Thinking about whether I'm a man or a woman
and being fa'afafine I feel that
I never had that that struggle within me.
Fa'afafines they have the flair, and the creativity
of the female gender, but they also have the brutal strength of the male gender.
If I was a fa'afafine, I wouldn't have a problem with it, at all.
It's just that I wasn't a fa'afafine.
Fa'afafine, we know that we're boys, at the end of the day.
But some portray the femininity stronger than others.
They assume the characteristics of both genders.
Quite a lot of the memories I had related to this is all the physical abuse.
A lot of um...
Pulling my pants down, tying me up, beating me up in front of everybody.
That sort of behaviour I got used to, you know?
Being told in front of people, my own friends that I'm a girl.
It was a very lonely time, and I don't think a lot of people knew how lonely it was.
Phinehas, Ymania and Leo are all Samoan.
They were all born boys
and now live as far from ordinary men.
What bonds them together is that they were all raised neither boy nor girl:
but as fa'afafine.
In Samoan society, there's a lot of expectations from a young age, when you're born.
How you're going to grow up, and how you're going to fulfill a certain role.
Samoan society was always about the division of labour.
For fa'afafines, they are in a unique place in Samoan society.
Hence the respect and the acceptance
that's very prevalent in today's Samoan society.
This is not something that Samoans
just woke up and said
'Oh, hey, let's embrace our fa'afafine brethren!'
No they didn't this happened like a long time ago.
They were very much entrenched into the part of Samoan culture.
This isn't some weird antiquated, cultural practice: it's happening right now.
There's a lot of fa'afafines, I'd probably say closer to maybe around
between 2,000 and 3,000 in Samoa alone.
Not counting the fa'afafines in the United States of America
in New Zealand, in Australia
and Europe as well.
Ymania is the technical director of the Samoan Fa'afafine Association.
She estimates there's at least 100 fa'afafine currently living in Australia.
Because I come from Samoan family of seven boys
my parents naturally wanted a girl somewhere.
I was born sixth of the seven so I'm the second youngest
and I think my parents were trying to...
They were expecting to have a girl to assist my mother and my father
in gender roles and that didn't happen.
Being a fa'afafine or the practice of males adopting female gender roles
and the attributes traditionally associated with women
is deeply embedded in much of Polynesia.
There's no hard and fast rules of how it works.
Some boys like Leo don't feel the fa'afafine spirit, but may be nominated as the fa'afa
in a family of all boys by the mother.
That doesn't always work out for the best.
What my mother at that time was doing to me, that
for me was a bit weird is dressing me, putting me in lavalavas and flowers in my ears.
So she'd get me to pose in some things, and it's like I'm not posing as a guy.
I'm posing as a girl.
I think that sort of behavior of my mother towards me really, really ruffled a lot
of the boys' feathers.
You know a lot of physical violence you know so they wanted me to come back to manhood.
Yeah well that idea of fa'afafine being a result of there being no females in the family
and you're pushed or raised as the female.
In some families that may be the case
but it depends on the family.
In my case, it was the complete opposite.
My family supported me because it was just myself, I was just being me.
They were very supportive and loving, and the bond of family has always remained very important to me.
and I think it's very important to a lot of other fa'afafines as well.
Others like Phinehas feel they are born naturally with the spirit of fa'afafine.
And despite being raised more effeminate end up presenting as men.
With fa'afafines, we know that we are boys at the end of the day.
But some portray the femininity stronger than others.
I suppose. I mean I'm comfortable living as I am and dressing the way I am
but I have the female femininity
that a fa'afafine has.
And then there's the likes of Ymania.
From the word go boys groomed to behave in the manner of a woman.
Ymania identified as female from a very young age and has always lived dressed and behaved as a woman.
She recently underwent gender reassignment surgery.
I had a great upbringing in Samoa.
Very strict parents, very good work ethics that were instilled in us.
They were very encouraging in terms of who I was.
There was never any punishment or any restriction in terms of you had to be a
certain way or act a certain way and because of that understanding and that
love and support I was allowed to feel that it's okay to be different.
But in all cases if your parents decide to raise you as the fa'afafine in your
family you are expected to take on female gender or labor roles.
In Australian community that we live in now it's about honoring the commitment to a child's gender.
This child is born male then your commitment as a parent is
to raise the child as male, same thing if their child is born female.
There's nothing wrong with that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that
that's how in Western society that's how we raise our children.
By the very same token it is nothing absolutely wrong with Samoan parents has a child that
they believe is fa'afafine, and raising that child as a fa'afafine.
This leaves the question, who do fa'afafines partner up with?
Again, there's no hard and fast rules here.
It's so open that you know you can't really say depends on the individual fa'afafine.
Whereas it's more common for fa'afafine to go with men.
In Samoa, in that Samoan context.
It might not work here, it probably won't work here in Australia.
And then the heterosexual men that have relationships with fa'afafine
because of that feminine spirit and they're not seen as being gay themselves.
Because they're having a relationship with a 'woman.'
What I went through and everything I think it was part -
It definitely of course plays a part of my personal development
You know, to have gone through that.
It really affected me a lot and I don't think my family know that
during this time I became a petrol sniffer.
So on record for the first time I'm saying, that I was sniffing petrol
at this time from the ages of six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
And I think that's where I was escaping to during the times of physical abuse.
And all of the mental sort of abuse.
But Leo was determined to prove to his family and his peers that he wasn't a fa'afafine.
At age 11 he found football, by 21 he was playing for the Cronulla Sharks.
So I used football for me.
I think more importantly for me to prove to them that I'm just as good as them.
And it got me into rugby league, first grade.
Lasting just one season, Leo left the game in less than a year.
I just walked out of the sport, walked out of everything.
Cold. Left them cold.
I realised that I had proven all the points my masculinity
and I just realised I wasn't doing it for me.
I was living this lie really, and I needed to end it straightaway and I did it.
Fa'afafine is just me. It's not like - I feel fantastic.
And I see that the future is positive
and I believe that all the opportunities that exist for other people exist same the same for me.
To be honest I wouldn't want anyone to go through this because in all honesty it's a crime.
And I just feel sorry for all the fa'afafines that are probably getting that abuse at the moment.
I think yes we are misunderstood.
And a lot of that is due to the representation that happens to fa'afafines in the media.
And every Tom Dick and Harry that gets on a plane and comes to Samoa and says, I want to tell your story
will always skew it towards the sexual aspect of it because it's titillating because it's exciting
because it sells.
Who they sleep with, what they have between their legs
really doesn't matter at all.