Some Dorks

cover: Androgynous is not enough. Let me be a man.

Japanese model and actor Nakayama Satsuki of Kamen Rider fame has come out as asexual and transgender in his photo essay Museiai (Asexual) set to be released on September 17.

Nakayama comments on the release:

There is something I want to tell you. I, Nakayama Satsuki, am transgender. I have played female roles in the past, but it’s painful for me to be perceived as a woman. Moving forward, I would like my roles not to be limited by my sex. When I tell people I am transgender, they would sometimes ask if it means I like girls, but I am in fact also asexual. Though even I myself struggle how best to talk about this, I would like people to learn about being asexual. This is how my photo essay came to be. It would make me happy beyond measure for readers to approach my work as Nakayama Satsuki the person not limited by my sex.

Snippet from the book:

I lied.

That I only look masculine because I like the fashion, that I’m otherwise “normal”. –

The needle of lies I’d stabbed myself with had started to corrode, so that even playing androgynous roles had become painful.

Underneath androgyny there is still a woman. Before I knew it, I was only able to perform the genderlessness expected of me by removing myself from it.

Being a girl who’s cool like a boy was my selling point. I felt discomfort at the appeal of my “still being a girl”. By the time I realised it, I was already suffocating.

am scared