Since 2003 Vasey has spent much of his time in Samoa, studying the fa’afafine, a ‘third gender’ consisting of males who were highly effeminate in early youth and often not discouraged in that feminine self-expression as they grew up. Samoan culture regards them as neither men nor women (though still unambiguously male). Fa’afafine rarely undergo body modification, and do not typically experience distress because of their sex. ‘If a fa’afafine went to New Zealand or Australia and had a sex-change operation and returned to Samoa, no one in Samoa would say that individual is now a woman,’ says
...more
