A former workers’ town…Kamagasaki, Osaka “has become the frontline of care and employment support for LGBTQ elderly people” Deep background

Did you know that Kamagasaki (Airin area) in Nishinari-ku, Osaka City, has become a “front line” for caring for elderly LGBTQ people and providing employment support for people with disabilities?

What was once known as one of the most labor-intensive areas in Japan is becoming a place where LGBTQ caregivers support elderly LGBTQ people and elderly people with disabilities sell craft beer to help them find work. I would like to introduce the reality of this situation from the reportage “Mukonen seniors” (Ishii Kota, Ushio Publishing Co., Ltd.), which follows the reality of elderly people on the outskirts of society.

Kamagasaki” may conjure up images of a town where day laborers gather. For the younger generation, the image may be “a town of chaos where homeless people gather.

Kamagasaki flourished as a “do-ya-machi,” a district of simple lodging houses, from the period of rapid economic growth through the 1970s.

At that time, Japan was undergoing various development works along with economic growth. Kamagasaki had a large number of job placement agents, and people would come here to get day jobs or short-term physical labor. At its peak, more than 20,000 workers overflowed into an area only 500 meters square.

The characteristic feature of the doya street at this time was the ability to find work while keeping one’s identity hidden. Therefore, not a few of the workers who flocked to the city were of bad conduct.

Some had been excommunicated from gangs, some had escaped from debt collectors, some had just gotten out of jail, and some were addicted to methamphetamine ……. They were literally living for the day, spending their day’s wages on overnight gambling, prostitution, and alcohol.

They would accept anyone.”

Since that time, Kamagasaki has also attracted a small number of what are now known as LGBTQ people. Masahiro Umeda, a care manager in Kamagasaki, said, “There were and still are people in Kamagasaki who are LGBTQ.

There were and still are a lot of LGBTQ people living in Kamagasaki. To begin with, LGBTQ people who were born and raised in the countryside in rural areas often had to leave their parents’ homes, cutting ties with their families. The reasons for this are many and varied, such as being discriminated against in their hometowns or being forced by their parents to marry members of the opposite sex.

Even if these people left their hometowns to live in the city, they were still discriminated against there, or they could not find a place to live due to difficulties in their relationships. These people come to Kamagasaki because it is a place that accepts all people, no matter who they are.

The people we met during our interview were no different.

A grew up transgender (male in body and female in mind) in the 1930s, a time when it was unacceptable to confess one’s gender identity. Therefore, he was forced to marry a woman whom his parents decided would be the heir to the town factory.

For A, acting the part of a man and dealing with his wife was the hardest thing of all, and when he finally had his third boy, he left everything behind and fled home naked and in the night.

He ended up in Kamagasaki, where he worked as a construction worker during the day and chose to live as a woman at night, his true sex.

In Kamagasaki, both heterosexuals and sexual minorities lived together. Heterosexuals often went to the nearby Tobita Shinchi area to engage in prostitution, but for transgender, gay, and other sexual minorities such as A, the immediate neighborhood called “Shinsekai” was the place to socialize. There, A spent time as a woman.

A told the following story.

In those days, you were never allowed to say that you liked cross-dressing or that you liked men. But only here (Kamagasaki), all kinds of people were accepted. It is a place where people who were discriminated against gather, so there is no discrimination. So no one said anything about men wearing skirts or holding hands with other men. When I first came here, I thought it was like heaven.

Kamagasaki was a place for such minorities.

Half a century has passed since then, and these people are now elderly. Their bodies have deteriorated from years of physical labor and inactivity, and they are now receiving public assistance and spending the rest of their lives in simple accommodations in Kamagasaki or in apartments in the neighborhood. Some of them are elderly LGBTQ people who have lost their place in the world and find themselves in this city.

Many of these elderly people are in need of nursing care. One person who is helping these people is the aforementioned care manager, Masahiro Umeda.

Umeda, who is openly gay, founded the care manager office “Nijiiro Kazoku,” which provides care-related services to elderly LGBTQ people living in Nishinari Ward. He says, “I don’t want to say that my clients are LGBTQ because they are LGBTQ.

The fact that they are LGBTQ doesn’t change the care they receive. But I believe that there are fine senses and relationships that can be built because of people like me.

Kamagasaki serves as a model

Some of the elderly gay men are HIV-positive. HIV is now a disease that can be controlled with medication, but this requires regular visits to the hospital and continued use of appropriate medication. Many of them also have same-sex lovers to take care of them.

For these elderly people, a care manager like Mr. Umeda would be invaluable. They can talk to them about their illnesses and understand that they have same-sex lovers.

In this sense, because Kamagasaki is a place where LGBTQ people gather, there is a high demand for LGBTQ supporters who understand this. And there are more than a few people who are responding to that demand.

Umeda says, “In Kamagasaki, we have a lot of people who are gay.

I am the only openly gay care manager in Kamagasaki, but there are many nurses and caregivers. There are many nurses and caregivers, and there are companies that hire many of those nurses and caregivers. So I try to connect LGBTQ nurses and caregivers with the elderly as much as possible. I think it’s a more peaceful way to age in place.

There are very few communities where a certain number of LGBTQ seniors live together and have specialized social services for them. For more information on the details of this type of care, please read the book “Mukonenrei” (The Unconnected Elderly), but it may be said that Kamagasaki is becoming a model for one.

Next, we would like to look at the employment support and craft beer business for the people living in Kamagasaki. I would like to discuss this in detail in “Part 2: Elderly Workers in Kamagasaki, Osaka, Sell Craft Beer with Great Success! A Miraculous True Story.

Part 2: Elderly Workers in Kamagasaki , Osaka, S ell Craft Beer with Great Success! A True Story of Miracle