Akava'ine

Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word which has come, since the 2000s, to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands.

It is not an old custom but rather a contemporary identity almost solely influenced by other Polynesians, naturally, through cross-cultural interaction of Polynesians living in New Zealand, especially the Samoan "Fa'afafine", transgender people who hold a special place in Sāmoan society.

Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word for women who have an inflated opinion of themselves, draw attention to themselves in ways that disrupt groupness, do not heed others advice, or who act in a self-serving or self-promoting way. The term uses the prefix aka ("to be or to behave like") and va'ine ("woman"). (Antonym: 'akatāne ("act manly, or tomboyishly").)

The New Zealand Māori word Whakawahine has a parallel meaning.

Sometimes the word laelae is also used, typically when implying criticism or ridicule of feminine behaviour displayed by a man, for example being described as effeminate or homosexual. Laelae is the colloquial Cook Islands term; the word tutuva'ine (meaning "like a woman") is used less frequently and normally refers to a cross-dresser or a drag queen. Homosexuality is illegal for males in the Cook Islands.

In the late 1990s, the term laelae, a borrowing from the Tahitian raerae, was the most commonly used term to describe "traditional" transgender categories and individuals considered to be "gay".

The usage of the Māori word "'Akava'ine" for a transgender person seems to be recent, as no evidence of it as an established gender role in Cook Islands Māori society: it is not documented in the various detailed written encounters of the Māori people during the pre-Christian era to the mid-late 1800s to early 1900s. In contrast, Transgender people are mentioned in records of Samoa (Fa'afafine), Tahiti and Hawai'i (Māhū).

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