Transvestia

hated here as it is in many of our other states.

Every history of the Polynesian peoples, who were scattered all over Ocenia, or the South Pacific area, relates that the line of de- marcation between the sexes was a very thin one. It was not con- sidered wrong if a boy chose to live as a girl, or vice versa. Act- ually, it was common for chiefs or sub-chiefs to adopt a boy from a family overburdened with children and raise that boy as a male concubine. The boy dressed as the women did (although the dress was scanty at best), learned to sing as a woman does, and perform- ed the chores of girls in the household. To this very day you will hear male singers in Hawaii singing the old songs in falsetto. If you have ever heard that radio program, Hawaii Calls, that has men in their fifties singing Hawiian songs with the voices of

women.

With this sort of a background, culturally, it was not unusual that in modern times the same themes persisted. Boys choosing to let their hair grow, to take work as house "girls," eventually to dress and live as much as possible as women. Polynesian famil- ies still do not think there is anything wrong with this, although their neighbors may have plenty to say.

Through exposure to the Hawaiians locally, other ethnic groups borrowed their ways and today the large group of active and pub- lic boys wearing girls clothes are all of kinds of origins - Japanese, Portugese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Caucasian, with a lot of mixtures thrown in.

It must be remembered that all of them are, as you and I are, Americans, and American citizens. My forebears were from Eur- ope, theirs are from the Orient or the South Pacific.

Just how many such "boy-girls” there are in Hawaii today is almost impossible to determine. I do know that in the big city of Honolulu (425,000 pop.), there are about seventy-five to a hun- dred who go out in public. They are all quite young, from 18 to 25. The few older ones that I know, from 26 to 32, come out in dress only on the nights of Halloween or New Years Eve.