【Report】7th BreakTalks “Bouldering for Everyone” – Special Event for International Women’s Day (March 8, 2023)

On March 8th, we hosted the 7th BreakTalks with Sumitomo Corporation (*1) as a special event for International Women’s Day. We invited professional climber Mr. Kai Harada as a speaker, a representative of Japan in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, whom Sumitomo sponsors. Within this event we welcomed nineteen participants.

Mr. Harada won the bouldering event at the 2018 World Championships and is a leading climber in Japan, representing the country in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. He believes in “Overcoming Oneself” and trains daily. He also promotes and shares his passion for climbing through various media.

The event began with a talk session between Mr. Harada and moderator Orime from S.C.P. Japan. Mr. Harada began by explaining that bouldering is one of three disciplines in sports climbing, in which one climbs walls between 4 and 5 meters in height, using only their body, without any equipment.

When Mr. Harada was young, he happened to stop by at a climbing facility. He was immediately drawn to the sport as he saw that everyone, regardless of gender or age, was enjoying themselves. “Before competitions, what we athletes do is to discuss the climbing routes together. I think this sums up what the sport is all about. It’s really special.”

Climbing was more than just a sport to Mr. Harada, who was raised in a single-parent household. He says the climbing got him through the tough period. “It was hard growing up, but I always looked forward to practicing with my friends at the gym. I have been actively working with non-profit organizations that support children, because I want to give the same opportunities to other young people.”

Interestingly, climbing is said to be a sport where the difference between men and women is not felt as much. “It is often the case that women perform better than men on the same climbing challenge,” says Mr. Harada. Climbing seems like a good sport that women can challenge themselves.

After the talk, two panellists joined the discussion; Ms. Yui Shirai, who is organizing climbing outreach activities for people with disabilities at Monkey Magic, and Ms. Yuiko Inoue, who oversees a sports program for girls with disabilities at S.C.P. Japan.

With the motto “We can overcome invisible walls,” Monkey Magic started as a climbing school for people with visual impairments. They introduced their unique method called “HKK” for conveying the position of the holds to visually impaired climbers. They now welcome participants with other disabilities as well.

Meanwhile, Ms. Inoue said it’s not always easy for girls with disabilities to participate in sports. “When offering sports classes for children with disabilities (for both genders), we have overwhelmingly more boys than girls. We thought we’d need a different way to reach out to girls.”  S.C.P. Japan’s “Find Fun” sports program was then designed for girls with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and it has been successful with about ten participants attending each time.

Mr. Harada also shared that climbing is a sport where physical abilities or gender of the athlete does not define their performance. “Climbing provides a space where individuals can challenge themselves while also supporting and helping each other.”

Concluding the event, all agreed on the importance of providing both a safe and enjoyable space for physical activity, where individuals can challenge themselves while also feeling supported.

S.C.P. Japan aims to create a platform for diversity and inclusivity through BreakTalks, inviting various guests and showcasing different activities.

This BreakTalks event was made possible through the support of Sumitomo Corporation. A member of Sumitomo’s 100SEED program(*2), which encourages social entrepreneurship, kindly provided assistance for S.C.P. Japan and that is how it started.

■ For details on the support provided to S.C.P. Japan by Sumitomo Corporation’s pro bono team, please click here (Japanese):

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mr. Harada, Ms. Shirai, Sumitomo Corporation, the sign language interpreters, and all the participants.

*1 Since 2018, Sumitomo Corporation has been sponsoring the Japan Mountaineering and Sport Climbing Association as a “gold sponsor”. In 2019, they signed a sponsorship contract with Mr. Kai Harada.

Sport Climbing | Sumitomo Corporation: https://www.sumitomocorp.com/ja/jp/special/climbing

*2 Sumitomo Corporation’s “100SEED” is a social contribution program in which Sumitomo Corporation group employees from around the world engage in dialogue and actively participate to address educational challenges in their respective local communities under the theme of “quality education.”

