Federal Attacks Give Urgency To Hawaiʻi Gay History Effort
The Honolulu Advertiser article by Leonard Lueras titled “Gay parade in Waikiki a first” - 7/1/74.
A website, a hula show and historical markers throughout Honolulu aim to celebrate and memorialize the history of the gay movement in Hawaiʻi.
by Kirstin Downey - Honolulu Civil Beat - February 28, 2025:
At a time when transgender identity is under assault in Washington, D.C., Hawaiʻi’s LGBTQ+ history is being shared and celebrated.
With help from a $943,700 grant from the Mellon Foundation, a new group that calls itself Lei Pua ʻAla Queer Histories of Hawaiʻi, in collaboration with the Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities, is elevating gay heritage in the public sphere.
Its projects include a set of new historic designation markers popping up around the city, a popular hula show in Waikīkī that highlights Hawaiʻi’s long transgender heritage and a website that brings to light the poignant life stories of path-breaking people and places once kept in the shadows.
The group, led by married couple Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, is also developing a historic walking tour that will highlight the ways modern gay history was forged in Hawaiʻi. Sites along the route might include a popular nightclub in Chinatown called The Glade, once a bustling home for female impersonators who became celebrities around town, and Queen’s Surf Beach in Waikīkī, an important gathering place for gay people when their lives and loves were frequently criminalized.
“The goal is to acknowledge, share stories and help people understand that what we call LGBTQ people have always existed and over all time, in a world that is often trying to marginalize us,” Wilson said. “It’s exciting to see all the different pieces that are out there that need to be found, collected and shared.”
A hula show in Waikīkī is one of the events organized by Lei Pua ʻAla hula to give Hawaiʻi’s LGBTQ+ history a higher profile. (Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2025)
This work has particular significance and poignancy now amid attacks on transgender identity by the Trump administration. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump announced an executive order asserting that there are only two sexes — male and female — and that they are not changeable, which he called “restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
This flies in the face of long-recognized history in Hawaiʻi that includes many people with more fluid gender identities, reaching back to the time of the early Polynesians. The federal executive branch is at odds with the lived Hawaiian experience.
Federal officials next adjusted the wording at gay history’s most important national site, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, home of an uprising in 1969 that sparked the gay rights movement. The National Park Service website has been altered to refer to “LGB” civil rights, excluding transgender people.
A ‘Better Place’
Those federal actions have galvanized the movement here.
“It gives a real urgency to why this work is important,” Hamer said.
Hawaiʻi’s attitudes toward gay people have historically differed from elsewhere. According to Lei Pua ʻAla’s cultural director, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kahu, families in Hawaiʻi always had more diverse intimate relationships. The Hawaiian word māhū is used to describe a person who is gay or who presents as a different or dual gender. And generally speaking, in Hawaiʻi there has been broader acceptance of the variations in human interactions.
“That’s why Hawaiʻi is in a, relatively speaking, better place than other places, especially in the continental U.S. now,” Wilson said.
From left, Dean Hamer, hula master Patrick Makuakāne and Joe Wilson. (Courtesy: Lei Pua ʻAla Queer Histories of Hawaiʻi)
Hamer and Wilson said the group has received warm support from officials here, including Mayor Rick Blangiardi, the Honolulu City Council and the Oʻahu Historic Preservation Commission. Wilson said they find that “very encouraging” at a time when some people elsewhere in the country are “heading in a different direction.”
But gay people in Hawaii have also been oppressed and hounded by police, with their lives criminalized. At many points it has taken courage to openly express a sexual orientation that was outside the mainstream.
The driving forces behind the effort are Hamer and Wilson, a couple so closely connected they almost finish each other’s sentences. They moved to Hawaiʻi 15 years ago. This work has been years in the making as they established friendships and alliances with gay supporters and allies interested in helping advance a better understanding of Hawaiʻi’s heritage.
‘Taking Back Their History’
The group’s website hosts a growing array of articles about Hawaiʻi’s history.
From the 1960s to 1980, the Glade nightclub in Chinatown, famous for its “Boys Will Be Girls” musical revue, was a popular local attraction. Chinatown itself, the city’s red-light district, drew crowds of locals and tourists. But rising prejudice brought a legal crackdown that criminalized cross-dressing, with performers forced to wear an “I Am A Boy” button to avoid arrest.
As the gay rights movement spread across the country, Hawaiʻi’s first gay parade was held in 1974. About 25 people, led by Rev. Jack Isbell of Metropolitan Community Church, marched through Waikīkī chanting “Out of the closets and into the streets!” Cheered by a friendly reception, the participants then convened for a potluck supper at — where else? — Queen’s Surf Beach.
For 20 years, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the Kūhiō District in Waikīkī at the intersection of Kūhiō Avenue and Kalaimoku Street, was a gay hub. Long-time entrepreneur Jack Law opened Hula’s Bar and Lei Stand there, and other businesses clustered around as well, including Hamburger Mary’s, 80% Straight, and Café Valentino. Hula’s Bar survives today on Kapahulu Avenue, upstairs at the Waikīkī Grand Hotel.
In a first-person account, former state Sen. Gary Hooser of Kauaʻi describes the struggle for marriage equality in Hawaiʻi and the difficulty of gaining political traction, even among some people who later became big names in Democratic circles. In 2009, he recalled, a civil union measure he had sponsored, House Bill 444, got a tepid level of support.
But gradually support spread. A few years later, Gov. Neil Abercrombie convened a special legislative session and a measure extending full marriage rights to same-sex partners was passed in November 2013.
At that time, Sen. Gilbert Kahele gave a speech sharing his fervent support of the measure, calling same-sex relationships “part of the very fabric of the Hawaiian peoples.”
Last month, at an Oʻahu Historic Preservation Commission meeting, the Lei Pua ‘Ala group unveiled plans for a new historic marker that will be placed at Queen’s Surf Beach Park in Waikīkī, between the Barefoot Cafe and the aquarium — once an important gathering place.
“A lot of the places people could meet then were sequestered, dark entranceways into bars, dark alleys, because of the risks of being known — employment, family, risks were significant, to livelihood and safety,” Hamer told commission members, sharing pictures of where the marker will likely be located.
“I think you have everybody’s full support,” said commission chair Kēhaunani Abad to unanimous nods of support from the rest of the commission.
Lei Pau ‘Ala’s live hula show, the Return of Kapaemahu, meanwhile, is drawing large crowds at Kūhiō Beach in Waikīkī on Wednesday nights. An ensemble of eight to 10 dancers performs the show, which was choreographed by hula master Patrick Makuakāne, a 2023 Macarthur Grant recipient. It’s got a stylish upbeat vibe that blends modern dance and traditional hula with an ancient story.
The show is performed near the historic site known as the Healing Stones of Kapaemahu, four boulders that are said to represent four healers, all māhū, who voyaged to Hawaiʻi from Tahiti and introduced healing arts used to treat people who were sick or injured. The stones and the site were the focus of an exhibit at Bishop Museum in 2022.
“Hawaiʻi is taking back Waikīkī,” Hamer said. “We’re sitting next to the stones and taking back their history.”