The myth goes that a Samoan fa'afafine is a boy brought up as a girl in a family where there are no daughters.
No one knows where the myth originated, but unfortunately, it has been given oxygen by some Samoans themselves.
It completely ignores the obvious element of child abuse involved.
It also completely ignores the very common Samoan practise of families bringing children up together where cousins relate to each other as siblings.
When I brought this up in a conversation with prominent Samoan lawyer and fa'afafine, Alex Su'a, he (that would be his preferred pronoun), told me that a fa'afafine is unique to Samoa.
He said that one cannot talk about a fa'afafine outside the context of fa'a-Samoa and Samoan society; the term transgender does not encapsulate the essence of what a Samoan fa'afafine is.
Mo nisi talafou ma ripoti, fa'afofoga i le SBS Samoan i le 'upega tafa'ilagi poo le SBS Radio app, pe asiasi i le Facebook SBS Samoan
