SAMOA – A Samoan church leader has questioned the belief that transgender fa’afafines are part of Samoan culture.

“Fa’afafines might have become members of the modern Samoan community but in the traditional Samoan set up, they were not part of the picture,” the chairman of the National Council of Churches (NCC), Deacon Kasiano Leaupepe, said after calls from the Samoa Fa’afafine Association for the community to respect their rights.

Speaking during an interview with the Samoa Observer, Le’aupepe said fa’afafine are human beings created by God and they should be respected.

But he objected to a commonly held misconception that fa’afafine are part of the Samoan culture.

“Back in the days we hardly heard of this word fa’afafine because there were hardly any fa’afafines around,” he said.

“To be honest, there is no fa’afafine in the Samoan way of life. There is the village fono for the matai, there is a sitting of the untitled men and of course there is a saofaiga for tina ma tamaitai (mothers and females) but there is nothing in the traditional setting for fa’afafines.

“But because people have decided to make such changes to their physical appearance, that is why all this stuff has become about.”

Deacon Leaupepe said he has nothing against fa’afafine but he reminded that all the challenges Samoa is facing today stem from the break down in family values.

“Like I said before, parents play the most important part in any child’s life and they are their children’s first teachers.

“It all starts from home – home is the foundation of any child’s life.

“If the parents see that in their son’s upbringing that he acts like a girl and walks like a girl, they should start teaching them that this is not who they are and explain to them that God did not create them to be females.

“The problem is that some parents laugh at their children when they see these kinds of things. They think it’s funny but little do they know that, that laugh is encouraging the child to do what they think is right. This is why we’ve got this problem today.”

Leaupepe said he accepted that in modern Samoa, fa’afafine are part of society.

The are officially recognised by the government, with the prime minister being the patron of the Fa’afafine Association.

“Therefore in the church, we accept them because they are human beings and that they were created by God,” he said.

“So my personal view is that we leave the changes to the individual person to decide.

“When it comes to fa’afafine, that is their right whether they want to change what God has already given them or stay the same. For us in the church, as leaders we can only give advice, pray and tell them what the word of God says.

“If only the church had the power to change what it is already in place we would have not allowed them – because in God’s eyes we are all the same people and we are all his children created in his own image.”

- Samoa Observer