[pinkgeek]

Aloha! (Yeah we actually start business correspondance with Aloha! here.)

What many people don't realize about Hawaii is that being white is not an advantage, it is in many cases a disadvantage. What what? Yeah hard to believe, but Hawaii is the reverse of the rest of the country. POC rule the land here and honestly living here has been one of the most amazing and humbling experiences of my life. The reversal of privilege borders on unexplainable and I'm usually not bereft of an explanation.

Interesting unknown fact #2 is that outside of Honolulu which is largely a tourist trap being queer is unremarkable. QFs (queer femmes) are not invisible or passing; it's much more interesting and mostly awesome. Consider a life 99% without homophobia, welcome to my life on TBI (The Big Island). Is it gay mecca here? No, it's going to work, paying bills, and no one making any distinction between queerness and straightness. It's "hey let's go to the beach" at random.

While outright homophobia is rare as far as I have experienced bumbling strait folks are fairly common. They mess up pronouns, the importance of marriage equality and stumble over the right word for a committed relationship, but they do so in an effort (usually) to get it right. It is unfathomable to most people here that anything LGBT wouldn't be equal. I'm amused and often softened by the "well that's just dumb!" and "that kind of crap still happens?" that comes tumbling out of their mouths when inequality is discussed.

That said transfolk and queens here in particular MtF's have an INCREDIBLY difficult time and largely remain on the down-low in an insular community. Nothing is perfect. Our office in particular is working as hard as we can to break down that stigma and as the younger generation grows up the old ways of transphobia are becoming a thing of the past.

So how is this relevant? Living in a place where what I am and how I identify is largely a "not thing" has been exceptionally freeing. I am no longer annoyed by my invisibility elsewhere in the country/world. This beautiful place has given me an incredible, powerful and unique to me confidence about moving through the world.

PS - No one here is unaware that Hawaii should be it's own nation, was stolen in a reprehensible way etc. etc. While MyLadyMother won't ever choose to become an American she would become a Hawaiian citizen if she could. Folks who move here love it or hate it and everyone has a really cool story about how they got here.