Hello and welcome to Queer as Fact, the podcast bringing you queer history from around the world and throughout time.

I'm Irene. I'm Alice and I'm Eli.

And today we're going to be talking about Yoshiko Kawashima, a military commander spy and socialite,

active around the time of the Second World War.

Before we begin, I have some content warnings. This episode contains mentions of the following things.

Abuse of a teenager by an adoptive parent, including potential sexual abuse, brief reference

to drug use, mention of the Japanese occupation of China,

a brief reference to a relationship between an adult and a minor and execution by firing squad.

If you would prefer not to hear any of those things, feel free to skip this episode.

Just a little bit of brief background about my sources.

The vast majority of my material about Yoshiko's life comes from

the 2015 biography Manchu Princess Japanese Spy by Phyllis Bernbell. Phyllis is a journalist,

biographer, and a Japanese translator, which gave her access to primary sources such as Yoshiko's

letters and diaries and newspaper articles from the time,

which some of which I technically could have accessed, but the time that it would have taken

me reading the Japanese.

Would not be worth it.

Would not have been worth it.

In general, finding out the fact about Yoshiko's life is a little bit complicated by

the existence of a 1933 novel called

The Translated Title is The Beauty in Men's Clothing,

which stars a protagonist called Marikor in a semi-fictional version of Yoshiko's life, basically.

...