When Divina Loloma was living in Australia, her voice began to change.
It was 1987 and she'd left her home country, Fiji, in the aftermath of a violent military coup.
Sydney would offer her safety and better opportunities for education.
However, it didn't take long for Ms Loloma to discover much more — a place where she felt she could truly be herself.
"Coming to Australia in 1987 was something that was eye-opening for me," she told the ABC.
Growing up male, in an indigenous Fijian family with strong traditional beliefs, Ms Loloma said she had always felt slightly different.
In high school, she found herself attracted to men but did not identify as gay.
At 25, Ms Loloma met two people who would change the course of her life: transgender Pacific Islander women named Erona and Divina, who were living in Sydney at the time.
"Looking at them transit [from male to female] … looking after their health, looking after their mental capacities, reassuring themselves that they are able to live more peacefully.
"It was my dream come true," she said.
Australia was Divina's safe space
Ms Loloma began to see a pathway towards becoming the person she wanted to be.
She met a doctor and started hormone-assisted therapy, embarking on a transition to womanhood that wouldn't have been possible in Fiji.
"I felt safe [in Australia]. It was a safe space for me," she said.
However, the process wasn't easy. Ms Loloma was living with Fijian relatives in Sydney, but as her body began to change, she felt the urge to leave.
"The hormone assignment was changing myself, it was really changing my body structures. And then I started to develop breasts," she said.
"I had to be alone."
Bitter backlash at home
Ms Loloma had not told her family back in Fiji that she was transitioning, but when her voice began to change, her dad asked her what was going on.
Still, she kept her new identity a secret until she decided to return home a few years later when her father's health declined.
When Ms Loloma arrived at the airport in Fiji, journalists were waiting to photograph her and interview her about her transition.
In local newspapers the next day, Ms Loloma's father first learned that his child identified as a woman.
"It was right on the front page, 'Fiji's first sex change', and, for him, it was shocking," she said.
"I felt devastated because my family couldn't accept me the way I am."
Despite the backlash, Ms Loloma was tired of hiding who she truly was.
"I said to them, 'This is basically who I am and there's nothing that's going to change'," she said.
Determined to make a positive impact in her community, she began to advocate for marginalised and gender-diverse people in her country.
She became chair of the anti-poverty organisation United Rescue Mission (Fiji) and got involved with Haus of Khameleon, a local transgender activist group.
Hopes to 'represent the most vulnerable'
Decades on, Ms Loloma is now vying to become Fiji's first transgender politician, running as a candidate for the National Federation Party (NFP), Fiji's oldest political party.
Ms Loloma said she wanted to focus on providing economic empowerment to young and marginalised people in Fiji.
"In the last 15 years, I feel that a lot of people have suffered and here we are. I stand to represent the most vulnerable," she told ABC.
NFP leader Biman Prasad said the party believed in the human rights of everyone, but did not elaborate on specific policies pertaining to the LGBTQI community.
With Fiji's election to be held on December 14, Ms Loloma has been campaigning across the country.
"Surprisingly, coming into these villages, they are very well accepting. They just want to hear what I have to say," she said.
For indigenous transgender woman and LGBTQI activist Ratu Eroni Ledua Dina, it's a significant moment.
"To have one of our own standing for election — the possibility of occupying space and having a seat in parliament — is a great milestone achieved for us," Ms Dina said.
She said there was a need for more trans-specific policies, particularly in the health and justice sectors.
"Like the provision of hormonal therapy and counselling," she said.
Ms Dina said transgender citizens tended not to access mainstream healthcare due to stigma, leading to higher rates of non-communicable diseases and sexually transmitted diseases.
"Trans people need their own spaces that protect them," she said.
