My body my choice march
We invited participation from the public, and transgender people, LGBTQ+ activists, as well as many young people came to the event.
We created this street performance in response to the increasing exclusion of and attacks on the transgender community in Japan and abroad. The performance highlights the issues of transgender rights and women’s rights and their similarities, and calls for “unity” rather than “division,” and “dialogue” rather than “confrontation.”
Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership is a political organization by Jinja Honcho (Association of Shinto Shrines) that many Shinto shrines all over Japan as well as members of the National Diet belong to. This organization has taken a stand against allowing married couples to have different surnames as well as same-sex marriage. In June 2022, they even published a discriminatory booklet against the LGBTQ+ community and distributed it at a study session of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The source of oppression for both cisgender women and transgender people is patriarchy. Considering this context, we chose to perform at a shrine as a symbol of patriarchy.
We invited people from the public to participate in the My body my choice march in Tokyo. We marched with supporters holding placards that had messages that resonate with both feminist and transgender issues in front of the torii gates of two shrines in Tokyo.
A Canadian television station covered the event as a documentary, and a feminist rapper Sarahmée also joined the performance.
https://www.tv5unis.ca/elles/saisons/1
2023 Documentary series “Elles,” Sabrina Hammoum, Host: Sarahmee, TV5 Monde, Quebec, Canada