We Introduce … ‘Lulu’
In March 1945, the Honolulu Advertiser published an article headlined “We Introduce … Lulu,” which detailed a troubling case involving 21-year-old George M. Sanchez, known in local police circles as “Lulu.” Sanchez, who was accused by local law enforcement of masquerading as a woman, faced Judge Griffith Wight in Police Court. The charge against Sanchez was that he had used his sister’s identification card instead of his own.
Despite Sanchez’s protestations that the issue was a simple mistake and his attempt to rectify the situation by providing the correct ID, Judge Wight found him guilty and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Sanchez, who worked as a crane operator at Pearl Harbor, appealed the decision, but his appeal was denied just a week later.
In the months that followed, police records indicate that Sanchez was repeatedly investigated for “impersonating a woman,” often in contexts involving servicemen. By December 1945, the situation escalated dramatically. Sanchez was tried in a crowded courtroom and convicted by a jury of serious charges, including sodomy. Circuit Judge Charles E. Cassidy sentenced him to three years in Oʻahu prison.
A letter-to-the-editor in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin at the time highlighted a more complex public sentiment. Morris H. Kammann Jr. criticized the harsh sentencing, arguing that the community’s reaction was overly punitive and reflective of narrow-mindedness. Kammann wrote, “The insistence of our bigoted cliques of busybodies that all those who fail to conform to certain narrow sexual precepts shall be brutally punished would be unconscionable in any system pretending to be humane, democratic or rational.” He continued, “Insofar as ‘Lulu’ was guilty of fraud or deceit, so far does he merit punishment. The law as it stands is a violent and unwarranted invasion of the private rights of individuals.”
Seven years later, in 1952, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported in an article titled “Honolulan Faces Sentence For Impersonating 'Wife'” that Sanchez had surfaced in Corpus Christi, Texas. There, he confessed to impersonating the wife of an Air Force sergeant and collecting $2,500 in dependent’s allotments. While in Texas, Sanchez was held in the women’s section of the jail, dressed in women’s clothing.
The same article provided additional context on Sanchez’s life. He shared that he began dressing as a woman in 1947 after serving two years of his three-year sentence for the sex crime in Honolulu. Facing repeated rejections for work due to being perceived as a woman dressed as a man, Sanchez decided to embrace the identity that others saw in him. He explained, “Finally I decided if everyone believed me a woman I’d dress like one.”
Sanchez’s story was deeply intertwined with his family background. He had four sisters and a mother of Chinese-Hawaiian descent, along with a stepfather, residing in Hawaiʻi. His father was of Spanish descent.
Story by Joe Wilson, Lei Pua ‘Ala Queer Histories of Hawai’i
Images:
Banner - Honolulu 1940s, photographer unknown, vintage.es
1) Honolulu Advertiser - 3/9/45 - Photo Courtesy Honolulu Police Department
2) Honolulu Star-Bulletin - 4/6/46
3) Honolulu Star-Bulletin - Letter-to-the-Editor - 12/6/45
4) Honolulu Star-Advertiser - 7/18/52
5) Honolulu Star-Advertiser - 7/18/52