Overview
What fakaleitī means.
Fakaleitī is a Tongan word for a Tongan person. Faka- means in the manner of. Leitī is the English word lady, taken into Tongan. Assigned male at birth, living in a feminine place in Tongan life. Many prefer the shorter leitī, or ladies, and hear fakaleitī as a word other people use about them.
It does not translate neatly. Wikipedia puts it plainly: the classification does not line up with Western categories such as male, female, gay, transgender or non-binary. Some leitī also call themselves trans women. Some do not. The role is grounded in social life rather than in anatomy, and surgery is not a requirement or an expectation. It is an organised community, not a museum entry: the Tonga Leitis’ Association runs the Miss Galaxy pageant and campaigns on the colonial-era laws still on the books in the Pacific, and the 2018 documentary Leitis in Waiting follows its activist Joey Joleen Mataele. Wikipedia also records marginalisation and discrimination, especially when young. Both are true. One story gets repeated on the wikis, that a family short of daughters raises a son as one; treat it as a story told about leitī rather than a rule. The same story is told about fa’afafine in Samoa, and this page does not repeat either version as fact.
Now the closed part. If you are not Tongan, this is not your word. Not by admiration, not by a good documentary, not by fit. Fakaleitī is tied to Tongan family, language and church, and cannot be adopted from outside. Tongan people in Auckland, Sydney and Salt Lake City carry it with them; that is what diaspora means, and it is not a loophole.
The Tongan word for people assigned male who live in a feminine role; leitī is what many call themselves.
Fakaleitī in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Fakaleitī has no individual coiner; it is a modern Tongan word built on an older traditional term, fakafefine ("in the manner of a woman"), which anthropological accounts of Tongan gender describe as recorded since at least the 19th century for men who took on women's work and company. Fakaleitī itself borrows the English loanword "leitī" (lady) rather than the older Tongan word for woman, reflecting language change through sustained contact with English-speaking missionaries, traders and colonial administrators from the 19th century onward.
As in Samoa, Christian missionisation (Tonga was never formally colonised but was strongly shaped by Wesleyan missionaries and later a British protectorate treaty) introduced Western binary norms that sat uneasily alongside the existing role, and scholarship on Tonga notes a shift over the 20th century in how leitī were described and treated. Tongan leitī have organised in response, including the Tonga Leitis' Association founded by Joey Joleen Mataele, and many prefer "leitī" to the word fakaleitī, which can carry an outsider or clinical connotation.
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
You are Tongan, and the aunties started handing you the women’s work at family events before anyone said a word about it.
Leitī sounds like you.
Fakaleitī sounds like a form describing you.
You know exactly which relative uses he and which uses she, and you have decided which of those is worth a fight. Neither, mostly.
Church is Sunday, and you are in the choir, and you cooked, and the sermon was not on your side.
A pālangi colleague asks, kindly, whether you have “had anything done”.
The question has no answer in Tongan that would satisfy her, so you change the subject.
Someone’s school fees have come out of your wages, and you were thanked with a plate rather than with words.
In Auckland or Sydney the forms have boxes.
None of them is the one you actually live in.
You have been at Miss Galaxy, in the audience or on the stage, and it felt like a family occasion because it was one.
Pronouns
Pronouns
The word means in the manner of a lady, so she/her is the obvious English default, and many leitī use it. Some use he with older relatives and do not experience it as a wound. Many are simply called by name. Ask, use the name, and follow the family’s lead rather than correcting anyone in front of their mother.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1You are not Tongan. That is the whole answer, and it is not a soft one. Your own people may have a word; the open vocabulary has plenty of room besides.
- 2You are a Tongan man attracted to men, living as a man, with no feminine social role. That is its own thing and not a lesser version of this.
- 3You are a Tongan trans woman who wants the medical and legal route and not the leitī social position. Some keep the word, some put it down. Nobody is obliged to carry it.
- 4You are drawn to the idea of a third gender more than to the content: the church, the chores, the family money, the pageant, the laws. Leitī comes with all of it.
Close by
Related identities
Fa’afafine
The Samoan neighbour, and the word most often confused with this one. Different country, different language, different church and legal politics. Samoan people use it. Swapping the two is sloppy, not respectful.
ReadMāhū
Hawaiian and Tahitian, older and wider: people in between or both. Belongs to Kanaka Maoli and Mā’ohi people, closed in exactly the way leitī is.
ReadFa'afatama
Samoan, the opposite direction: assigned female, living in a masculine role. Named here because people assume every Pacific word is the same word, and it is not.
ReadMVPFAFF
Not an identity. An acronym that holds the Pacific words together, leitī included, without dissolving them into LGBTQIA+. You can sit under it and still be specifically leitī.
Read
Transgender Female
A claim about gender that travels to any country, with medicine and law behind it. Leitī is a position inside Tongan life that does not need a clinic. Some people hold both words. Some hold one and refuse the other, and both are ordinary.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
Is fakaleitī the same as being transgender?+
Not the same and not unrelated. Wikipedia records that the classification does not map onto Western categories, and that the identity is grounded in social role rather than anatomy. Some leitī also say trans woman and mean it. Others do not, and mean that. Neither is a muddle.
Can a non-Tongan be fakaleitī?+
No. It is a Tongan word for Tongan people, tied to family, language and church. Being feminine, being trans, or loving Tonga does not open it. If you are Pacific, your own people very likely have a word. If not, the rest of the vocabulary has room in it.
Should I say fakaleitī or leitī?+
Follow the person. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki notes that fakaleitī themselves prefer leitī or ladies, and the community’s own association uses Leitis in its name. Fakaleitī is the word you will find in books and on forms.
The flag
Lgbtqia.wiki: flag by wiki user Disneyfan1413 on 15 September 2020 (a wiki user's proposal, not a flag from the Tongan leitī community); crown emblem, not plain stripes; no hex codes.
Sources
- Fakaleitī — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Definition, etymology (faka- + lady), the preference for leitī, the diaspora note, and the daughters story this page declines to repeat as fact. Fetched 2026-09-03.
- Fakaleitī — Wikipedia Etymology, the statement that the classification does not align with Western categories, social role over anatomy, the Tonga Leitis’ Association, Miss Galaxy, Leitis in Waiting (2018) and Joey Joleen Mataele. Fetched 2026-09-03.
- Effeminate Males and Changes in the Construction of Gender in Tonga — Kerry James (Pacific Studies, 1994) Historical account of the older term fakafefine, missionary contact, and the shift to fakaleitī. Fetched 2026-09-06 (abstract/summary).
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.