When you move to Japan, it can be tough to re-create the kind of community support you may have had in your home country — just ask Chloe Douglas and Reyna Marquez.
After sampling what Japan’s gay districts had to offer over the years, including Tokyo’s well-known Ni-chome neighborhood, Douglas and Marquez came to the realization that their community needed more inclusive spaces where everyone could feel like they belong.
“In Japan, it feels like the gay community is very segregated,” Marquez says. “Gay guys go here, lesbians go here ... what about everyone else in-between? There are so many intersectionalities. What about queer people of color? Different age groups?