Negotiating the Homosexual Self: Epistemological Blind Spots and Tōjisha Perspectives in Research on Male Same-Sex Identities in Japan

Academic research on male same-sex identities in Japan has grown substantially over three decades, yet the frameworks organizing this scholarship have received little scrutiny. This thesis asks how knowledge in the field has been produced and what its foundational choices have made difficult to see. Through a critical meta-analysis of English- and Japanese-language scholarship, I identify four categories of blind spot (epistemological, narrative, methodological, and intersectional) traced to three recurring assumptions: that public coming out marks psychological maturity and political progress; that societies follow a universal trajectory from repression to acceptance; and that "LGBT" functions as a coherent category. Drawing on the emic/etic distinction, I show these assumptions arise not only from Western-derived paradigms but equally from within Japanese discourse, where nihonjinron and self-orientalizing claims of cultural uniqueness have shaped sexuality research as a co-equal mechanism of distortion. The critique is not purely diagnostic. Through a glocalization framework, the thesis documents how Japanese scholars and tōjisha (当事者, those directly concerned) have actively transformed and replaced imported categories, developing alternative conceptualizations — selective disclosure over coming out, relational trust over rights-based recognition, quiet subversion over confrontational activism — that the dominant literature has marginalized. The analysis culminates in principles for tōjisha-centered research: foregrounding the agency, diversity, and self-determination of those whose lives this scholarship claims to represent.