus, as others have said, to be able to maintain any sort of biology-focused job, you’ll have to have several years of experience, be absolutely 100% fluent in Japanese, and possibly have to pass exams in Japan that revolve around which field you want to work in. This is probably going to be the bigger challenge than being gay. 😂
I think you’ll be fine if you wanted to move there for a couple years, maybe do an English teaching job, or study abroad, get a feel for how the country is. You’ll face difficulty trying to find a job in Biology, and you’ll face difficulty if you tried to get married there. You won’t face hate for being openly lesbian, people in Japan tend to keep to themselves and respect one another. The “anti-lgbt” stuff is more with jobs and legal stuff, not the actual people you meet in the day to day.
Here is my 2cent on this topic.
You’re still young and wouldn’t know exactly what’s up ahead of you, no need to put so much emphasis on your career growth yet and you might end up doing something out of your major.
There is no better time to go out and explore what you like while young and naive, you will be less likely to take such risk as you grew older with more life commitment.
Good luck ✌️
You’re about to start college. Way too early to “know” if moving permanently to Japan is the right decision or not.
I would recommend doing a study abroad year during college. You’ll get a full experience, be able to work intensively on your Japanese and figure out if it’s a good fit for you. Plus you’ll make friends and connections that will help if you decide to return.
Then you graduate and decide.
I did. this snd then spent 10 years in Tokyo and Osaka after I graduated. Worked out great. Will also be a good bridge with all the naysayers.
The problem is your job, without fluent Japanese or a phD and ok Japanese your chances as a biologist are near 0.
I’m gay, and as a Japanese person who understands the culture there a bit more than the average joe, I would say go for it!
Japan is conservative, yes. But that also applies to how they handle things. Even if they knew you were lesbian, the most you’ll get from someone really homophobic is a stare. Maybe a snarky comment if they’re bold. And honestly most Japanese people are pretty accepting of us. Especially if you’re planning on moving to a bigger city like Tokyo or Osaka. That’s what I believe.
I hope I was able to help a bit!
You’re so young, just give it a try to see if it suits you if you wanna try it out.
Yeah, the job is gonna be the main problem. Without native like levels of Japanese and several years of experience you’re pretry much stuck being an english teacher here. And even if you check all the boxes and find your dream job here it will be hard and suffocating to exist in the local working culture so it may not last long before you decide to go back, or anywhere else.
No one cares if you’re a lesbian. As long as it’s not your entire personality, you should be fine. As for people who bring it up every 5 minutes, it’s not your sexual orientation that’s the problem but your lack of identity.
Well first off, I have a ton of gay friends here… if you’re staying forever I think it’s more of a problem than someone who wants to live here for a few years, especially a foreigner (because foreigners will always be “different” in some way, we often aren’t held to the same standards of conformity either). Your most immediate issue would be getting a job and visa. You can’t just “move to japan.” Learn the language and maybe visit or do a semester abroad if you can! That would be a great way to check it out and see how you like it.
First the elephant in the room language barrier
It’s your life. Do you really want to live other people’s lives?
That’s why I chose to go to Japan.
You can still be a biologist back home. But your young. If you want to do this go.
Yes Japan is somewhat stuck in the past in some ways. But, I find that my friends and family were just afraid. Afraid of life. Afraid I would do better than them.
If you want to try living there, I would say go for it!
You don’t need to make a decision now on whether you’d want to be there forever, especially as you’re only 18. I know plenty of LGBTQ people who have lived there and had a great time. Like people have said social attitudes are more conservative there and long term you would want to think about things like what legal rights you would or wouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to go there for a while. You’ll also only really find out by living there if always being seen as different because you’re a foreigner (not in a bad or good way just neutral) is going to bother you or not, which totally depends on the person.
Because of jobs and visa availability it’s not so much a case of deciding to move to Japan and then being there forever, it’s more a case of finding a way to live there for a while and then if you like it finding a way to stay longer. Things I would recommend practically are:
-see if your college has a study abroad program with Japan and go on that if you can.
-start on your Japanese ASAP if you haven’t already, your college probably has a language exchange programme or classes available. If you like Japan enough to want to live there as a serious goal you like it enough to learn Japanese. You’ll have a much better experience there if you can speak the language and communicate. Also, you will have more leeway to be “different” in whatever way it might be (sexuality, opinions etc) if you’ve minimised all the other cultural and communications barriers as much as possible.
-for living there after graduation, consider whether doing a masters there would be right for you. There are English language programmes especially in the sciences. There is also the MEXT scholarship which you should 100% look into. Tuition fees at public universities there are also extremely low compared to the US.
-Consider doing a year out after graduation and teaching English there as that’s one of the easiest ways to live there for a while. You might also be able to get the working holiday visa depending on your nationality.
I did Japanese at university, did a year abroad and loved it and I’m shortly going back for a masters. The masters will be 2 years and then I will decide if I want to find a way to stay on there or not.