Fakaleiti

Fakaleiti ( Tongan for "like a lady"; synonymous tangata fakafefine ) or Leiti for short describes a man in the Pacific island state of Tonga , who is very feminine in his sexual behavior and takes on the gender role of a woman .

This form of male cross-gender behavior is traditionally widespread in Oceania : in Hawaii and French Polynesia such men are known as Māhū , in the island state of Samoa as Faʻafafine (synonymous with Fakaleiti ).

literature

Niko Besnier: Polynesian Gender Liminality Through Time and Space. In Gilbert Herdt (ed.): Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Zone, New York 1994, ISBN 0-942299-81-7 , pp. 285-328 (English).
Kerry E. James: Effeminate Males and Changes in the Construction of Gender in Tonga. In: Pacific Studies. Volume 17, No. 2, June 1994, pp. 39-69 (English; online at byu.edu ).
Lee Wallace: Fa'afafine: Queens of Samoa and the Elision of Homosexuality. In: GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Volume 5, No. 1, 1999, pp. 25–39 (English; online at academia.edu ; also published in 2003 in ISBN 0-8014-4121-8 : reading sample in the Google book search).
Roberta Perkins: Like a Lady in Polynesia: The Māhū of Tahiti, the Fa'a Fafine in Samoa, the Fakaleiti in Tonga and More. In: Polare Edition March 3 , 1994 (English; Review version from September 2015 on gendercentre.org.au ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )).