Ceremonial Invocation: Kapaemahu
Transgender people have always existed, and always have existed in every ethnic group. This project explores the historical context and development of BIPOC trans-spiritual leadership. It looks at how some transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people of color of the past and in the present have been working to reclaim the right of their communities to practice their spirituality. Such leaders strive to give their role in guiding and supporting personal and communal spiritual practice its rightful priority in their communities. Their voices and actions are represented in this project as ongoing throughout history and this project examines the historical unfolding of BIPOC trans-spiritual leadership. It is seen here as an evolving social movement in the realm of religion and spirituality.
Ceremonially introducing this exhibition is Kapaemahu, an incredible short film. This video was created, directed, and produced by a mahu and modern transwoman by the name of Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu. She created this video along with other Hawaiian wisdom keepers. Her role as a BIPOC trans-spiritual leader is to remind her people, and everyone, especially children, about the inherent spirituality of the two-spirit or third gender people called mahu in the sonorous language of her people.
Her indigenous cultural practice is to remember what has been torn asunder - the central healing role of the mahu in her colonized traditional society. She recalls and honors the in-between gender that the surveilling and invalidating inquisitional culture of colonizing America sought to degrade, deny, dismember, and extinguish in the cultural memory of her people. In this regard, Hina and her people are becoming self-healing. Hence, they embody a maturity of being, conscience, awareness, relationality, and accountability yet to be attained throughout the rest of the Americas. That era of sociocultural change based on spiritual maturation is taking form in the Americas, and no matter how hopeless it may seem, take heart, for one day, it shall come.
Welcome
Thank you for visiting!
If your visit only allows you to view Kapemahu, rest assured you have received what this project is about in one brief, beautiful package. The Kapaemahu video conveys that third gender people, called the mahu or two-spirit, are ancient. Their third space embodiment ranges between male and female and they were so much more. In many ancient societies, like the Hawaiian culture, they were healers, spiritual leaders, mediators, weavers, teachers, artisans, and really, every role possible in service of their people.
The BIPOC transgender and gender-nonconforming people today are the same, but colonization divested them of their spiritual roles in the sacred realm while forcing them to live in sacrilegious societies saturated with religious domination.
The economic viability, social status, and spiritual functions of third gender people have been under assault throughout history and must be reimagined. So, remember the terms transgender, transsexual, or gender non-conforming are modern ones created for ancient beings relegated to the perversion slot in post-colonial societies. Our societies are operating under harsh economic regimes that foster inequality and falsely regard it as inevitable.
The modern terms for LGBTQIA+ are related to mahu but render BIPOC trans people as 'other' rather than regarding them as potentially playing essential and sacred communal roles. Please do not appropriate mahu and start using it instead; it belongs to our Hawaiian relations. But notice that our current LGBTQIA+ terminologies, and pronouns, feel awkward and cannot be modern equivalents of mahu and other terms for third gender people. If anything, the emerging BIPOC trans-spiritual leaders have a chance to mend these identities and resurrect the balance of the earlier third gender spirit in the BIPOC trans community. New terms will emerge. One of them already has been created by Kineen Mafa, one of the trans-spiritual leaders interviewed later in the exhibition.