māhū

File:Pape Moe.jpg

In the pre-colonial history of Hawai'i, {{Lang|haw|māhū}} were notable healers, although much of this history was elided through the intervention of Christian missionaries.{{cite news |last1=Mcavoy |first1=Audrey |title=Hawaii museum revisits history of gender-fluid healers |url=https://apnews.com/article/travel-religion-education-museums-a41e8c9b13b872ffe37ab5192cb5e62d |access-date=20 July 2023 |work=AP News |date=8 July 2022 |language=en}} According to Joan Roughgarden, the {{Lang|haw|māhū}} lacked access to political power, were unable to aspire to leadership roles, and "Perceived as always available for sexual conquest by men."{{cite book |last1=Roughgarden |first1=Joan |title=Evolution's Rainbow |date=2004}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}} The first published description of {{Lang|haw|māhū}} occurs in Captain William Bligh's logbook of the Bounty, which stopped in Tahiti in 1789, where he was introduced to a member of a "class of people very common in Otaheitie called Mahoo... who although I was certain was a man, had great marks of effeminacy about him."William Bligh. Bounty Logbook. Thursday, January 15, 1789.

A surviving monument to this history are the Healer Stones of Kapaemāhū on Waikiki Beach, which commemorate four important {{Lang|haw|māhū}} who first brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi.James Boyd. Traditions of the Wizard Stones Ka-Pae-Mahu. 1907. Hawaiian Almanac and Annual.{{Cite journal |last=Dean Hamer |first=Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu |date=2022 |title=Kapaemahu: Toward Story Sovereignty of a Hawaiian Tradition of Healing and Gender Diversity |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/878990/pdf |journal=The Contemporary Pacific |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=255-291 |via=Project MUSE}} These are referred to by Hawaiian historian Mary Kawena Pukui as {{Lang|haw|pae māhū}}, or literally a row of {{Lang|haw|māhū}}.Mary Kawena Pukui. Place Names of Hawaii, 2nd Ed. 1974. University of Hawaii Press. The term {{Lang|haw|māhū}} is misleadingly defined in Pukui and Ebert's Hawaiian dictionary as "n. Homosexual, of either sex; hermaphrodite."Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuael H Ebert. Hawaiian Dictionary. 1986. University of Hawaii Press. The assumption of same-sex behavior reflects the conflation of gender and sexuality that was common at that time.The term "transgender" was not in use yet during the time the earliest sources were written, and has undergone significant changes in definition over time. While technically coined in the 1960s, the term transgender was rarely published until the 1990s and did not see wide usage until the 2000s. The idea that {{Lang|haw|māhū}} are biological mosaics appears to be a misunderstanding of the term hermaphrodite, which in early publications by sexologists and anthropologists was used generally to mean "an individual which has the attributes of both male and female;" this led to homosexual, bisexual, and gender nonconforming individuals being mislabeled as "hermaphrodites" in the medical literature.

Websters International Dictionary of the English Language. 1890. Merriam Company. The history of Kapaemahu was revived through an animated film, picture book, and [https://www.bishopmuseum.org/kapaemahu/ museum exhibition].

In 1891, when painter Paul Gauguin first came to Tahiti, he was thought to be a {{Lang|haw|māhū}} by the indigenous people, due to his flamboyant manner of dress during that time.{{cite web |last1=Vargas Llosa |first1=Mario |author-link1=Mario Vargas Llosa |title=The men-women of the Pacific |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific |website=Tate.org.uk |publisher=Tate Britain |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402100743/http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific |archive-date=2 April 2015 |url-status=dead |access-date=25 July 2017 }} His 1893 painting Papa Moe (Mysterious Water) depicts a {{Lang|haw|māhū}} drinking from a small waterfall.

Missionaries to Hawai'i introduced biblical laws to the islands in the 1820s; under their influence Hawai'i's first anti-sodomy law was passed in 1850. These laws led to the social stigmatization of the {{Lang|haw|māhū}} in Hawai'i. Beginning in the mid-1960s the Honolulu City Council required trans women to wear a badge identifying themselves as male.{{cite journal |last1=Zanghellini |first1= Aleardo |title=Sodomy Laws and Gender Variance in Tahiti and Hawai'i |journal=Laws |volume= 2 |issue= 2 |pages= 51–68 |doi= 10.3390/laws2020051 |year= 2013 |doi-access= free }}

In American artist George Biddle's Tahitian Journal (1920–1922) he writes about several {{Lang|haw|māhū}} friends in Tahiti, of their role in native Tahitian society, and of the persecution of a {{Lang|haw|māhū}} friend Naipu, who fled Tahiti due to colonial French laws that sent {{Lang|haw|māhū}} and homosexuals to hard labor in prison in New Caledonia.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2lKxkVIwMAC&q=mahu |last1=Biddle |first1=George |title=Tahitian Journal|isbn=9780816604968 |year=1999 }} Rae rae is a social category of {{Lang|haw|māhū}} that came into use in Tahiti in the 1960s, although it is criticized by some {{Lang|haw|māhū}} as an abject reference to sex.

In the 1980s, {{Lang|haw|māhū}} and fa'afafine of Samoa began organizing, as {{Lang|haw|māhū}}.

