Interview with Cathy Kapua

An interview with Cathy Kiana Keiko Kapua, a Native Hawaiian māhūwahine and trans woman, community organizer, and public health advocate based on O'ahu. At the time of this interview, she was Deputy Director of the Trans Justice Funding Project, an organization that distributes grants and other funding to grassroots organizations led by and serving trans communities in the United States. Prior to her work with TJFP, Kapua worked in direct services for trans communities in Hawai'i, starting as a Peer Educator at Kulia Na Mamo, then eventually moving on to become the Transgender Service Manager at the Hawai'i Health & Harm Reduction Center. In this oral history interview, Kapua discusses her formative experiences in community with other trans women and sex workers in Honolulu as a young adult, the work of her and other trans women in establishing protections for and increasing access to services for trans people in Hawai'i, her work with the Trans Justice Funding Project, and the differences between TJFP's ethics and beliefs and mainstream philanthropic practices. Additionally, she discusses her experiences of incarceration and re-entry, the specifics of the Native Hawaiian māhū identity, movements for land sovereignty and the revival of the Hawaiian language, the history of trans activism, sex worker advocacy, and anti-criminalization work in Hawai'i going back to the 1950s, her political influences, her work in direct services, and community responses to violence against trans women, transfeminine people, and māhū people in Hawai'i.

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View At: https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll97:227
Citation: Cite

Item Information:

Identifier: g732d927w
Collection: Oral Histories with People of Color
Institution: Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota
Creator(s): Kapua, Cathy
Contributor(s): Beam, Myrl
Billund-Phibbs, Myra
Publisher: University of Minnesota Minneapolis Libraries
Date Created: Oct. 29, 2020
Genre: Oral Histories
Transcriptions
Subject(s): Hawai'i Health & Harm Reduction Center
Kulia Na Mamo
Trans Justice Funding Project
Places: Hawaii > Honolulu County > Honolulu
Hawaii > Honolulu County > O‘ahu
Hawaii > Honolulu > Waianae
Topic(s): Anti-transgender violence
BIPOC
Decriminalization
Imprisonment
Sex work
Trans women
Transfeminine people
Transgender activism
Transgender community
Transgender people of color
Resource Type: Moving image
Text
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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