Transgender advocate a strong voice for change
Amanda Ashley
transgender activist b October 13, 1978 d November 2, 2018
Amanda Ashley was becoming the woman she was born to be. The Dominion Post came across Ashley’s story when she was due to present on a petition she launched at a parliamentary select committee earlier this month.
The petition, which will still stand, called for KiwiSaver funds to be made available for surgeries that were not publicly funded, such as gender confirmation surgeries.
But Amanda Ashley took her own life on November 2. She was 40.
Launching that petition was not all she had done in her short life.
At birth it was thought she was a boy. But six years ago, she realised that had been wrong.
Coming out as transgender in September 2017, she soon got to work establishing the Rodney Area Rainbow LGBTQ+ group.
Through that, she organised a petition to end so-called ‘‘gay conversion therapy’’ in August.
The petition had attracted 5157 signatures and was accepted by Labour MP Marja Lubeck on the steps of Parliament.
In November, Lubeck lodged a member’s bill to end conversion therapy.
She attended a memorial for Ashley last week, and described her as ‘‘a passionate woman who was keen on getting social issues addressed. We’ll be carrying on that mahi’’.
‘‘That mahi’’ was relentless: Official Information Act requests to rival the output of journalists, one of the last of which revealed that the Government would be encouraging district health boards to reduce barriers for transgender health care.
Amanda Ashley’s wife, Lisa Ashley, said it was a ‘‘privilege’’ to witness Amanda’s transition, which she called ‘‘gorgeous, beautiful, lovely and rather quick’’.
‘‘She seemed to know exactly who she was and had been all along. A lady.
‘‘She tried on a dress one day, loved it, understood it and became herself.’’
Lisa said Amanda had reflected on ‘‘a lifetime of moments and experiences’’ that revealed so many more clues and understandings ‘‘about how brave she was to try life living as a man when she was in fact a woman’’.
Amanda had married early and had two daughters with her former partner. A ‘‘long and painful’’ custody battle ensued after their divorce, which had stretched out up until Amanda’s passing.
Her life, while sometimes difficult, was a story of love – love for her children, for Lisa, her Hindu religion, for her work as an activist, and for learning to love herself as she was.
‘‘She was a very loving person, in everything she did,’’ Lisa said.
‘She will always be known for her sweet personality, her love of Julia Roberts and Amanda Palmer, her gorgeous femininity, her style and fashion, flair and transgender activism.’’
Lisa Ashley said she missed ‘‘everything’’ about Amanda, and mourned for the dream of growing old together. ‘‘We will always be very much in love. We spent years literally devoted to each other and this continued past her transition, but . . . Amanda sadly took her own life . . .’’
The couple had a 2-year-old son together. ‘‘He called Amanda ‘Maddy’, a name we had instead of Daddy. He misses her terribly.’’
Lisa Ashley said a combination of factors contributed to Amanda’s death: family issues, the challenge of a second puberty, and her inability to talk to a counsellor.
‘‘The pressure of life became too much. Amanda’s hormone treatment was at once so incredibly beautiful to witness – the changes to her body were lovely – but seemed also at times to be hard to manage.
‘‘Her whole body was changing and the hormones were affecting her sense of daily emotional balance. She seemed to have found out a lot about herself in a very short time.
‘‘I loved my wife as a woman in every way, from her female teenage puberty to her growing into a woman. I felt incredibly lucky.’’
She said Amanda would be remembered as a beautiful, sensitive sweetheart of a lady, and a strong activist who could make governments pay attention to health rights and equalities.
She was a wife, a mama, a stepmum, a transgender activist, a musician and a lover of life.
And if she could have the last word, what would she say? ‘‘I am Amanda, a beautiful woman. I was born Amanda, and I will always be Amanda.’’ –