In 2023, one of travel companions in Japan was a transgender woman. She was a little worried about how she might be perceived and treated, so we all did a little research to figure out if there were any precautions to take or if a trans person in the group would limit us in any way. The main potential things that came up online were that public hot springs would be difficult, that rural areas would be less welcoming, and that you might occasionally get a brief stare/glare for going in the bathroom you think you belong in but someone else thinks you do not belong in.
The more one passes as their preferred gender, the less likely any issue will emerge. Another important thing to note is that a non-Asian tourist probably can get away with being however they want— as long as they are not breaking any laws— because foreigners, especially of the non-Asian sort, are expected to be weird. Those who are visibly Asian are not afforded the same generosity. Culturally speaking, I would expect that visually non-conforming people would be tolerated in public spaces; taking these non-conforming foreigners into private spaces would be a different matter.
What happened once in the touristy areas of Japan with the well-passing transgender woman companion was this:
In Tokyo, no one really cared. Tokyo is a hot tourist destination, and the people are used to seeing foreigners of all sorts. In Kyoto, notorious for being more traditional, no one really cared. (Although Kyoto is the more traditional city, it is also used to seeing a lot of foreigners.) In the other cities, no one cared.
Honestly, what most people seemed to care about the most was that this travelling companion was so tall! Foreigners are so tall! My, how tall you are! I cannot try to sell my shop’s clothes to you, because you are so tall! And it was generally neutral or complimentary. I think she is 6’ 3”.
(Amusingly, a man saw this travel companion step out of our lodgings and nearly rode his bicycle into a pole while distractedly marveling at how tall foreigners can be!)
I can think of one other somewhat related incident: In a women-only subway car (which already had some male-presenting people, all of who were clearly not Japanese and who likely identified as male), the Japanese women shot us (a group of 3 including the transgender friend) the “Oh, another group of tourists” look and not the dirtier “Oh, another foreigner man who can’t read” look. We did leave the car soon after getting on, mostly because our fourth member was a man in the next car over and it seemed prudent to stay together since we planned to arrive at the destination as a group.
I think this situation is the one that might have been different if the transwoman friend presented more outwardly as male. Had the people in the train believed her male, I think they would have treated her accordingly, which basically means a tired, annoyed look at yet another “man” invading the women-only car.
Besides our own personal experience, I think it is notable that the women tolerated at least 8 male-presenting (probably definitely men) in their women-only car even though men do not belong in a women-only car. I have little doubt some of the largesse was because all of the norm violators were visibly foreigners and because the women were tired.
The point is, if you are visibly a foreigner tourist, you can get away with things, including not complying with unspoken rules and norms the host country might demand of its own residents. Even when people would want to object, they are sometimes too tired to make an issue of things. It would be polite and good tourist behavior to accommodate the local standards, though.
