- Despite what some may think, trans history in Aotearoa goes back a long way. In this episode, we'll dive into the stories of how members of the trans community were instrumental in the fight for gay liberation, paving the way for equal rights for all. We'll also hear from those with lived experience of what it's like growing up trans and living in a world where your very existence is up for debate by everyone ` from children's book authors to your little old nan. (TYRES SQUEAL) (PLAYFUL MUSIC) - I like entertaining anybody, whether it's a man or a woman, whether it's in my coffee bar, whether it's in my bedroom, doesn't matter. - If it wasn't for people like Carmen and those girls from the old days, we wouldn't really be where we are today. - I just love being a woman, to put it blunt. - I don't really care what people think. I don't live to anybody's expectation but mine. - CROWD CHANT: Stand up! Fight back! Trans rights are under attack. - Reported rates of bullying are 300% higher, with half of all transgender students afraid they'll be hurt at school. - I absolutely want people to be able to live the lives that they want. But there are a raft of more complex issues around gender dysphoria that's growing. - More kids now are transgendering or transitioning. - I used to be Henry. Captions by James Brown. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 - The Stonewall riot of 1969 was a galvanising force in the fight for LGBT political activism. In both the US and New Zealand, trans leaders played a crucial role in the fight for Queer rights. Their bravery and activism paved the way for progress. - The trans community have always been at the forefront of our community. We look at Stonewall and we look at the trans women who... who started the whole ` I'll call it a revolution. - These ideas were super powerful. They were super exciting. They kind of came hand-in-hand with ideas around Black liberation, women's liberation. It was Ngahuia Te Awekotuku who was the spark of the movement in Aotearoa. She talked about the fact that it's trans women like Carmen Rupe who have helped our communities to survive, who have been aunties to younger Queer people. It's oftentimes trans women who take those roles. - Well, in my time ` going back in the early teenage days ` people were very, very conservative. I think when they looked at me, I think they thought that I had came from another planet. - Carmen Rupe was an incredible, pioneering individual in Aotearoa's queer history. She was a sex worker. She was a businesswoman. She was a performer. She ran for mayor of Wellington in 1977. - She titillated Wellington's voting public by standing for mayor and capturing 8% of the vote. - You know, she became a real icon and a celebrity in the gay world in Sydney. - Yeah. We sort of met her more in Sydney than we did in New Zealand. And we'd look out into the audience when we were in Sydney, and Carmen would be sitting in the second row, you know, all done up to the nines and looking amazing. - With her big sunglasses on, even at night. - So yeah, it was... - She lived her life, you know. And I'm sure there were times when it was hard, too. - Carmen makes no bones about the fact that she's made her living through the sale of sex. Many transvestites do ` as pimps, prostitutes and strippers. - CARMEN: I think I've made it more easier for them, because in 1966, the police picked me up, and I went to court dressed as a woman. And when I appeared at the court, the police told me to go home and dress in men's clothes, and I wouldn't go. And I said to them, 'Well, look, you caught me dressed as a woman. 'I'm going to go to court as a woman.' I said, 'It's not up to you to say. We leave it to the judge.' - So Carmen wins this court case where it is explicitly determined that it is not illegal for trans women to wear women's clothing. It's a really important legal landmark that is not often talked about, and Carmen was at the head of it. (CABARET MUSIC PLAYS) - REPORTER: An Auckland nightspot, Mojo's, and an all-male revue starring Nicole, Leigh, Vicki, Cherie, Chanel and Brandi, all born male, but they sincerely believe they are and want to be treated as girls. They are hard-working professional entertainers who strongly resent being linked with the transvestites who walk the streets. - A transvestite is a person who puts a wig on and goes out for their own gain, sexual, or their own satisfaction, which we aren't. We're not like that. We live as girls 24 hours a day. - But aren't you in fact, really, when it comes down to it, just a homosexual dressed up in female clothing? - No. Definitely no. No. We think of ourselves as strictly women. - Perhaps surprisingly, they seem to have no doubts about the life they have chosen. - I don't. - I don't anyway. I just love being a woman. (CHUCKLES) - In the '60s, '70s and '80s many trans women faced discrimination both in society and the workplace. Carmen Rupe, however, not only opened her own businesses but also empowered those around her in the process. - I would have been typical of