【Report】5th BreakTalks “Trans Woman and Sports Fields” (June 29, 2022) 

On Wednesday, June 29, S.C.P Japan held a fifth BreakTalks. This time, we invited Ms. Shuna Matsumoto, who has been working as an athletic performance coach in Y.S.C.C Yokohama (as of June 2022), as our guest speaker. She was born in Germany, and after learning about coaching in Germany and the United States, she has been a track and field coach as well as an athletic performance coach for over 20 years. In 2020, she  publicly came out as a trans woman (*1).

This time during BreakTalks, Ms. Shuna shared with us her experiences and perspectives, working life, and things that are important in the sports fields and society for a while. Her story made everyone discuss a few topics such as “Transgender and Sports” and “Transgender and Society.”

Before the guest talk, Orime, a member of S.C.P Japan, explained the current situations/facts and issues related to “Trans women and Sports Field.”

In November 2021, the IOC announced a new framework related to the participation of  transgender athletes in sports: “IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations.” In this framework, the IOC stated that there would be no regulations that would define the common criteria for gender categories for each sport with regard to the participation of athletes in competitions. This new framework also stated that each sport and its governing body would determine the criteria, taking into account the nature of each sport. As an example, the recent new rule of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) on the participation of transgender people was presented, which resulted in the limitation of the participation of transgender women in the women’s category.

In addition, we touched on the participation of LGBTQ+ (*2) people whose sports skills are at a general level. Due to the lack of sufficient knowledge about LGBTQ+ individuals and the structure and mechanics of sports based on gender binary, LGBTQ+ youth, especially nonbinary (*3) youth, there have been reports of lower participation in sports.

Looking at these facts, we can say that the participation of LGBTQ+ people in sports still has a lot of challenges. On the other hand, the Tokyo Olympics not only featured 222 LGBTQ+ athletes (as of August 2021), but Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics in the gender category to that which they identify with.

Hubbard’s participation in the Tokyo Olympics visualized transgender people, as she became a role model for young people, bringing diverse communication among sports fields and society. Through the game, LGBTQ+ athletes, including Hubbard, conveyed a lot of messages for the future of the sporting world and youth. 

Afterward, Torizuka, who has been working for S.C.P. Japan as an intern, interviewed the guest speaker, Shuna Matsumoto, about her experiences, thoughts, and feelings that led her to officially come out as a transwoman, as well as things that she would like to see in today’s society and sports world.

*1 Transgender is a term that refers to people who feel a discrepancy between the sex they were born with and the sex they self-identify. Among them, people who wish to be closer to their true gender both physically and mentally are called transsexuals. Trans women mean transgender, including transsexual, whose physicality as male and their gender identity as female do not match.

*2 LGBTQ+ takes the initials that stand for Lesbian (a person who identifies as a woman or feels a connection to womanhood who is attracted to women.), Gay (a person who identifies as a man or feels a connection to manhood who is attracted to men), Bisexual (a person who is attracted to two or more gender identities), Transgender (a person whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth.), Queer (a person whose gender identity or sexual orientation does not correspond to established ideas of majority), Questioning (a person who does not know, cannot decide, or does not decide their sexual orientation or gender identity), and + (plus) represents the diverse range of sexualities and gender identities that do not fit into the LGBTQ categories listed above. 

*3 Nonbinary refers to a person who does not identify their gender within the binary gender system (i.e. woman/man).

Ms. Shuna’s Sports and Coaching Experiences

“When I was 12, I started track and field in Germany, where I spent my childhood. As Germany has good coaching licensing systems, clubs whose coaches have the license earn high reputations, which leads to an increase in club membership, and some areas offer subsidies for coaches with the license, teams are active to develop coaches. 

