June 7. I know it's not, but it is. I planned to do a month of Pride, and internet be damned, I'm going to do them. Even if it means they continue beyond June, or I'm posting twice a day for a bit. I'm going to get there.
Today is the Fa'afafine and Fa'afatama. As much as I like the idea of these people and the culture they come from, I am going to misspell them and I hate the idea of that after all the bullshit they have to put up with from everyone else. For that, I apologize ahead of time for that, and I am going to do my best, but there are a lot of a's and I'm probably going to go cross-eyed trying to double check them.
These terms refer to two of the four Samoan gender options. They aren't exactly trans, but that might be the easiest way to explain them. Fa'afafine, meaning 'in the manner of women', refers to boys who are more drawn to the female role in their culture, and fa'afatama, meaning 'in the manner of men', are girls that are more drawn to the male role. Depending on the individual in question, they might feel that they are female/male despite their DNA, but they also might just feel like they're in the middle, or that they are exactly what their DNA says they are and just prefer to act/dress like the other.
One of the really interesting things about these people is that, since they move between the realms of male/female, they can actually do things that would be considered taboo for others, like talk about sex.
They also help keep some traditions alive, like the Taupou dance, which was traditionally a woman's dance of grace, then the Christians came to apply their weird opinions to things and the dance was given to the Fa'afafine. The Christians started applying 'virginal' to the dance, and the Fa'afafine are allowed to object to that in ways women are not.
There's a lot of culture to the Fa'afafine and the Fa'afatama, which I don't have because I'm trolling the internet and not doing a deepdive into Samoan culture, or reading the books of things. I just find it interesting because this is yet another time where humanity proves that...it's hard to define. There are more than 20 different 'Pride Flags' fitting a variety of sexual orientations or identities, and those can combine into a hundred different things for people. And even those don't cover everything that people can be, or that people are.
Pride isn't just about the freedom to be Gay or Lesbian, it's about the freedom to be who you are, no matter what that is. The only limits I can accept people putting on that is that people shouldn't hurt other people-- so, you shouldn't be free to murder, but you are free to love whoever you want, as long as no one gets hurt from it.
I'll be back soon to tell you about something else soon.
Sources:
National History Museum-- Beyond Gender
The Culture Trip-- The Four Genders of Samoa
Write Inclusion-- Fa'afafine and Fa'afatama
Prevention Web-- Samoa Traditional Gender Roles Aren't Being Recognized During National Disasters
American and Samoan Alliance Against Domestic Violence-- Fa'afafine
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