a young transgender in transition who was very fortunate to come across someone like Carmen and her establishments. She was not only out and proud of who she was, but she provided through her establishments a place where we could belong. Society in New Zealand 20, 25 years ago, when I was coming out on the scene, was quite cruel. - Trans male history in Aotearoa goes back a long way. Back in 1937, a dashing chap named Peter Alexander ` nothing to do with the pyjama shop ` gave this interview. - ARCHIVE: Meet Peter Alexander. This extraordinary character astounded the world when the announcement was blazoned forth ` Mavis Higgins the girl had become Peter Alexander the man. Where were you born, Mr Alexander? - Uh, in a little place called Palmerston North, in New Zealand. I left New Zealand because of the publicity which followed me wherever I went. - Trans men in Aotearoa's history is really interesting. A lot of trans men were active in lesbian circles. Some trans men referred to themselves as butches. Trans men who did transition at that time, a lot of them found it easier to kind of 'blend in' to society, because they were less targeted for the violence that trans women faced. So trans men who could transition found it easier to get jobs, they found it easier to live without people knowing that they were trans. So I think that's why we see the difference in visibility, difference in the stories that we hear. - As the years passed on, it became very evident that the male side and the male personality was becoming dominant. So after seeking medical advice, I decided to cast aside women's clothing for those of a male. Although I no longer use lipstick and powder, which would be rather ridiculous when one has to shave every day, I don't blame the modern girl for using it, as they... and it sometimes makes them appear really more beautiful than they are. - When I was younger, I remember googling 'queer history' and trying to find what I could online. And the first trans representation in media that I came across was Sam Orchard's Rooster Tails, the comic strip, and I just spent ages and ages, nights and nights reading all of his comics, and that was a huge boost to me, to feel that sense of a trans man who was living out and proud in Aotearoa. That was really special to me. Yeah. - Primary school was when I realised I was a bit different. The first time that I remember was when we started doing the swimming lessons and going to the pool. And the teacher said, 'Girls go to the left and boys to the right,' and I started to go to the left, and the teacher just kinda came over and said, 'No, you go over that side.' And I'm thinking, 'Well, no, I go over that side.' And I've found out since, if you ask a boy whether he's a boy or girl, he'll just know, and he'll say, 'I'm a boy.' But for me, I'm kinda both, and always have been. - I was always bullied. They knew I was different. And every time I got a hiding or I got bullied, I'd cry, then I'd come back out of my room, and it'll be like Groundhog Day. And that was my life. You know, my parents, I think, always... We never talked about it. And I think we just didn't know how to. - After I did tell family and stuff, a lot of them said, 'Well, that explains a lot.' They said I was quite girlish. (CHUCKLES) But I didn't even know that I was. I was trying not to let people know, but obviously it was coming out. - Transsexuality is seemingly more acceptable in the Islands than here. But it's not a topic that's readily discussed, because of our culture. - I was told when I was a very young age that... no matter what I was or what colour I was or who I was, God loved me. And then I went through this awful period of everyone hating me. And then the church turned against me. - Growing up around me, I didn't see my reflection in my family's social circles that identified as fakafifine or LGBTQIA+. For me, I was constantly in this dilemma of, like, am I the only one feeling like this? Am I the only one troubled by the fact that people are constantly calling me derogatory terms like queer, poofter? And often these were people from within my extended family, um... and more so the church-goers. (GENTLE MUSIC) - At home, it was like I got to be myself. And then it wasn't until I got to church where I started to realise that I wasn't the same as everyone else, because of the way I was treated. I was, like, told to stand up and repeat my lines over and over again until I sounded more masc. I was taken to the back streets of the city, and I was shown some girls who were working the streets, and I was told that's where they didn't want me to be. And I was, um... I... I wasn't even 10 at the time. Yeah. - Henry? Harriet? Here. - Georgina Beyer shattered the glass ceiling for trans people in Aotearoa, rising to prominence in politics in the 1990s. Her charm, confidence and intellect struck a chord with voters in her rural electorate. She wasn't just clever. She was funny too. - Hell, you're a tall man, aren't you? (LAUGHS) Not often I have to look up to men. - Meet Carterton's