Phylesha Brown-Acton | |
|---|---|
 Brown-Acton in 2019 | |
| Born | February 1976 (age 48–49) Niue |
| Nationality | Niuean |
| Citizenship | New Zealand |
| Occupation(s) | Human rights activist; social worker; dancer |
| Honours | New Zealand Order of Merit |
| Website | https://finepasifika.org.nz/ |
Phylesha Brown-Acton MNZM (born February 1976) is a Niuean fakafifine LGBTQ+ rights activist. In 2019, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit to recognize her work with LGBTQ+ communities from the Pacific countries.
Brown-Acton was born in February 1976 in Niue. [1] [2] [3] Her mother was from Niue and her father from Australia. [3] She has seven siblings. [1] Assigned male at birth, she knew from the age of four that she identified as a girl. [4] At school, Brown-Acton was bullied by both students and teachers; at home her father was violent. [1] Due to her complex home life, she was raised by her great-aunt - her grandfather's sister. [3] When she was fifteen years old she socially transitioned and began to receive hormonal therapy in her 20s. [4]
In her first career, Brown-Acton was a dancer, performing internationally, including at the Venice Biennale. [3] [5] In 2006 she began work for the Pacific Peoples Project at the New Zealand AIDS Foundation as project coordinator; in 2009 she managed their International Development Programme. [6] She has been outspoken about sexual violence that trans people face, including in 2007 when a group of ten men attempted to gang-rape her and the Tongan police reportedly victim-blamed her. [7] She has also been vocal about the discrimination trans people face even obtaining services such as life insurance. [4]
At the 2011 Asia-Pacific Outgames Human Rights Conference, [8] Brown-Acton was the first person to introduce a Pacific specific acronym for western LGBTQ+ communities: MVPFAFF - Mahu, Vakasalewalewa, Palopa, Fa’afafine, Akava’ine, Fakafifine and Fakaleiti/leiti. [3] Whilst the western umbrella term LGBTQ+ is often used try to include Pacific gender identities, Brown-Acton has discussed how MVPFAFF identities are genders with specific cultural distinctions between them. [9] [10] This acronym was later extended to include a plus sign: MVPFAFF+. [11] This academic activism in conference spaces as it disrupts western constructs of Pacific gender identities. [12] She has also spoken openly about the colonial roots of homophobia in many countries in the Pacific. [7]
In 2014, she joined the board of Auckland Pride. [13] The same year she worked at Pacific Islands Safety & Prevention Project Inc. as service support manager. [14]
Brown-Acton is Executive Director of F’ine Pasifika, an LGBTQI+ rights organisation based in New Zealand which she founded in 2015. [7] [6] In 2018, she spoke at the Human Rights Defenders World Summit. [15] [2] She is on the Steering Committee of the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN). [16] Other roles have included as an advisor to the Transgender Health Services Advisory Group, and a trustee of INA Maori. [17] In 2020, she was selected as a member of OutRight International's Beijing+25 Fellowship program. [18] Brown-Acton is number 82 in the 100 Indigenous women featured in Qiane Matata-Sipu's NUKU series and book. [19]
In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brown-Acton was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the Pacific and LGBTQI+ communities. [6] [20] She is the first Pacific trans woman to be recognised in this way. [18]
Faʻafafine are natal males who align with a third gender or gender role in Samoa. Fa'afafine are not assigned the role at birth, nor raised as girls due to a lack of daughters, as is often claimed in western media. Rather, their femininity emerges in early childhood, and Samoans recognize them as distinct from typical boys.
New Zealand lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. The protection of LGBT rights is advanced, relative to other countries in Oceania, and among the most liberal in the world, with the country being the first in the region to legalise same-sex marriage.
New Zealand society is generally accepting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) peoples. The LGBTQ-friendly environment is epitomised by the fact that there are several members of Parliament who belong to the LGBTQ community, LGBTQ rights are protected by the Human Rights Act, and same-sex couples are able to marry as of 2013. Sex between men was decriminalised in 1986. New Zealand has an active LGBTQ community, with well-attended annual gay pride festivals in most cities.
Oceania is, like other regions, quite diverse in its laws regarding LGBTQ rights. This ranges from significant rights, including same-sex marriage – granted to the LGBTQ community in New Zealand, Australia, Guam, Hawaiʻi, Easter Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the Pitcairn Islands – to remaining criminal penalties for homosexual activity in six countries and one territory. Although acceptance is growing across the Pacific, violence and social stigma remain issues for LGBTQ communities. This also leads to problems with healthcare, including access to HIV treatment in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where homosexuality is criminalised.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Niue face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Male same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Niue, although there is no recent instance of it being actively prosecuted. Same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Tokelau face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Both the male and female kinds of same-sex sexual activity are legal in Tokelau, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people in American Samoa face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Same-sex sexual activity became legal in the territory in 1980, but same-sex couples can't marry. Same-sex couples married legally in other jurisdictions are recognized and must be treated equally under US federal law since 13 December 2022. American Samoa remains the only part of the United States along with select Native American tribal jurisdictions to enforce a ban on same-sex couples marrying.
Karlo Estelle Mila is a New Zealand writer and poet of Tongan, Pālagi and Samoan descent. Her first collection, Dream Fish Floating, received the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 2006 at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She has subsequently published two further poetry collections, A Well Written Body (2008) and Goddess Muscle (2020), the latter of which was longlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry.
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Dianna Fuemana is a New Zealand writer, director and performer. She writes for theatre and screen. Her solo play Mapaki was the first that brought a New Zealand-born Niue perspective to the professional stage. In 2008 Fuemana won the Pacific Innovation and Excellence Award, at the Creative New Zealand Pasifika Arts Award. Fuemana was one of nine women writer-directors of the 2019 feature film Vai.
Amao Leota Lu is a Samoan fa’afafine, who is a performance artist, poet and community activist.
Fakafifine are people from Niue, who were born assigned male at birth but who have a feminine gender expression. In Niue this is understood as a third gender, culturally specific to the country.
Vakasalewalewa are people from Fiji who were assigned male at birth but who have a feminine gender expression. In Fiji, this is understood as a traditional third gender identity, culturally specific to the country.
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Pasifika New Zealanders are a pan-ethnic group of New Zealanders associated with, and descended from, the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands outside of New Zealand itself. They form the fourth-largest ethnic grouping in the country, after European descendants, indigenous Māori, and Asian New Zealanders. Over 380,000 people identify as being of Pacific origin, representing 8% of the country's population, with the majority residing in Auckland.
Dana de Milo was an activist and outspoken community member from New Zealand. She engaged with issues faced by the queer community, and transgender people in particular. She was a transgender woman herself.