In 2003,{{Cite web|url=https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105466&p=686754|title=Gender Identity and Sexual Identity in the Pacific and Hawai'i: Introduction|last=Kleiber|first=Eleanor|date=10 September 2019|website=University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Library|access-date=19 September 2019}} the term mahuwahine was coined within Hawaii's queer community: {{Lang|haw|māhū}} (in the middle) + wahine (woman), the structure of the word is similar to Samoan fa'a (the way of) + fafine (woman/wife). The term mahuwahine resembles a transgender identity that coincides with Hawaiian cultural renaissance.{{Cite journal|last1=Ellingson|first1=Lyndall|last2=Odo|first2=Carol|date=December 2008|title=HIV Risk Behaviors Among Mahuwahine (Native Hawaiian Transgender Women)|journal=AIDS Education and Prevention|volume=20|issue=6|pages=558–569|doi=10.1521/aeap.2008.20.6.558|pmid=19072530|issn=0899-9546}} Kumu Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu clarified that:

Since the term {{Lang|haw|māhū}} can have multiple spaces and experiences, Kumu Hina originally coined the terms: {{Lang|haw|māhū kāne}} (transgender man) and {{Lang|haw|māhū wahine}} (transgender woman). However, Kumu Hina believes that those terms should be revised due to scientific advancement and so she coined four new terms. {{Lang|haw|Māhū}} who feel internally wahine (female)—emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and culturally—could use the term haʻawahine. If they feel more internally that they are kāne (men), they are haʻakāne. When they have taken on externally what they feel internally i.e. dressing as a female, have began to or had undergone hormone therapy and other forms of medical transitioning (including cosmetic surgery), then the term hoʻowahine would be used. Likewise, for {{Lang|haw|māhū}} who feel that they are internally male and taking that form externally, then hoʻokāne....{{cite web |last=Manalo-Camp |first=Adam |title=Māhū Resistance: Challenging Colonial Structures of Power and Gender |url=https://medium.com/@adamkeawe/m%C4%81h%C5%AB-resistance-challenging-colonial-structures-of-power-and-gender-6f0c1e96cded |date=August 8, 2020 |website=Medium |access-date=August 8, 2020}}

In many traditional communities, {{Lang|haw|māhū}} play an important role in carrying on Polynesian culture, and teaching "the balance of female and male throughout creation".{{Cite journal|last=Robertson|first=Carol E.|date=1989|title=The Māhū of Hawai'i|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=15|issue=2|pages=318|doi=10.2307/3177791|issn=0046-3663|jstor=3177791}} Modern {{Lang|haw|māhū}} carry on traditions of connection to the land, language preservation, and the preservation and revival of cultural activities including traditional dances, songs, and the methods of playing culturally-specific musical instruments. Symbolic tattooing is also a popular practice. Modern {{Lang|haw|māhū}} do not alter their bodies through what others would consider gender reassignment surgery, but, just as any person in Hawaiian/Tahitian society, dress differently for work, home, and nights out.{{Cite book|title=Gender on the edge : transgender, gay, and other Pacific islanders|editor-first=Kalissa |editor-last=Alexeyeff |editor2-first=Niko |editor2-last=Besnier |year=2014|isbn=9780824840198|location=Honolulu|pages=105|oclc=875894847}}

Strong familial relationships are important in {{Lang|haw|māhū}} culture,{{Cite book|title=Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders|date=2014|publisher=University of Hawai'i Press |isbn=9780824838829 |pages=95 |jstor = j.ctt6wqhsc|chapter = Gender on the Edge}} as kinship bonds within all of Hawaiian/Tahitian cultures are essential to family survival. When possible, the {{Lang|haw|māhū}} maintain solid relationships with their families of origin, often by becoming foster parents to nieces and nephews, and have been noted for being especially "compassionate and creative". This ability to bring up children is considered a special skill specific to {{Lang|haw|māhū}} people.{{Cite book|title=Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders|date=2014|publisher=University of Hawai'i Press|isbn=9780824838829|pages=108|jstor = j.ctt6wqhsc|chapter = Gender on the Edge}} {{Lang|haw|Māhū}} also contribute to their extended families and communities through the gathering and maintaining of knowledge, and the practicing and teaching of hula traditions, which are traditionally handed down through women.

In situations where they have been rejected by their families of origin, due to homophobia and colonization, {{Lang|haw|māhū}} have formed their own communities, supporting one another, and preserving and teaching cultural traditions to the next generations. In the documentary Kumu Hina, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu visits one of these communities of elders up in the mountains, and meets with some of the {{Lang|haw|māhū}} who were her teachers and chosen family when she was young.

• Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu – contemporary {{lang|haw|māhū}}, teacher and Hawaiian cultural worker
• Kumu Hina (2014) – documentary film about Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
• LGBT rights in Hawaii
• Rae-rae
• Fa’afafine, similar group in Samoa and American Samoa
• Bakla, similar third gender concept in the Philippines
• Bissu, similar third gender concept among the Bugis people of Indonesia
• Two-spirit, a pan-Indigenous umbrella term for all traditional Native American identities that do not fit into the Western gender binary or heterosexual roles

{{Reflist|group="note"}}

{{reflist}}

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• Eisenman, Stephen F., (1999). Gauguin's Skirt. London: Thames and Hudson. {{ISBN|978-0500280386}}.
• Matzner, Andrew (2001). O Au No Keia: Voices from Hawai'i's Mahu and Transgender Communities

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• [http://kumuhina.com/ Kumu Hina: A Place in the Middle] – a {{lang|haw|māhū}}-oriented website.
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICUFjiXSfo "Coming Out & Overcoming – A Visit With Hinaleimoana Wong"] – interview with {{lang|haw|māhū}} Hinaleimoana Wong, by Ehu Kekahu Cardwell, from Voices of Truth documentary program by the Koani Foundation
• [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/28/hawaiian-culture-transgender_n_7158130.html "The Beautiful Way Hawaiian Culture Embraces a Particular Kind of Transgender Identity"] – short "Queer Voices" column on the topic in The Huffington Post

{{Sexual identities}}

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Category:LGBTQ Native Hawaiian culture

Category:Native Hawaiian culture

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