Cook Islands ‘queens’ make a stand

Lisa Williams-Lahari





To lead our destinies peacefully and with dignity; To embrace our culture with pride and joy;  To respect our differences and celebrate our similarities; To give to our society with generosity and receive with humility; To ask for understanding and the freedom to lead meaningful lives.
The above mantra could well belong to any number of civil society organisations across the Pacific. It rests at the founding core of the Cook Islands Te Tiare Association, or TTA.
Te Tiare is little more than a year old, but enjoys a profile as one of the most publicly known networks in the Cook Islands. Thanks to their members, they are also gaining a following as the activists to watch.
That profile as a fun bunch who were born as males but identify as women, girls, queens, sisters or transgender, took on a more serious dimension in October, when the Te Tiare put their energies and style into a fundraising dance-off.
Initially planned to help send queens to the Love Life fono in New Zealand, the aim of the event changed in the wake of the Pacific tsunami to become a fundraiser for the two Samoas and Tonga. 
Organisers admit they had to deal with rumbles of discontent and some feedback from detractors who said they were aiming too high and would struggle to find public support to fill the National Auditorium.
What they did get was one of the largest crowds to ever attend the evening events at the nation’s ‘premiere’ events centre.
More than 1500 supporters ensured enough money to support Te Tiare solidarity for tsunami rebuilding, while sending three participants to the Auckland Love Life event.
It was a moment that prompted MC Clee Marsters, the vice-president of Te Tiare to announce: “we are in the light”.
That statement has special meaning for many. Longtime entertainer and newly appointed President of Te Tiare, Tangee Kokaua says queens have always been a part of island society; their reputation for fun, wit, and being ‘the life of the party—and the after-party’ ensuring them a loyal following amongst Cook Islands women.
Kokaua says the emergence of new terms to capture or label men who identify as women is just in line with the times.
Te Tiare has captured the Cook Islands Maori word akavaine, which mirrors the Samoa fafafine and Tonga fakaleiti.
But akavaine has a historical difference—in the past it has been used to put down usually younger women accused of trying to be ‘above’ themselves. Claiming the term for Te Tiare members is a power-shifting shakeup to the old cultural context.
But Kokaua admits the queens are still finding their spaces amongst the confusion of terms and words out there. Whether you call them raerae or poofters, sisters or aberrations, the transgender or third gender, or MSM, for men who have sex with men, Kokaua says the words are unimportant. “Whatever the label, it’s important that you are saying it with me, not at me.”
Te Tiare has grown from a small group to a regionally networked association in a short time—thanks to its founding supporters: patron is award-winning fashion designer Annie Bonza whilst media wiz Florence Syme-Buchanan and former journalist Serena Cowan have helped build image and public branding. Other key members Marsters and Metua Vaiimene are no shrinking violets when it comes to onstage presence and pizzazz and have the youth and energy to grow the association to maturity.
“Te Tiare was formed to push for transgender issues and drive for recognition of transgender as they are and the contributions they do for the community,” says Kokaua.
That role has always been calling on the queens to make costumes for dance groups, helping out with choreography and talent items for Miss Cook Islands and other beauty pageants, and pitching in with talent numbers during fundraising events.
It has been the claiming of spaces normally allocated to human/women’s rights activists that has created some chafing with their once comfortable communities—church leaders in particular, says Kokaua.
“We have within our group a range of young and old members. The younger ones are still dealing with who they are and while it’s good that they are coming out they still don’t have the confidence that the older members have.”
“Definitely, the queens have moved forward in being accepted in a lot of areas; and I find that in general where you find a queen, you find that acceptance amongst people of new ideas is also easier.”
The irony of the Cook Islands being a ‘Christian’ nation where queens are accepted as long as they don’t speak up isn’t lost on Kokaua.
“We must not do things to express ourselves otherwise doomsday is predicted for all of the Cook Islands,” he quips in the manner he is famous for.
“All I can say is that if you are born a transgender then you are born a transgender. We (Te Tiare) do not influence a man or woman to become a transgender. We are a part of every society and it is high time society recognised that.”
While striving for tolerance from the intolerant is no mean task, it’s an important one for Kokaua and the senior members of Te Tiare.
For last words on the issue, Te Tiare does best in recalling the words of Papua New Guinea’s Dame Carol Kidu during a key Asia Pacific event on HIV/AIDS in Bali this year.
Speaking at the launch of the Pacific Sexual Diversity Network Strategic Plan which includes Te Tiare as a member, Kidu urged: "You have to work strategically on how you can build our capacities so that politicians don’t say ‘yes I tolerate these things.’ We don’t want tolerance. We want acceptance of the diversity of people. We need your network to build the capacity of all people to accept we are one. We are many, but we are one.”