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.