LGBTQ+ in Japan — Interview with Hamish Craig
This interview is part of an ongoing Women in Science Japan (WISJ) project highlighting LGBTQ+ experiences in Japan, particularly those within STEM and medicine. Thank you to our interviewees, interpreters, Labianna Joroe, Kat Joplin, and the WISJ team for making this project possible.
This interview was published with the interviewee’s consent and edited for length and clarity.
Hamish Craig (he/him) is a gay postdoctoral researcher at RIKEN. Originally from Newcastle, Australia, he has been living in Japan for nearly three years. Hamish joined me via Zoom to discuss his research, his art, and his connections to the queer community in Tokyo.
Tell me about your research.
Essentially, I am Spider-Man. I look at the synthesis and molecular structure of spider silk in an attempt to better understand how we can create artificial silk.
“Essentially, I am Spider-Man…My goal is to get a picture, from the atomic scale and up, of what makes spider silk super tough.”
A big part of my job is going out into the field and collecting spiders. I then usually run different kinds of treatments with the spiders, such as feeding treatments with ¹³C or ¹⁵N labeled amino acids. Then l reel the silk from the spiders- they don’t get harmed, but I essentially just pull it out of their abdomen. I run nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and many other kinds of chemical analyses. My goal is to get a picture, from the atomic scale and up, of what makes spider silk super tough.
What would be a potential application of your work?
Silk is considered a “super material” in terms of its potential uses. Applications include everything from nerve grafts- like scaffolding for nerves, which like to propagate along spider silk- all the way to tough fabrics for ropes and bulletproof clothing. Spider silk has a quite varied kind of potential applications, which is why it’s such a big area of study in the biological materials space.
How would you describe your work environment and lab culture?
I think I was very blessed to get into the lab that I am with my supervisor. He understands that people work at different rates and in different ways. I’ve had a rich multicultural experience in the lab; it’s about 50:50 Japanese to international staff. My lab is also quite diverse in terms of subject matter. We’re not just looking at spider silk. If there’s an interesting protein that might be of use somewhere, our lab looks at it.
My day-to-day work is highly variable. It depends on the time of year and the seasonality of the spider work. Between the end of spring to roughly November is the busy period where I’m actually working with spiders.
Tell me about your journey from Australia to Japan.
It happened organically for me. I studied Japanese in high school but wasn’t particularly interested in living here initially. When it got to the end of my PhD, my current supervisor visited my lab. He was working on a project where he was sampling spiders from all over the world. He’d been everywhere, like Madagascar, Africa, and many other amazing places. He came to visit my lab in Australia. I was speaking with him about my project and some of my findings, as you do when connecting as scientists. Then, my PhD supervisor and I decided he would be a good person to mark my thesis. He was impressed enough with my thesis that he wanted to offer me a job. I had a set of skills that he was lacking in his lab, so he thought it would be a good fit for me to join.
What inspired you to pursue a career in science?
As a kid, I was very interested in how things worked and building things. I always had a curious mind when it came to those sorts of things. In high school, I knew that I really wanted to work with animals. That’s kind of what initially pushed me into my science degree. I went into a Bachelor of Science looking to major in zoology, but eventually I went on to major in biology and moved into an advanced science degree.
Have you had any mentors throughout your career?
One of the most influential people for me would be my PhD supervisor, even before I decided to do research or a PhD. He was an extremely strong science communicator and just an all-around smart guy. He really made me think about the world and made me fall in love a little bit more with biology.
The other person would be my honors supervisor. He’s well-known in my university for being one of the best lecturers. One of his lessons is called “The four-dimensional bio blob called Life,” which is about thinking about evolution from four dimensions. Both my PhD and honors supervisors opened my eyes to bigger questions and getting curious about things in life.
Have you had any LGBTQ+ mentors or role models?
