Tuisina Ymania Brown-Gabriel, better known as Ymania Brown (born 1962/1963), [1] is a Samoan LGBT rights activist and lawyer currently based in Berlin, Germany. [2]
Brown grew up in Samoa. [3] She began identifying as a girl at age three, which her mother was supportive of, but her father was resistant to. [1] Her mother left the family when she was nine, in response to domestic violence exacerbated by her father's alcoholism. [3] She helped raise her younger sibling after her mother left. [3] One of her father's cousins moved in with the family, and he sexually abused Brown for multiple years. She left Samoa to join her mother and stepfather in New Zealand. [3]
Brown has worked for the New Zealand government. [3] She later moved to Australia, but struggled to find any other jobs due to discrimination based on her gender identity. [3] She became homeless, and worked as a sex worker in Sydney in order to survive. [3] She was able to save enough money to have gender-affirming surgery in 1989. [3]
After her surgery, Brown moved to Europe and worked as a model. [3] A few years later, she returned to New Zealand to attend college. [3] In the late 1990s she returned to Sydney, where she found a corporate job for a software company through one of her university lecturers. [3] First working in human resources and later becoming in-house legal counsel, Brown continued to work in a corporate setting in Sydney for the next twenty years. [2] She chose to become a full-time activist during the COVID-19 pandemic. [4]
Brown currently serves as Executive Director of TGEU (since July 2024), as co-secretary general of ILGA World (since March 2019), and as Co-President of Interpride. [5] [3] [6] [7] She has also worked as technical director of the Samoa Fa'afafine Association and with Sydney World Pride through Equality Australia. [2] [3]
In 2014 Brown acted as the co-chair of ILGA Oceania. [3] She later became co-chair of the Global Interfaith Network for People of All Sexes, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (GINSSOGIE) and the International Trans Fund. [3]
Brown was involved with campaigns to have the Samoan government recognize adoption by LGBT individuals and to repeal laws that criminalized "impersonation of a woman". [3] [6] Her advocacy has primarily focused more on financial equality than marriage equality. [8] She has also encouraged Australia to focus on LGBT rights as part of their foreign policy. [9]
Brown identifies as both a trans woman and as fa’afafine. [3] She has two sons, whom she adopted from a previous partner living in Samoa. [1] [3] She is Catholic. [10]