It's All About Perspective

While gender is finally no longer seen as a binary choice in western societies, Pacific cultures have understood this for hundreds of years. Joe finds out what it means to be Takatāpui and fakafifine.

New Zealand is a diverse country with our communities made up from people of all cultural backgrounds.

Sometimes we just assume certain things translate perfectly across cultural boundaries, but often things get lost in translation.

While gender is finally no longer seen as a binary choice in western societies, Pacific cultures have understood this for hundreds of years. However in more recent times some of this understanding and cultural embrace has been forgotten.

There is a lot of work going into supporting whānau, families and communities who are supporting their young persons on their gender journey by embracing and reforming these cultural connections.

Phylesha Brown-Acton, MNZM, founded F'ine Pasifika to help families navigate their way through the gender identity journey their young people are on. From weaving to photo speak, she uses tools that are designed specifically to connect with her communities.

"Being open but also expressing to one another is a process and a journey that we are all on and we need to talk through it," said Phylesha.

"For a lot of indigenous people is something that's sort of like the seventh thing about us," she said, "It is not, and has never been about being binary. Women do masculine roles, men to feminine roles within different Pacific cultures."

Like Pasifika cultures, Māori also view a persons identity with much more plurality than that of western culture. The term 'takatāpui' connects a persons Māori identity with their queer identity.

"Takatāpui means to encompass all those identities as one" said Neihana Gordon Stables, a homelessness support worker at Rainbow Youth, "It's to be trans, it's to be bi, it's to be Māori, it's to be all those things at once."

Unfortunately, families aren't always so accepting of their young person exploring their gender identity, as Neihana knows all too well. He was kicked out of home at 16. He now has a very good relationship with his mother and uses his personal experiences in his work with young people and their families who find themselves in similar situations.

Neihana has seen first hand how providing support for parents and whānau is just as important as supporting the young person who is transitioning.

"[Parents] feel so isolated, they are not talking to anybody else," said Neihana, "You deserve to talk about it and you deserve support as well, along side supporting your young person."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details