To my knowledge, there wasn’t a head member of staff or someone like that that was LGBTQ+. My university did have a strong commitment to having women at the forefront of the academic hierarchy. There were many strong, amazing women academics that were inspirational to me from a perspective of being a minority in your field. LGBTQ+ specifically, though, I had lots of peers and friends who are also doing PhDs who were more vocally out and more unabashedly themselves. I came out kind of late. So, for me, they were inspirational in the sense that they were so readily authentic in an academic setting.
“I had lots of peers and friends… who were more vocally out and more unabashedly themselves. [F]or me, they were inspirational in the sense that they were so readily authentic in an academic setting.”
If you had access to formal mentorship- or you had the opportunity to be a mentor- for other LGBTQ+ scientists, would you be open to participating?
My university had an ally program, which included formal training and education on queer issues. I would participate in things like panel discussions, where we would provide our perspective with straight allies wanting to learn about our experience or how they could help us. So yes, I would participate in conversations like that amongst a mix of queer and straight people to help allies gain a understanding of our experiences.
As a gay scientist, are you out to your colleagues?
Not really. I’ve hinted at it. I remember on my first day or second day, I was talking with my supervisor about visiting Shinjuku. I was still new to Japan. While discussing areas of Shinjuku, eventually my supervisor said something along the lines of, “how do you not know what Kabukichō is, but you know about Ni-chōme (the gay district of Shinjuku)?” I replied, “Well, maybe you can read between the lines.” And that’s the extent to which I’ve discussed my sexuality at work, really. I add people on Facebook and they’re free to see my personal life. It’s not that I’m actively hiding it from them. It’s just not something I’ve ever actively brought up or talked about; it’s not really a space where I’m discussing that sort of thing much, anyway. I’m not really talking with my lab mates talking about their personal lives much, either. Most of our discussion is about our work, which we all find very interesting.
[M]y supervisor said something along the lines of, “How do you not know what Kabukichō is, but you know about Ni-chōme?” I replied, “Well, maybe you can read between the lines.”
Tell how you got into body painting and how you practice that in Japan.
I’ve always had kind of a duality. I have my analytical side, but I also have quite a creative side. When I was in university, we would have dress up parties. I would often have to come up with some interesting yet cheap ways of creating costumes. That was the seed for getting into body painting. Body painting was a great way to merge the creative side and also needing to create a costume. It’s also a bit sexy and salacious at times when you’re walking around just in underwear and body paint.
“I’ve always had kind of a duality. I have my analytical side, but I also have quite a creative side.”
When I moved to Japan, I wasn’t painting all that much. My then-partner broke up with me just as I was getting on the plane to come back to Japan from Australia- and then COVID hit. It was a double-whammy of like, I’m now sitting alone in my room and also I’ve just been broken up with. I was dealing with both of those things when I found painting is a good way for me to express myself. My painting is actually analytical in a sense: I’m analyzing an image and I’m working out how to transfer that onto my body. It’s also meditative. I lose myself while I’m doing it. I put music on and then realize it’s been four or five hours since I started.
Tell me about your experiences with the LGBTQ+ community in Japan.
My first few weeks here were kind of rough. I was moving to a city where I basically knew no one and I didn’t know any queer people. So the first few weekends, I essentially went to bars to make friends. Such is the nature of I think a lot of queer culture, particularly in Japan. Nightlife is where a lot of gay men in particular meet. That’s our space.
I’ve found a really good queer space that I love and cherish here.
Now, I’m actually getting into the ballroom scene in Tokyo. I think the House of Ninja, which is a house from the US, brought voguing and the ball scene to Japan. We all come together maybe once a fortnight or once a week to have a ball. Some people dress up and do catwalk. Some people do voguing and vogue battles. I’ve found a really good queer space that I love and cherish here.
Any advice you would give to a younger gay scientist?
Although gay people are overrepresented in academia compared to some other workplaces, it still can be a masculine, patriarchal space. Despite that, make sure you are trying to be true to yourself throughout your career. It’s not only going to benefit you in your career, but also personally; it’s healthier when you’re being yourself and not trying to hide your your queerness.
