Il tai’ata: prostituzione, socializzazione e affermazione Trans a Nouméa

Abstract

Starting in the 1970s, in the urban region of Noumea, individuals who were born males, most of them from immigrant families of Wallisian and Futunian origins, began to adopt a feminine appearance and performance by wearing Western-style clothes and make-up. The emergence of a new transgender type in Noumea goes together with the development of a new transgender life-style, the tai’ata (street sex work). Transgender sociability, sex, urban life-style and agency are the terms associated to tai’ata and to the modern, urban transgender. In this article, I will present the world of tai’ata in Noumea, in relation to the transgenders’ role in an urban context.