#georgina beyer

[streetl4mp]

the trans community of aotearoa new zealand is mourning the death of georgina beyer, world’s first trans mayor and member of parliament.

i just wanna really emphasise how impressive what this woman has done is. she went from sex work into politics, was elected mayor of a relatively rural small town, yelled at transphobic destiny church members from the steps of parliament, advocated for sex workers and trans people throughout her career and into retirement, and was the world’s first trans member of parliament. that’s just crazy impressive to me.

[ahrahrahraha]

Wahine Toa Georgina Beyer, the world's first openly transgender Mayor and MP (Member of Parliament) has died today. A great loss for the world 💖💖💖💖💖💖 Rest in peace warrior

[celluloidrainbow]

GEORGIE GIRL (2001) dir. Annie Goldson & Peter Wells Georgina Beyer, a Maori actress turned public official, stuns the world in 1999 by becoming the first trans person to hold national office. Growing up on a small Tarankai farm, she later became a small-time celebrity on the cabaret circuit in Auckland. With charisma, humor and charm, Beyer unapologetically recounts her fascinating life story, shares how she overcame adversity and discloses the reasons she decided to run for office in a mostly all white, conservative electorate. (link in title)

[ofmdtereomaori]

Kua hinga te tōtara o Te Waonui a Tāne. Georgina Beyer (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou), transwoman, Member of Parliament, Mayor, sex worker, activist, actress, rape survivor, model, drag queen, trailblazer, LEGEND. November 1957 – 6 March 2023.

Moe mai rā e te rangatira... moe mai rā.

[newzealandwhy]

Rest in peace Georgina. You changed our country for the better.

For those who don’t know of Georgina’s incredible life and legacy, take a moment to read.

[kermit-the-hag]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Re: News (@renewsnz)

georgina beyer was the worlds first openly transgender mayor and the first member of parliament in the world who was openly and proudly trans. she will be truly missed by the lgbtq+ community in aotearoa. please, if you have never heard of this beautiful trailblazer, educate yourself. put the effort into learning about international leaders who helped shape the world and make it that little bit safer for us (especially for the transgender community)

[yourdailyqueer]

Georgina Beyer passed away recently. Her post needs updating

Thanks for letting me know. Post has been updated.

[blackberryjambaby]

i'm absolutely shattered. georgina beyer, a light in the dark always.

[onenakedfarmer]

Georgina Beyer 1957-2023

[aureliadebae603]

Georgina Beyers story

After I read over the brief, I began looking at the speech that I had been allocated. I was assigned a speech by Georgina Beyers. She was a New Zealand Mayor since 1999 and was the world's first outed transsexual to be elected to parliament.

As I began to research her further, I have come to understand what an amazing woman she was, through her incredible story about her life and how she has used her experiences to help create a change for the LGBQT+ community as well as sex workers within Aotearoa.

Beyer was born George Bertrand in November 1957 in Wellington. Her Iwi affiliations: Te Ati Awa, Ngati Mutunga, Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Porou. Shortly after her birth, her father abandoned the family and Beyers spent her early years growing up in Taranaki with her grandparents. When she was 4, she returned to Wellington with her mother and new stepfather, Colin Beyer. By this age, she had already discovered the joys of dressing up in women's clothing and by the age of 13, began to feel that her true identity was female.

Beyers epiphany came in her late teens when she attended her first drag show. Overjoyed to know she wasn't alone, she began working in the gay nightclubs in Wellington, singing and dancing in drag. With few employment options for young queers, she began to work in the dangerous industry of prostitution. Even though she felt a part of this new community, she was well aware of the homophobia that lay in the larger community.

In the later 1970's, she was beaten and gang raped by 4 men, a crime she did not report as her low self-esteem made her believe that she deserved such treatment. However, this became a positive turning point in her life as she believed that no one should feel so worthless that they consent to abuse.

In 1984, Beyer underwent sexual reassignment surgery, officially becoming the woman Georgina Beyers.

During the late 1980's she decided on another career change. Tired of being seen as a drag queen or a lady of the night, she was determined to pursue a career that would help to improve the lives of children in rural areas. She moved to the farming community of Carterton in the Wairarapa region to study to become a social worker.

