Transgender Archives Japanese Serials Collection

UVic Libraries’ Transgender Archives holds a selection of Japanese language serials including, FTM Japan, Queen, and the Takarazuka Revue Script Collection.

Takarazuka Revue Script Collection is a published periodical about the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theatre troupe performing traditional Japanese style shows (nihonmono) and popular Broadway-style Western musicals, and adaptations of films, manga, novels, and more since 1914. The Takarazuka Revue included women playing men’s roles (otokoyaku). While these roles, and the individuals who played these men’s roles, were not necessarily considered transgressive and may, or may not, have identified as gender diverse (e.g., “crossdresser”), these materials are a part of the Transgender Archives because they are of interest to Trans+ people.

Our collections include 27 issues of the Japanese-language FTM Magazine, a quarterly Japanese newsletter created in 1992 by Torai Masae. The newsletter is a collection of articles, stories, news, advertisements, events, letters, photos, and artwork focused on Japanese transsexual men and transgender people more broadly. In part because of the underrepresentation of transmasculine people, FTM Magazine aimed to make information about trans men more widely accessible in Japan, and to build a network of support for transmasculine people.

Queen was a bimonthly magazine primarily for Japanese crossdressers and transgender people more broadly, that was published from June 1980 to February 2004. It was published by Anto Shōji, a mail-order company selling women's underwear.

These materials were digitized as part the University of Victoria’s contribution to the Digital Transgender Archive project, “’Y’all Better Quiet Down’: Trans BIPOC Digitization Initiative” (principal investigator: Dr. K.J. Rawson, Northeastern University). Funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices grant, 2022-2025.

These materials are made available for educational purposes only; they remain in copyright and are not downloadable.

Resource type

• Collection

Subject

• Transgender

Genre

• serials (publications)
• periodicals

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