And a follow-up study confirmed that fa’afafine had indeed spent more money on their young relatives than straight people. The fa'afafine reported being much more willing to pay medical and school fees for their nieces and nephews, to help them with homework, babysit, teach them songs and dances.
The scientists call this behavior avuncular, or uncle-like. The researchers surveyed about 300 fa'afafine, and found that they were significantly more likely to be altruistic toward their nieces and nephews than either single men or women, or mothers or fathers. Fa'afafine are effeminate men who are exclusively attracted to men as sexual partners, and are generally recognized and tolerated as a distinct gender category - neither male nor female.
Vasey and his student Doug VanderLaan tested this hypothesis among a group of men called fa'afafine on the Pacific island of Samoa. 'Kin therefore pass on more of the genes which they would share with their homosexual relatives.'
'Maybe what's happening is they're helping their kin reproduce more by just being altruistic towards kin,' said evolutionary psychologist Paul Vasey of the University of Lethbridge in Canada.
