In July, Setagaya, another influential district in Tokyo, recognized same-sex marriage.
"We went from, 'Can you really be a company providing services to the LGBT community?' To: Letibee, your time has come," Hayashi says. Hayashi says until that moment, seeing LGBT rights splashed across the front page of the newspaper was unimaginable. Shibuya, one of the most well-known districts in Tokyo - think - Times Square mashed up with the West Village, but with more governing power - recognized same-sex marriage. On top of the ups and downs of running a startup, Hayashi has been a running a startup aimed at a community no one thought was important.Īnd then in April, everything changed. And they’re about to launch an app they hope will provide a safe space for LGBT to connect and build community.
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They do corporate consulting, teaching companies about sexuality, sexual minorities - and how to respond to LGBT as customers and employees. It’s a media site featuring everything from news to stories on trans- and gay-friendly hair salons to people writing about their own coming out experiences. Today Hayashi is the CEO of Letibee - meant to sound like Let it be. If we don't do something, the next generation will suffer just as much." "Say someone like me comes out to their parents in five years, and they’re also told that’s disgusting," Hayashi says. At first they were doing it mostly for fun, but then they started learning about the high suicide rate of sexual minorities in Japan. And they won a huge student business competition. Together they planned a wedding and life services company for the queer community. One day a friend - the only other friend he had who was openly gay - said he wanted to start a company to do same-sex weddings. In college, Hayashi was doing research on the untapped LGBT market in Japan. And LGBT individuals often feel isolated. Schoolyard bullying and discrimination are known problems.
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And for years it wasn't uncommon to see a cross-dresser on TV giving fashion advice or a Japanese cartoon with gay characters.īut while being openly gay has been OK for famous people or anime characters, on an individual level, it’s been really hard to be out in Japan. Japan - unlike the US - doesn't have a Puritan history that says homosexuality is some kind of cardinal sin. That’s disgusting,” she said, according to Hayashi. That really hurt. "I just kind of said it quickly, 'Hey, I’m gay,'" he recalls. When 24-year-old Koki Hayashi first came out to his mom, he was a junior in college.