By AUDREY McAVOY and TY O'NEILSasha Colby performs during the Mahu Magic drag show at the Western Regional Native Hawaiian Convention, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, in Las Vegas. All the performers in the show were "mahu" - a Hawaiian term for people with dual male and female spirit and a mixture of gender traits. Sasha Colby performs during the Mahu Magic drag show at the Western Regional Native Hawaiian Convention, Tuesday, June 20, 2023, in Las Vegas.
They starred in a drag show this week called “Mahu Magic” on the sidelines of a Native Hawaiian convention in Las Vegas to remind the world of the respected place gender-fluidity has held in Hawaiian culture for hundreds of years, while also making a foray into the national conversation about transgender rights.
Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp, an ethnohistorian who identifies as mahu and queer, said mahu also can include people who would be nonbinary, would define themselves as third gender and those attracted to someone of the same gender.