newest councillor, Georgina Beyer. Out of just over a thousand voters, she won by 200 votes. - Three cheers for Georgina. Hip, hip, hooray! - She maintains her sexuality was not an issue in her Wairarapa district. - You couldn't get more rural. You couldn't get more gumboot township, more cis-het than that. But that's the thing about Georgina. She transcended... people. - Does it bother you blokes that she's a transsexual? - Doesn't worry me in the least. - Bother anybody here? - Not in the slightest. There's nothing wrong with that. - In the old days, it would've been a bit frowned upon, wouldn't it? - I could've been born a bloody woman. You never know. - How much have you been drinking? - (LAUGHS) - But will the working man in the Wairarapa vote for a Maori transsexual in the election? - I wonder if that makes a difference. Does it? - Does it, for you? - Not really, no. It's the person, I think. - And she just happened to be the first trans woman member of parliament in the world. I mean, that's... frickin' cool. - This was the stallion that became a gelding, and now she's a mayor. I suppose I do have to... (CHUCKLES) I do have to say that I've now found myself to be a Member. And, um... (LAUGHTER) - Georgina alone was a very remarkable person. And her story of being a young trans kid thrown out of home, she turned her life around and ended up being an MP. - I mean, you've just said Georgina is a serious person. She's a transsexual. Do those two things necessarily go together? - The gender thing should not be the issue. I'm proud of who and what I am. There's no denying that. But again, it comes back to the fact that you've gotta be someone who can deliver the goods. - And deliver she did. During the debate over the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act, which sought to decriminalise brothels, escort agencies and solicitation, she gave an impassioned speech, drawing from her own experiences. Her words are credited with swaying several wavering MPs, ultimately securing the bill's passage. The landmark legislation positioned New Zealand as a global leader in protecting the rights for sex workers. - JONATHAN HUNT: Abstention one. The bill will be read a third time. Unlock the door. (APPLAUSE) (POIGNANT MUSIC) - She was not the person to do party politics. She worked on issues, which is why people respected her. - I remember my best girlfriend, Rafaela, when she started doing drag shows, and then I slowly joined in the tail end of that. Rafaela and I decided to make a pact that we would tell our parents that we were doing shows and that this is our lives. She told her parents, and they were like, 'Oh, cool, we'll come and watch your show.' And I didn't, because I didn't have the courage that she did. - As a kid growing up, I used dance to kinda get me through all the trauma. And so in primary, when I did talent quest with my siblings, we did it behind my parents' back, and it wasn't then the end of the year, when we did prizegiving, I knew my parents were coming to prizegiving, and cos we had taken up talent quest that year, they asked us to perform the number, and it was Spice Girls. And we did it, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh. My dad's in the audience. He's probably gonna come up and give me a hiding.' And I watched him come up to the stage. Oh my gosh. And I was freaking out. And then he stood next to me and he started dancing. - For a young Phylesha, no one around to have represented how she felt, until she saw some people in her neighbourhood playing netball. - It wasn't until I got closer, then I saw these women, and some of them more feminine than others. But obviously the dead giveaway is often if you have five o'clock shadow, right? And automatically, when I looked at them, it was the first time seeing my reflection in another person. And they became this family unit outside of home that supported me in developing and understanding who I was... um, and recognising that I was not a gay boy, I was not a queer or a poofter. I was fakafifine. Basically that was... the rest is history. - Michelle's journey to discover her true self and connect with others who've had similar experiences led her in an unexpected direction. - My doctor, he said the best thing would be to go and see a psychiatrist and have a talk. The psychiatrist at the time said, 'Well, the only people I know 'that I could describe as being like you are those that have entered an industry that, um... 