Having played track and field in such a good environment, I worked as an assistant for coaches in the club that I belonged to from the age of 14. With a main coach, I earned coaching knowledge and skills through first-hand experiences in the club. After that, I studied coaching at Athletes’ Performance (now EXOS) in the United States. Several policies of the organization such as “training that never makes a difference between men and women” and “the focus on training a move rather than muscles” inspired me to study coaching there. I believe my duty and importance of coaching is to develop players I taught to a level in which the players can become coaches.”

The Process of Coming Out and the Reactions of People around Her

In my childhood, I was not really thinking about my gender identity (Gender identity: a person’s internal, deeply held sense of their gender. It doesn’t necessarily correspond to one’s physical structure.). That is partly because people around me naturally accepted my long hair and pretty, girlish face. My unestablished gender identity has changed to female as I grow up.  Having revealed my gender identity in Germany, I worked as a woman for a year. However, since I had not made big results in my work and I was facing many other challenges at the time, I gave up telling people around me about my gender identity. Then I moved to Japan in 2013. The new life in Japan was hard, but I noticed that I could be myself when wearing skirts. On the other hand, though I had been wearing makeup and nails for some time,  I was anxious about what everyone would think of me and lived my life always thinking of reasons for wearing makeup, such as using foundation to cover rough skin, so I could explain when I was asked about it. Even doing so, I still wanted to come out, and around the second year at Y.S.C.C Yokohama, I slowly began to live my life a little more openly by posting pictures on Instagram that everyone would realize that I’m a transgender and by wearing more makeup than before.

While thinking about when to express my feelings at Y.S.C.C Yokohama, the head coach brought it up to me first, and the process naturally led me to come out. After that, the head coach explained to the club. I also learned later that the head coach had explained my gender identity to the players without my knowledge. The other male coaches at the club might be considerate of me and would not come in when I was changing in the locker room. Y.S.C.C. Yokohama has players with diverse backgrounds. Maybe that’s why I feel that the team is willing to accept people from all walks of life and not be critical or conservative with people, including me. ”

Transgender Athletes and Sports

“When I was doing track and field, I had no aversion to play as a male athlete. Even now, I have a desire to compete in the men’s category when I do athletics. In the mixed events in track and fields that I was working on, the number of events were different based on gender: decathlon for men and heptathlon for women. I prefer decathlon to heptathlon, for decathlon has more events and I am more used to it. I would like to participate in the decathlon as a female athlete, if possible. Also, in track and field, both men and women train together and work off the same training menus. So, I never felt uncomfortable about gender. In addition, while doing athletics, I never thought about my gender identity as I was so focused on the competition (This may be different from other transgender people).

I am openly transgender. Being a transgender does not prevent me from doing my job because I can compete as a coach regardless of gender thanks to my record as an athlete and coaching achievements to this day. On the other hand, athletes may not be able to continue competing due to the “gender” category, so trans athletes are in a really hard situation. However, we can change these situations in a lot of ways such as changing rules and establishing clear rules about gender categories.”

After the guest talk session in the first half, the second half was dedicated to participants’ interaction with each other through an active exchange of ideas and opinions.

Ms. Shuna left a comment saying, “LGBTQ+ people also live their lives naturally. If the people around them could accept the behavior of LGBTQ+ people as natural, without treating them differently because they are lesbians or transgender, and then discrimination against others would not arise.”

She also commented, “society sometimes puts restrictions on jobs that only women can do or men can do, but if people with abilities can get jobs regardless of gender, society will change. For example, in the profession of coaching, the training menu and methods do not differ between women and men. She also touched on the way she interacts with others, commenting, “When I teach kids in a club, professional athletes, athletes who have participated in the Paralympics and won medals, I always feel that I am teaching ‘athletes’regardless of disabilities or ages.”  

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the 15 participants from different backgrounds and to all those who were involved and supported the event.

We also would also like to extend a sincere and big thank you to Ms. Shuna for participating in this event and sharing her story and thoughts, with the volunteers, sign language interpreters, and all the participants.