In 1992, she was encouraged by family and colleagues to run for a seat on the Carterton District Council. She lost by only 14 votes. In 1993 she ran again and won and in 1995 she was elected mayor of the town, becoming the first openly transgender mayor in the world. She was re-elected in 1998 with a 90% majority.

In 1999, the Labour Party approached Beyer to run for the Wairarapa seat in Parliament. She agreed but her competition didn't believe that a left-wing Maori trans woman would win the traditionally conservative district. However, she won the seat and became the world's first openly transgender woman to be a member of the parliament. She reluctantly resigned from her position of Mayor of Carterton in 2000 to focus further on her national duties.

As a Member of Parliament, Beyer worked hard to represent both her rural constituents and the national and international queer community that looked to her for progressive reform. She remained as unapologetically open about her trans identity as ever, answering even questions about her sex life with frank humor, while speaking out about gay rights and working for the reform of prostitution laws.

Although she was unable to achieve the passage of a gender identity protection bill, she showed remarkable political savvy in persuading both the Solicitor General and the Attorney General to sign a statement making that protection explicit under New Zealand's current human rights bill, thereby achieving the same result.

She was also an effective proponent of the Civil Union Bill of 2004, which accorded same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples.

In 2007, exhausted by the long hours and demanding workload of a national representative, Beyer resigned from Parliament.

Beyer's experiences as a groundbreaking politician, her public role as a transgender spokesperson, and her glamorous, theatrical persona makes her an internationally popular speaker on issues of sexual and gender identity.

Unfortunately, Georgina passed away early this year in March due to underlying health issues she had been struggling with for a few years. Her memory and life will continue on within the changes she has helped to create for the LQBQT+ community and within the bills that she helped to pass while she was in parliament.

[airandangels]

I was always impressed by what Georgina Beyer accomplished and I’m sad that her life has ended relatively early. She could be justly proud of what she did with it.

[celluloidrainbow]

JEWEL'S DARL (1987) dir. Peter Wells Drag queen Mandy describes her love for her trans girlfriend, Jewel. Jewel's Darl concentrates on the fine details of their relationship: tea and biscuits in bed, Jewel's belief in staying strong against other people's mockery, and Mandy's memories of a troubled childhood. (link in title)

[ofmdtereomaori]

Georgina Beyer tribute roundup

Stuff obituary with her life story

Tribute from Gender Minorities Aotearoa

Tagata Pasifika tribute

Louisa Wall tribute on Radio Waatea

Chris Carter tribute in the Spinoff

NZ Herald article with tributes from all over Twitter

Newshub story with tributes from Aotearoa NZ Sex Workers’ Collective founder Dame Catherine Healy and former PM Helen Clark

Carterton District Council have unanimously voted to name a street after her

Poroporoaki from Willie Jackson

Bonus: the Georgie Girl doco is online

[mariacallous]

Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender person elected to the U.S. Congress, but she is not the first trans politician to be banned from using the bathroom of her choice by a hostile fellow lawmaker.

Back in 2006 in Italy, newly elected Vladimir Luxuria was briefly barred from using the ladies' room when she took her seat in Parliament. She said her heart breaks for McBride, a Democrat from Delaware.

"They did that to me," Luxuria, 59, said in a telephone interview with NBC News from her home in Rome. "What is happening to Sarah McBride is rank politics."

Which bathroom McBride will be able to use in the next Congress became an issue last week when Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, introduced a resolution to prohibit lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

When asked if the move was specifically in response to McBride, Mace said, "yes and absolutely, and then some." Not long afterward, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is also a Republican and a Trump supporter, said he supports restricting “single-sex facilities” in the Capitol, including restrooms, to “individuals of that biological sex."

McBride, in a post on X, responded, “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”

Luxuria, who left Parliament in 2008 and is an actress and activist, was following in the footsteps of the late Georgina Beyer, a New Zealander who became the world’s first openly transgender member of Parliament when she was elected in 1999.

The only other transgender woman who has served in a national parliament is Poland's Anna Grodzka, who was elected in 2011 and served one four-year term.

