 In 1998, Shihomi Sakakibara argued that "yaoi" fans, including himself, were gay female-to-male transsexuals.Sandra Buckley believes that "bishōnen" narratives champion "the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations", while James Welker described the "bishōnen" character as "queer", commenting that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw "shōnen-ai" as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian.Dru Pagliassotti sees this and the "yaoi ronsō" as indicating that for Japanese gay and lesbian readers, BL is not as far removed from reality as heterosexual female readers like to claim.