Samoan gay
Samoan Actor Accepts Film Role To Address Religion And Gay Rights
Samoan actor Maureen Fepulea’i’s new film tackles confronting issues for her Pacific community. She hopes the film will assist spread a message of tolerance and love.
Maureen Fepulea’i’s new role is in the Kiwi film Mysterious Ways. She portrays Aunty Nola, a caring relative who supports her queer nephew. She accepted the role because she knew it would spark an important discussion around Homosexual acceptance and the role of religion within the Pacific community.
“I read the script and it touched my heart, especially from the point of view of the Aunty Nola character. I realise that generationally, LGBTQIA+ issues are not something that is an open topic in our Pacific culture,” Maureen says.
Directed and co-written by Paul Oremland, Mysterious Ways tells the story of an Anglican vicar who fights to have a church wedding with his Samoan boyfriend and the homophobia and challenges they face, tackling issues of homosexuality, religion, and culture.
In the film, the ethics of Aunty Nola takes care of her nephew, who is played by Nick Afoa, the theatre star in his highlight film debut. Nick spent many
Gay Samoan Popstar, Ezra Phoenix on race, religion and the realities of living as a homosexual Samoan man.
Pacific Island communities are more likely to receive and celebrate Fa’afafine, or transgender men, than they are to accept and celebrate everyone else on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. ‘Image’ is everything. If you are a same-sex attracted man, then you might as good save yourself a lifetime of trauma and become a woman. At least you’ll be applauded for your grace, physical strength, and ability to create everyone laugh, which might I combine is a defence mechanism because laughing is better than cringing, right?
But let’s talk about Samoan boys living in New Zealand with devout christian parents. If you are blessed to fit the heterosexual norm, go you boo-boo, better get that wife and flourish your future sports team. Love that for you. To the rest mastering the art of disguise, what childhood trauma are you wearing today? You wear it so well my treasure. I personally used to rock the 2001 church talent show coconut-bra spring collection with mum’s lipstick, until I actually wanted a diamond dress but daddy dearest said “rebuke in the name of just do as we say”. It’s my fault, I should’ve
01 Mar 2019
This content is tagged asPacific arts.
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The First Book by Fa`afafine, Fa`atama, Transgenders and Queer Pacific Islanders from the Islands of Sāmoa. By Dan Taulapapa McMullin and Yuki Kihara
Personal stories from one of the unique indigenous gender non-conforming cultures in the world
First of its kind, Samoan Lgbtq+ Lives is a publication featuring a collection of autobiographical pieces by fa`afafine, transgender, and homosexual people of Sāmoa, one of the original continuous indigenous queer cultures of Polynesia and the Pacific Islands.
“As media and academia too often ask the enigmatic question ‘What is a fa`afafine?’ Samoan Queer Lives addresses a more pertinent question: ‘What is life?’” – Yuki Kihara
Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist and first contemporary Pacific painter to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Dan Taulapapa McMullin is a author and artist with a Poets & Writers Award, and is the creator of Coconut Milk (2013 Top Ten LGBT Books of the Year, American Library Association).
Fa`afafine acquire lived their tradition for as prolonged as Samoans in the Sout
Fa'afafine - Samoan boys brought up as girls
'When I was young, my parents looked at me and the way I am and they think, Oh Hazy, she must be not a boy, but something else. And then, they never accuse me they really accept me. They get what I am, in my body.' Hazy Pau Talauati | aa |
Living alone in a tiny house just outside the Savai'i village of Alaolemativa, Hazy Pau Talauati is a Samoan male who dresses and lives as a woman. She is a fa'afafine. Enjoy most fa'afafine in Samoa - and there are a few in most villages - Hazy is an accepted member of the community, valued for the work she does.
Samoa's social acceptance of fa'afafine has evolved from the tradition of raising some boys as girls. These boys, were not necessarily homosexual, or noticeably effeminate, and they may never have felt enjoy dressing as women. They became transvestites because they were born into families that had plenty of boys and not enough girls.
In families of all male children (or where the only daughter was too young to assist with the 'women's' work), parents would often choose one or more of their sons to help the mother. Because these boys would deliver tasks that w
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Last updated: 17 December 2024
Types of criminalisation
- Criminalises LGBT people
- Criminalises sexual activity between males
Summary
Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited under the Crimes Operate 2013, which criminalises acts of ‘sodomy’. This provision carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. Only men are criminalised under this law. Additionally, the law criminalises the keeping of a place for ‘indecent acts’ between men, punishable with seven years’ imprisonment.
The law was inherited from New Zealand during the colonial period, in which the Recent Zealand criminal law, itself based upon English criminal law, was imposed upon Samoa. Although New Zealand decriminalised in 1986, it maintained the criminalising provisions at the time Samoa gained its independence in 1962, and Samoa retained the provision upon independence and continues to criminalise gay sexual activity today. In 2013 Samoa updated its sexual offences and decriminalised ‘female impersonatio