nonbinary and being invisible

last week, i went to the think gender forum. mostly i think the talks were interesting & thought-provoking, & i think it's great that there's a forum for people in (mostly news) media who want to learn more about gender bias in media so that they can take the lessons learnt & apply it to make more gender-inclusive reporting.

in particular i really enjoyed the talk by erika yoshida, 違和感から物語は始まる (roughly translated: stories begin from a feeling of "off"ness), & other people have already written thoughts on the various talks (look up #TGF2026 & check out @tgf_thinkgender on twitter/instagram if you're curious) so instead i'd like to talk about how i myself felt a little "off" the whole time i was at the think gender forum.

since the event was called "think gender forum", i made the assmption that it was going to be a forum where we thought about gender.

on a whole, it was. it went over stuff like gender biases in media, literature that discussed gender in entertainment & its history, gender-based violence in the digital sphere...

but for me, it all felt a little off - because when people said "gender", what they meant was "women".

so, i'm nonbinary. when people say "men and women", i go, "hey! aren't you forgetting something?"

this event took place in july, which is literally the same month as international nonbinary people's day & nonbinary awareness week - but the only international days mentioned at the event were international women's day (which was the focus of the media analyses done during the event) & international men's day.

the event was run by asahi shimbun, one of the larger & older newspaper companies in japan. the speakers & attendees ranged from people in newspaper & tv reporting, university professors, & media creators.

so how is it that nobody even really mentioned genders besides women and men until i spoke up about it on the second day?

for reference, japan as a country does not legally recognise any genders besides male or female - but that doesn't mean nonbinary, genderqueer, & other people outside the gender binary do not exist here.

this was a forum where we were supposed to think about gender, so i just wish there had been some space to think about nonbinary people too & how we are represented in media - because if we're invisible even at an event like this, where people in media literally gathered because they cared about gender & the way gender is represented in media, how can we have any chance in media at large?

at the event, many of the speakers talked about how 可視化 (visibility) is important, because it lets us see spots where we might be lacking in knowledge or have unconscious biases. i think the fact that genders besides male & female were not discussed at all by the speakers at an event meant to discuss gender bias shows a very obvious issue with visibility - & i hope that if the think gender forum happens again, that this bias is made visible.

as a freebie example of nonbinary visibility, you can take a look at Nonbinary Coded Games, a game event on Steam that will be happening next week showcasing over 180 games by nonbinary game devs! i'm organising it with fellow nonbinary dev NomnomNami.

if you're in japanese media (or media from another country) & would like to cover this event to make nonbinary people a little more visible, feel free to contact me HERE & i'll send you our press kit.

there's still about a week until international nonbinary people's day, so i hope i'll see some japanese media talking about it 🤞