Fa'afafine

What separates this from a Western identity label is where it sits. Fa'afafine is a role inside the extended family, with work attached to it, and it is generally recognised by that family rather than declared against it. Children showing it are often raised in it. Western anthropology took an interest in Samoa long before it took an interest in this, which is a fair measure of how long the category went undescribed by outsiders. The literature describes fa'afafine as usually androphilic, attracted to men, and estimates them at up to 3.5 per cent of the natal male population, a share comparable to androphilic males in Western populations.

Why it is not a translation of transgender

A fa'afafine is not necessarily transgender in the sense the word carries in English, and many reject the term. The category does not require any statement about internal gender identity, does not require medical transition, and is not primarily about the individual: it is about a position held within a family and a village.

Rendering it as transgender woman or as gay man both fail, and they fail differently. The first imports a claim about identity the category does not make; the second imports a claim about sexuality that describes only part of it. Samoan writers have made this objection consistently and it is why the word travels untranslated.

What MVPFAFF groups together

Fa'afafine sits inside a set of Pacific categories with parallel constructions. Tongan Fakaleiti is in the manner of a lady, Cook Islands Māori Akava'ine is to behave as a woman, and Fijian Vakasalewalewa is acting in the manner of a woman. The similarity in the morphology is not a coincidence, and neither is the similarity in the social position.

Those categories were grouped under the acronym MVPFAFF by the community advocate Phylesha Brown-Acton, so that Pasifika gender diversity had a name of its own alongside LGBTQI rather than being absorbed into it. The grouping was made from inside the communities concerned, which is why this catalogue uses it.

What has changed

The role is living rather than historical, and the Samoa Fa'afafine Association was founded in 2006 and has represented it publicly since. Samoa repealed its law against female impersonation in 2013 while leaving the wider colonial-era provisions in place. Missionary-era Christianity put pressure on it, as it did on comparable roles across the Pacific, and the current position is neither the precolonial one nor a straightforward continuation of it. Diaspora communities in Auckland and Sydney have their own shape again.