So I have a coworker who is half Hawaiian and half Native American and we were talking about things they’ll call white people over there and he just says “we’ll sometimes call them “Māhū”, don’t look it up cause it’s a slur.”
And of course I looked it up and I’m just like ??? It’s just the Hawaiian third gender? Everything about the term seems cool to me. Like, there’s alot of cultural significance behind the word, in the past Māhū were held in very high esteem and had an important role in their culture and it only started getting used in a derogatory way because of western influence. He said it’s like calling someone the F slur in Hawaii. So I challenged why he thinks of it as a slur and he got pretty uncomfortable with the conversation. I asked him if it’s a slur than what’s the “socially acceptable” Hawaiian term for trans folk there and he had no idea. Probably because bad actors have done their best to make the very existence of trans people socially unacceptable.
It’s just a case of transphobia mixed with colonization. Westerners have made them uncomfortable with the idea of a nonbinary gender system, and tried to erase the existence of other genders in every culture they come across. It’s just the equivalent of being called gay: something only straight cis people or internalized homo/transphobic people would take issue with. I think a step towards decolonizing their culture would be reclaiming the term and refusing to see it as a slur, and after doing some digging it does look like there’s efforts to reclaim it as part of their cultural identity.
If there’s any Native Hawaiians here who can provide more input and context here it would be appreciated.
Edit: Gonna repost this gender map I included in a Mega post I made ages ago:
Christianity and Western mores really fucked up Hawaii. I hope trans Hawaiians can reclaim māhū in the future.
I really hate my inherited culture. It revolves around destroying other cultures and erasing identities.
Nah your research is pretty accurate. Locals and even Hawaiians use it commonly with a negative connotation, but when used respectfully and in-context, there is no negative connotation (unlike f*****).
There’s slurs like this in every language against trans people, some are just basic descriptions but said as a slur. Fun one is Chinese calling you a shape shifter. Some hindutva people have taken to calling people hijra as an insult as well, there was a big kerfuffle in indian parliament over that one recently
Fun one is Chinese calling you a shape shifter.
but that sound cool
It’s also a reference to an old poem/story which would be kinda cool if it wasn’t meant in a mean way.
Some hindutva people have taken to calling people hijra
I was thinking of this one as well. it makes me unreasonably angry because it was once a celebrated position in society, pre-colonization.
In pretty much all non-western cultures, gender queer people people were respected and had an important role in their societies before westerners got involved.
Fucking hell. I thought India has historically been chill with third genders. I suppose colonialization and the like changed that, huh.
I am not a gender scholar, I just used to read some sociology texts for funsies as a kid.
Hijra still hold an important spot in many Hindu religious services but they are often treated very poorly and are expected to beg for money. There’s even a bit of conflict nowadays between people who identify as trans and people who identify as hijra with hijra historical customs. The British empire fucked hijra over hard of course
only until the br*t*sh
khanith (خنيث) is also a slur (or became one), and gets used against gay males
I’m not kānaka, but based on my understanding it kind of depends on intent. Some cis people will use “trans” as a slur, after all.
not doubting you but i don’t think i’ve seen trans (derogatory) in the wild, and cant think of how that works lexically.
It’s often the T-slur that’s used. It’s replaced the gay F-word for a lot of conservatives since it’s socially acceptable while the other gets them fired.
people who just want to talk about transmissions:
Yeah unfortunately caught in the crossfire. I forget where, but some car podcast or radio show or whatever got banned from social media out of nowhere one day when they were accidentally caught by the auto mod lol
I personally give wholesome auto-mechanics a T-slur pass
“the transgenders” used like “the blacks” is?
probably, i was thinking more like gay as pejorative as a 1:1 replacement
A bit like the different usages of the term “two spirit”. One is for transgender and another is for mixed race parentage.
