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 may be an old custom but has a contemporary identity influenced by other Polynesians, through cross-cultural interaction of Polynesians living in New Zealand, especially the Samoan fa'afafine, Third Gender people who hold a special place in Samoan society.

According to the Cook Islands Maori dictionary (1995) 'akava'ine is the prefix aka ("to be or to behave like") and va'ine ("woman"), or simply, "to behave as a woman". (Antonym: 'akatāne ("act manly, or tomboyishly").)

The New Zealand Māori word Whakawahine has a parallel meaning, and the Samoan word fa'afafine and the Malagasy word sarambavy.

According to Alexeyeff, Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word for women who have an inflated opinion of themselves, draw attention to themselves in ways that disrupt groupness, do not heed others' advice, or who act in a self-serving or self-promoting way.

Sometimes the word laelae is also used typically when implying criticism or ridicule of feminine behaviour displayed by a man, for example being described as effeminate or homosexual. Laelae is the colloquial Cook Islands term, it is similar to raerae used in Tahiti.

The word tutuva'ine (meaning "like a woman") is used less frequently and normally refers to a cross-dresser or a drag queen.

Homosexuality is illegal for males in the Cook Islands, but there is a transgender movement in the Pacific Islands to decriminalize LGBT rights.