Tokyo Comic-Con bans men from cosplaying as women

Boys will be boys.

Tokyo Comic-Con has chosen to ban male cosplayers from dressing up as female characters.

The Japanese equivalent of San Diego Comic-Con states on its official website that men are forbidden from "crossplay", but specific phrasing of the rules do not prevent women from dressing as men.

The site also stipulates rules which are common at conventions, such as prohibiting firearms and insisting that weapons go through security checks, but the banning of crossplay has raised eyebrows.

In western Comic-Con events it is a common occurrence, with many attendees choosing to re-imagine their chosen character as a different sex. A few months ago, we even collected a bundle of the best crossplays online.

(via Dr Teng)

Naoko Tatibana, a Japanese photographer who works with the LBGT community commented on the wider practise of banning crossplay in Japan.

"Despite all the exposure transsexuals and cross-dressers are given on TV and in magazines in Japan, men are forbidden from dressing up as the opposite sex at the one place you would think it would be most acceptable: cosplay events," she explained.

"Regardless of gender, cosplay is about transformation, which is why it presents so much possibility for cross-dressing."

Though we're not entirely trusting of Google Translate's ability to render Japanese into English, the rules of Tokyo Comic Con seem to indicate that women and men will receive different coloured registration cards, which will allow them access to the male or female dressing rooms and toilets.

London's own Comic Con commences on October 28.

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a812238/tokyo-comic-con-bans-men-from-cosplaying-as-women/

That's awful. If people want to crossplay, why ban them?

Kotaku disagrees
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/10/tokyo-comic-con-bans-men-from-cosplaying-as-women-characters/

Was this really a problem? Who cares what people want to dress up as?

Lol. It makes some sense when looking from a Japanese point of view.

Japan is facing a demographic disaster so is playing around in the stupidest marges of sexual profiling because they cannot accept that their neo-fascist .gov is the real problem :(.

Ban Comic-Con while you're at it. Seriously this is infuriatingly stupid. Let men crossdress if they want, cosplays are fun regardless of the gender you're cosplaying, geez.

I go around praising Japan for its culture and then this happens. Hopefully enough people complain and they reconsider this utterly idiotic decision.

Sad to hear that from a fellow vgc member.

I mean, where exactly do you draw the line?

Say you were about to have lunch and ordered a taco but ended up getting a hot dog isntead. How would you feel about it?

That's why!

As crazy as cross dressing is, this is genuinely infuriating, and this does piss me off.

This is a convention for crying out loud, let nerds to what they want to do.

EDIT: Even after reading that bottom part, this still seems a little silly, but I guess if Japan is that uptight about this sort of thing, then fair enough.