Luxuria said she had endured a lifetime of "cruelty" but was still shocked when Italian lawmaker Elisabetta Gardini, who was a supporter of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, confronted her "outside the women's toilet."

"I always went to the women's bathroom because if I even tried to use the men's toilet they would be embarrassed and demand to know what I am doing there," Luxuria said. "So when I came out, I was surprised when Gardini began yelling at me, 'What were you doing in here! You're a man!'"

Luxuria said Gardini "was very angry" but she was determined not to back down.

She said she told Gardini: "OK, I am a trans woman. But if you don't want to see me in here, you should go use the men's toilet."

Luxuria said Gardini walked off in a huff and in no time "the matter of where I could go to the bathroom became a debate in Parliament."

"I was lucky because, in the end, the members of Parliament decided I could use the women's bathroom," she said. "But it was embarrassing that it became an issue."

Luxuria said she has her suspicions about why Gardini, who was a well-known actress and popular TV personality before she got into politics, went after her.

"I suspect Berlusconi's party wanted to make this an issue to attack my party, which was in opposition," she said. "So I am very sympathetic to Sarah McBride."

Gardini did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Noting that Mace once described herself as a pro-LGBTQ social moderate, Luxuria said she thinks Mace's attack on McBride was part of a bigger plan to try to divide Democrats and force them to defend an issue that still makes many Americans "uncomfortable."

"The purpose here is to generate hate for political purposes," Luxuria said.

McBride and Mace did not reply to NBC News' request for comment.

In the aftermath of Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump, some Democrats and pundits have pointed to the Biden administration’s support for transgender rights as one reason Republicans prevailed.

They noted that the Republicans spent more than $200 million on network television advertisements that underscored Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care treatments and that repeatedly aired during NFL and college football games.

During her four years in the Polish Parliament, Grodzka also faced verbal attacks and was repeatedly misgendered by fellow Polish lawmaker Krystyna Pawlowicz. In an interview with Pink News, an LGBTQ digital news outlet based in Britain, in 2013, Grodzka largely brushed off the transphobic comments.

“Krystyna is a very conservative person, therefore I guess I am probably just a little bit too much for her," Grodza said. “She has an imaginary idea of a [perfect] person who is supposed to go to church, etc. … In that case I ruin her picture, therefore it’s a reason for her to attack me."

In recent years — nearly a decade after she left Parliament — Grodzka is still occasionally on the receiving end of personal attacks from Polish lawmakers, as the country's right-wing has embraced anti-LGBTQ sentiments.

In a 2002 documentary about Beyer called "Georgie Girl," Beyer said she commonly faced questions about her gender identity that other politicians would not have to endure.

“I get asked questions no other politician would ever have to answer," she said. "Regarding the surgery, you know. ‘Did it hurt?’ or, ‘When you have sex now as a woman, is it different to how you had sex as a man?’ Well, honey, obviously.”

[kermit-the-hag]

Georgina helped Aotearoa through her actions as well as her bravery. Thank you for making the world a safer place to live in Whaea.

[gulfportofficial]

If I think well on the reason that seeing Georgina Beyer speak when I was a teenager (and talking to her a bit after the talk) is such a treasured memory, what I think is that she spoke so honestly about what she'd faced, how and where she found community, all of these things, and all of it was with the primary theme that nothing can diminish you. Not that bullshit "things only hurt if you let them" thing, but that no matter how much something hurts or restricts it does not, in fact, actually change how fundamentally worthy you are as a human on Earth. In fact, she talked quite a lot about things that had hurt her and that they had hurt - she was speaking to a bunch of LGBT teens, after all. But she was saying that no matter what, she was still her. She still had dignity and poise and a command of language and the sort of quiet charisma that made everyone want to lean in close and listen. Things people did and said could hurt and change her world and opportunities, but they did not stop her being Georgina, and they did not stop her mattering and being worthy of love, nor the kind of life she wanted. She obviously thought really hard about that talk, because it was so well suited to and thoughtful of the audience (again, LGBT teens), and it was just... exactly what I needed to hear, and plus since I was and still am a huge art wanker, so beautifully put you had to admire the speech itself too.