'where they can kind of be themselves and earn money.' And so I was directed towards the Prostitutes Collective. I met one of the leaders of that collective. She was an older woman that had transitioned many years before. So she was my first real contact with another person that had done what I felt I wanted to do or needed to do. - It's interesting, cos I knew from I think when I was 17 that you could transition, and I reached the point where I was like, it's not even a choice. It's just something I needed to do for myself to just actually be... who I am. I had to pretty much hide myself a little bit for the first 32 years of my life. And then you go through your transition, and you're like, hey, no, I'm... I'm physically the person who I always wanted to be. I'm not the biggest dude. (LAUGHS) And I wanted to build a bit of muscle, so I went and watched a bodybuilding competition and started training. It's quite cool to actually then kinda achieve the body that you always wanted. You know, I take a lot of pride in that. So for me, it's like, hey, I finally have the opportunity to show off and be shirtless, and that never gets boring. So in that sense, I'm like a 16-year old. I'm always the first one to take my shirt off. - When I was 21, I wrote my parents letter. And I said, 'You have to love me, otherwise we can't do this.' And then they came down to visit me in Auckland, and they were like, 'We don't wanna lose you.' And I said, 'Well, let's just be real.' So we had the most realest conversation. We forgave each other, and we moved on, and it's been love ever since. And I sorta think to myself, you know, I could have saved myself those years of trauma or pain, but it's meant to be when it's meant to be. You know, I didn't have the courage that my girlfriend did. But I just didn't have it at the time, and that's OK. You know? I'm not so hard on myself about it, but things happen when they're supposed to happen. I definitely believe that. - So yeah, I don't think it's really a decision. It's more like you have to be ready for that step. And in hindsight, it's... you know, it's a shame that I wasn't able to do it earlier, but I don't regret that I made a decision, ever. Like, it's... yeah... It's something I needed to do. And you just become more you every day, in a way. Yeah. (PROTESTERS CHANT, BLOW WHISTLES) - In recent times, trans people have been under attack from religious leaders, public speakers and even some of our prominent politicians. There's no sugar-coating it ` it's been a really challenging time for many of our trans community. - We've seen a huge rise in transphobic sentiment and trans hatred, especially online. I don't think that's reflective of what most New Zealanders actually feel or believe about our trans whanau, but people like Brian Tamaki are taking the same rhetoric, the same kind of key lines that were used against gay men in the '60s and '70s and '80s and '90s against trans people now. - Immigration New Zealand is now reviewing whether Posie Parker will be allowed to cross the Tasman for two planned events in Auckland and Wellington. - I think it's probably a small group of people that, you know, have their own views on this. Many may have been influenced through the US. This is similar rhetoric that's coming out of the United States. - It's hard to explain. When you know that the world doesn't love you and they're after you, who would wanna leave their house? Yeah, I don't wanna leave the house. And now I'm a lot more wary of the toilets and where the toilets are. And just, like... Man, that was never an issue. But now I'm just like, I don't wanna use the toilets. I wanna go all the way home, just to use the toilets. (SIGHS) Yeah. - I'm making it very clear ` somebody that's got a male penis should not be in a women's bathroom or a girls' bathroom. - I do not believe that if Whaea Georgina stood for Parliament today she would be elected, entirely because she was trans. - Which is wacky, because it felt like the '90s were worse. It was hard to come out. It was hard to be yourself, because we didn't have a voice. And now we've got one, and it's more dangerous to be who we are. Pow! It's crazy times. - I think... that some members of our community have become incredibly privileged. We've forgotten that at different points in time, different members of our community have had to lead and fight for our collective rights, and that if any of us are victimised, then we're all victimised. We can't allow that to happen. We must be vigilant. - I was exceptionally lucky in my pathway to changing over. But it has cost me a lot of people, a lot of friendships, a lot of family relationships. And I'm still constantly reminded today by posts on Facebook that when you're different, when you're a minority, there's people out there that think they're superior because they're so-called 'normal'. And yet, I consider myself a normal person. I just happen to be a trans woman, as the term is today. - Trans and other Queer people have always been interlinked. Trans people were a key part, I think, of gay liberation. And as much as transphobia has been a part of Queer spaces, as much as it is part of wider society, so too has trans solidarity. - Reflecting on the past reminds us of the bravery of those who fought tirelessly for liberation and the strides we've made towards equality. However, it also highlights how much further we still need to go. Significant progress is still needed to ensure everyone in the rainbow community can live as their true, authentic selves. Let's ensure no one is left behind in the process. Captions by James Brown. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.