GEORGINA BEYER 1957-2023: A TRAILBLAZING REBEL

From sex worker to MP, the transgender politician's star always shone brightly

- Sebastian van der Zwan

When Woman's Day broke the news that Georgina Beyer, the world's first W transgender MP and mayor, was suffering from the same chronic kidney disease as the late Jonah Lomu, she told us, "I'm sure as hell not going to sit back and think, 'Woe is me! I refuse to be defeatist. This health issue has cast a huge shadow, but I'm going to be positive and proactive."

That was in 2013, but it was an attitude that she took until the end last week, when the trailblazing politician took her final breath, surrounded by her loved ones at a Wellington hospice at the age of 65. "She accepted what was happening, was cracking jokes and had a twinkle in her eye right until the final moment," tells her friend Scotty Kennedy.

Of Te Ati Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Porou descent, Georgina was born in the capital in 1957 and named George Bertrand. She left school at 16 and became a firm fixture on the Wellington club scene, where she worked as a singer, actress, drag queen and sex worker. She underwent gender-reassignment surgery in 1984, burning all her belongings the night before.

"Because of my transitioning at that time and the lack of social compassion, it forced you to live in this twilight world," Georgina recalled in 2018. "Among people of the streets, if you like, there was an odd bond because we were all enduring the same sort of social exclusion"