Inquiry Info Point 7: What is sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics?47 Sexual Orientation – Each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectionate and sexual attraction to, and intimate sexual relations with, another person. Gender Identity and Expression – A person’s internal sense of being a man or a woman or a third or alternative gender, or a combination of genders. Sex Characteristics – A person’s physical characteristics relating to sex, including genetalia, chromosomes or hormones and also secondary sex characteristics that emerge at puberty. Sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are each a spectrum. They are not limited to two, binary options, such as heterosexual or homosexual, male or female or feminine. Similarly the umbrella term ‘intersex’ encompasses a broad range of variations in sex characteristics. The prevalence of these groups in Samoa is unknown but if we take global estimates of 1.7%48 for persons with inter-sex characteristics then it could be as high as 3,330 people alive in Samoa today. This is important because the lack of understanding or outdated attitudes towards these groups may be leading to higher rates of violence than in the rest of society. The veil of silence that exists with these groups is exacerbated by the veil of silence around violence in general and therefore particular attention needs to be paid. Furthermore, the one personal testimony given to the Inquiry indicates that violence because of a person being in one of the aforementioned groups does indeed exist. “There are many issues faced by lesbians in Samoa including myself. I’ve seen my friends coming out and admitting to their families but as a result are punished and forced to marry and have children. This is the type of violence that lesbians face.” Anonymous Fa’atama, Inquiry consultation participant This is but a brief glimpse of one particular type of violence, towards one small section of these broad groups. It does little to comprehensively identify the range of violence towards people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics. Nor does it tell us of the prevalence of these types of violence. What it does tell us is that violence against these groups is occurring within the 47 Definitions and explanation taken verbatim from the APF-UNDP Manual, ‘Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics, available at http://www.asiapacificforum.net/media/resource_file/SOGI_and_Sex_Characteristics_Manual_86Y1pVM.pdf. 48 Asia Pacific Forum of NHRIs. (2016). Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics. Retrieved from http://www.asiapacificforum.net/media/resource_file/SOGI_and_Sex_Characteristics_Manual_86Y1pVM.pdf.