Phylesha Brown-Acton
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Phylesha Brown-Acton | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Brown-Acton in 2019 | |
| Born | February 1976 (age 50) Niue |
| Citizenship | New Zealand |
| Occupations | Human rights activist; social worker; dancer |
| Honours | New Zealand Order of Merit |
| Website | https://finepasifika.org.nz/ |
Phylesha Brown-Acton MNZM (born February 1976) is a Niuean fakafifine LGBTQ+ rights activist. In 2019, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit to recognize her work with LGBTQ+ communities from the Pacific countries.
Brown-Acton was born in February 1976 in Niue.[1][2][3] Her mother was from Niue and her father from Australia.[3] She has seven siblings.[1] Assigned male at birth, she knew from the age of four that she identified as a girl.[4] At school, Brown-Acton was bullied by both students and teachers; at home her father was violent.[1] Due to her complex home life, she was raised by her great-aunt - her grandfather's sister.[3] When she was fifteen years old she socially transitioned and began to receive hormonal therapy in her 20s.[4]
In her first career, Brown-Acton was a dancer, performing internationally, including at the Venice Biennale.[3][5] In 2006 she began work for the Pacific Peoples Project at the New Zealand AIDS Foundation as project coordinator; in 2009 she managed their International Development Programme.[6] She has been outspoken about sexual violence that trans people face, including in 2007 when a group of ten men attempted to gang-rape her and the Tongan police reportedly victim-blamed her.[7] She has also been vocal about the discrimination trans people face even obtaining services such as life insurance.[4]
At the 2011 Asia-Pacific Outgames Human Rights Conference,[8] Brown-Acton was the first person to introduce a Pacific specific acronym for western LGBTQ+ communities: MVPFAFF - Mahu, Vakasalewalewa, Palopa, Fa’afafine, Akava’ine, Fakafifine and Fakaleiti/leiti.[3] Whilst the western umbrella term LGBTQ+ is often used try to include Pacific gender identities, Brown-Acton has discussed how MVPFAFF identities are genders with specific cultural distinctions between them.[9][10] This acronym was later extended to include a plus sign: MVPFAFF+.[11] This academic activism in conference spaces as it disrupts western constructs of Pacific gender identities.[12] She has also spoken openly about the colonial roots of homophobia in many countries in the Pacific.[7]
In 2014, she joined the board of Auckland Pride.[13] The same year she worked at Pacific Islands Safety & Prevention Project Inc. as service support manager.[14]
Brown-Acton is Executive Director of F’ine Pasifika, an LGBTQI+ rights organisation based in New Zealand which she founded in 2015.[7][6] In 2018, she spoke at the Human Rights Defenders World Summit.[15][2] She is on the Steering Committee of the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN).[16] Other roles have included as an advisor to the Transgender Health Services Advisory Group, and a trustee of INA Maori.[17] In 2020, she was selected as a member of OutRight International's Beijing+25 Fellowship program.[18] Brown-Acton is number 82 in the 100 Indigenous women featured in Qiane Matata-Sipu's NUKU series and book.[19]
Honours
In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brown-Acton was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the Pacific and LGBTQI+ communities.[6][20] She is the first Pacific trans woman to be recognised in this way.[18]