【Report】Second online collaboration event of Bridge Women’s Soccer Program and S.C.P. Japan “Designing my life ~how to authentically live your life ” Celebrating International Women’s Day (March 5th, 2022)

Continuing last year’s collaboration event, we, S.C.P. Japan, held an event with the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program on Saturday, March 5th, as a special event to celebrate International Women’s Day. The primary theme of this event was “Designing my life~how to authentically live your life”. We introduced the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program that will be presented at the 8th International Working Group (IWG) World Conference on Women and Sport. The event also included a session where a dialogue with the 35 participants took place – where they were divided into 7 groups with different topics.

Firstly Ms. Marika Fukuta, Ms. Satomi Yamaguchi, and Ms. Ayako Takematsu, who are the representatives of the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program, introduced the 8th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport, which will be held in New Zealand in November 2022. Additionally, they announced that the Bridge program was selected as one of the groups that will present at the conference. 

In 1994, Brighton, UK, held the first IWG World Conference on Women and Sport, aiming to“encourage women to join various fields within sports”. Eventually, the conference was set to be held once every four years in various continents. In the 7th conference in the Republic of Botswana in 2018, the chief of the Japan Sports Agency presented about Japanese sports policy. As such, it would be a great opportunity for the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program to present  at an international conference like this.

The concept of the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program is “being the bridge that connects Japan and the world using the tool ‘soccer’.” The Bridge Women’s Soccer Tour has been held for about 30 years, and the total number of participants is over 500. Additionally, the program has been supporting people who want to study abroad in the U.S. through women’s soccer, and around 50 people have achieved their studying abroad goals. The founders of the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program are Ms. Miyuki Kobayashi, and Ms. Kanae Haneishi. Ms. Kobayashi originally had been executing the women’s soccer tour abroad, and they added the “Bridge” portion by providing study abroad support as well when Ms. Haneishi joined the Program.

The Bridge’s motto is, “It doesn’t matter how well you play soccer. We support whoever has a strong will.” The Bridge believes that it is important to become independent through the study abroad experience. Therefore, in the process of preparation, they help people become independent, through the procedures like sending an application, and contacting the coach at the universities. 

Also, the “Bridge family”, who are those that have taken part in the tour or have studied abroad through the Bridge program, have been engaging in various activities regardless of their batches. For example, after the Kumamoto earthquake, the Bridge members visited and contributed via fundraising. They have also visited one of the women’s soccer clubs in high school in Okayama, and gave a presentation for the students about studying abroad and careers, which was valuable as many students in the countryside have fewer access to these information. 

In the Bridge family, there are many people who explore and expand their possibilities, and design their own life. Ms. Ayaki Shinada who studied abroad through the Bridge program is one of the examples. She is currently working as an Indigo Dyer using a Japanese traditional method, called Sho-Aizome, after her professional soccer career in Europe.

After introducing the 8th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport and the Bridge Women’s Soccer Program, we divided participants into 7 groups and had discussions about various topics. The group with the topic of “Childbirth, childcare, and my life”, shared their ideas about the importance of forgiving themselves for not being perfect, while sharing their struggles between childcare and jobs.

The group of “How do you make decisions in your life?”, mentioned that it was important to gather information and follow your heart when making your decision.

From the “LGBTQ+, Gender diversity” group, they shared the difficulty with living in the society where gender is seen as only as a dichotomy, either man or woman. 

Ms. Kobayashi, one of the founders of the Bridge program, rediscovered the importance of the Bridge family connection, saying, “I’m happy that this event came from the Bridge family. We’d like to continue being active.” Also, Ms. Haneishi, who is also the founder, emphasized the significance of celebrating International Women’s Day, saying, “It will take a long time to make a change. But we can change it someday by being patient, have a strong mind, and take action together.”

Finally, each participant wrote down a note about “what you can start from tomorrow to design and live your own authentic life”, and we took a group picture with their notes. We appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about what we have been pondering about individually.

Last but not least, thank you so much to those who participated in this event, the Bridge members who cooperated, and those who volunteered as a sign language interpreter.