New half (ニューハーフ) is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

culture-bound term to refer to people assigned male at birth who exhibit stereotypically effeminate behaviours, mannerisms, and/or styles of dress.Yukari Ishii, “The Commercialization and Current Status of Transgender and Cross-Dresser Sexuality,” Humanities Bulletin, 2017, pp. 11-34, viewed January 29, 2024.

Overview

The term is commonly used commercially in Japan to refer to settings such as

drag Drag or The Drag may refer to: Places * Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway * ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania * Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street a ...

, club performers and

sex workers A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is vo ...

, though not all applicable individuals consider themselves 'new half'. The term may also be used to refer to

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

women. Japan has a variety of related terms of varying social acceptability and perceived pejorativeness, including (ミスターレディ) 'mister lady', 'blue boy', (フェムボーイ) '

femboy ''Femboy'' () is a slang term that refers to men, usually cisgender, who express themselves with Femininity, traditionally feminine behaviours, or—especially in the variant spelling ''femboi''—to young Transgender man, trans men or Butch ...

', 'onee', 'okama' and so on. In particular, 'new half' is comparable to the English pejorative or sex work term '

shemale ''Shemale'' (also spelled she-male) is a term most commonly used in the pornography industry to describe trans women or other people with male genitalia and female secondary sex characteristics (including breasts) acquired via hormones or surge ...

' and is sometimed translated directly as such.

History

In historical Japan, it was not unheard of for those assigned male at birth to play female roles in performing arts, such as

kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

. In the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, some performers assigned male at birth would also carry out customer service and sex work through a female presentation. In the 1970s, 'transvestite clubs' began to form, and by the 1980s the term 'new half' had emerged to refer to their members. A common urban rumour is that the 'new half' term first originated in a broadcast conversation between singer-songwriter Keisuke Kawata and drag host Betty of the Betty's Mayonnaise club. By the 1990s, wider knowledge and understanding of concepts of

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to inconsistency between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender i ...

and transgender identity had begun to emerge among the population. There was some effort to move away from the older 'new half' term towards more standardised terms. Awareness and recognition of the transgender community has continued to increase up until modern day, and to an extent Japanese transgender people can access the general workplace rather than being relegated to sex work or water trade. Despite this, many still face

social stigma Stigma, originally referring to the visible marking of people considered inferior, has evolved to mean a negative perception or sense of disapproval that a society places on a group or individual based on certain characteristics such as their ...

, and some estimates put the transgender suicide rate in Japan as double that of the

cisgender The word ''cisgender'' (often shortened to ''cis''; sometimes ''cissexual'') describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is Latin and ...

population.

Medical and legal status

As with other transgender populations, the level of cosmetic, social or

medical procedures A medical procedure is a course of action intended to achieve a result in the delivery of healthcare. A medical procedure with the intention of determining, measuring, or diagnosing a patient condition or parameter is also called a medical test. ...

sought varies on an individual basis. In Japan, individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria who have changed their name may apply to have their officially recognised gender marker amended.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New half Articles created or improved during Wiki Loves Pride 2025 LGBTQ terminology Gender systems Transgender topics in Japan