A Trans Soccer Playing First

In what is believed to be a world-first, a transgender soccer player has played in an international game.

Jonny Saelua took to the field last month for American Samoa in the first winning international game for the tiny Pacific country. They’ve lost 30 international games before this one, accumulating a 229-12 goal score against them.

Saelua is actually fa’afafine, part of the traditional ‘third sex’ recognized throughout many Pacific cultures for hundreds of years.

Fa’afafine means “to be a woman” in Samoan. According to 30-year-old Alex Su’a, who heads the Samoa Fa’afafine Society, there are 1,500 fa’afafine in Samoa and American (Western) Samoa.

“To be fa’afafine you have to be Samoan, born a man, feel you are a woman, be sexually attracted to males and, importantly, proud to be called and labeled fa’afafine,” Su’a said.

“The fa’afafine are culturally accepted,” he said. “They have a role in Samoan society. They are the caretakers of the elders because their brothers and sisters get married, but the fa’afafine traditionally don’t.”

Saelua agreed:

“In Samoa the fa’afafine are very reliable. We can do what the boys do and what the girls do.”

A study last year of the fa’afafine in Samoa suggested that homosexuality in humans – from an evolutionary point of view — may convey an indirect benefit by enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives.

Samoa’s communitarian culture may be representative of the environment in which male same-sex sexuality evolved in ancient times, the researchers said.

However, intense religiosity in the island nations has undermined this tradition.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has called on various Pacific countries to decriminalize homosexuality, and several Pacific Island nations have pledged to do so, including Palau and Nauru. But Samoa, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have said that they intend to keep their laws, which are vestiges of the colonial era. Samoan lawmakers, as in many other countries, have cited ‘Christian tradition’ as a reason why sodomy laws will not be abolished.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in the US territory of Western Samoa in 1979.

Saelua’s teammates “make me feel like a part of them,” he says.

“They don’t make me feel different because I am the way I am,” she said. “It is what anybody needs to feel wanted within a team. That is why I always do my best. I can’t let them down.”

“I just go out and play soccer as a soccer player. Not as transgender, not as a boy and not as a girl. Just as a soccer player.”

Related stories:

Seychelles to Decriminalize Homosexuality, Other Countries Say No

Queer Pride Celebrations in India (Video)

Massachusetts Protects Transgender Residents

Read more: american samoa, Fa’afafine, samoa, soccer, transgender

Picture Samoa Football Association

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Arielle B.

8:38PM PST on Dec 11, 2011

Awesome!

send a green star

Martin A.

8:37AM PST on Dec 11, 2011

great, about time too,

pam w.

10:51PM PST on Dec 10, 2011

This is the point I've been trying to make to bigots who babble "why try to change "GOD'S" plan?" These people exist in every human society, every tribe, every continent, every culture around the world. THIS IS NORMAL FOR THEM!

Hooray for the Samoans!

Joan S.

12:22PM PST on Dec 10, 2011

I love that "just as a soccer player". Why can't it all be like that. 'I yam what I yam'

Quanta K.

4:27AM PST on Dec 10, 2011

Thanks.

Past Member .

3:42AM PST on Dec 9, 2011

thanks

KS G.

4:33AM PST on Dec 8, 2011

Thanks for the article.

Penny C.

9:41PM PST on Dec 7, 2011

Thank you.

Gina P.

8:54PM PST on Dec 7, 2011

At this point I am more willing to accept soccer as a religion than Christianity. More has been done to alienate good people through the "church" and Christians than through soccer!

8:46PM PST on Dec 7, 2011

If only the rest of the world could recognize these natural differences. I have met mahu in Hawaii and felt fine about it too. I am so, so sick of what is done in the name of Christianity. I used to be a Christian, but have pretty much lost my faith over what is being done in the name of god - anyone's god. Too much intolerance is masked as religion.