A fakaleiti (or leiti or fakafefine or lady) is a Tongan man who behaves in in effeminate ways, in contrast to mainstream Tongan men, who tend to be very masculine. A man is a male human. ...

It is commonly said that Tongan parents with too many sons and not enough daughters will dress one of the boys as a girl and assign him to perform girls' chores, such as housecleaning. There is little evidence that this characterization is correct, since Tongan parents rarely wish one of their children to grow up as a fakaleiti, and some fakaleiti grow up in families with many girls and few boys. Mainstream Tongans never consider fakaleiti as women, although they may indulge their claims of being like women. Mainstream society treats fakaleiti with a complex mixture of impatience, mockery, tolerance, and occasional admiration for their dress-making, hair-dressing, and decorating skills, particularly in the context of beauty pageants. Parents of children who become fakaleiti often worry that their child will not be treated well by others, but they can also see themselves as fortunate because there will be someone to take care of them in their old age, while other children are busy with their own families. A parent is a father or mother; one who begets or one who gives birth to or nurtures and raises a child; a relative who plays the role of guardian // Mother This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A son is a male offspring; a boy, man, or male animal in relation to either or both of his parents. ... An expecting couple with their daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl, woman, or female animal in relation to her parents. ... // Two Tamil girls in Tiruvannamalai. ...

Fakaleiti have a complex relationship to modernity and the outside world, perhaps more so than most Tongans, although in Tonga they do not necessarily associate with transgender or gay and lesbian identities in the Western world, although fakaleiti growing up in Tongan migrant communities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States may find greater affinities to non-normative identities than fakaleiti in the island kingdom.

The term fakaleiti (with a long i at the end) is made up of the prefix faka- (in the manner of) and the borrowing lady from English. Fakaleitis themselves prefer to call themselves leiti or ladies.

External links

• Transgender Zone - Transgender Culture in the South Pacific
• The Guide - Fingering Machismo

See also

• List of transgender-related topics

Transgender is a very complex topic, where consensual and precise definitions have not yet been reached. ...

References

• Besnier, Niko. 1994. Polynesian Gender Liminality Through Time and Space. In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Gilbert Herdt, ed. Pp. 285-328. New York: Zone.
• Besnier, Niko. 2004. The Social Production of Abjection: Desire and Silencing Among Transgender Tongans. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 12:301-323.
• Besnier, Niko. 2004. Transgenderism, Locality, and the Miss Galaxy Beauty Pageant in Tonga. American Ethnologist 29:534-566.
• Besnier, Niko. 1997. Sluts and Superwomen: The Politics of Gender Liminality in Urban Tonga. Ethnos 62:5-31.
• James, Kerry E. 1994. Effeminate Males and Changes in the Construction of Gender in Tonga. Pacific Studies 17(2):39-69.