From ‘one queen to another’
Georgina Beyer has worn a lot of labels in her life.
Actress. Activist. Politician. Performer. Sex worker. Drag queen. Wahine. Orator. Kidney transplant recipient.
She can even add ‘‘Paul Henry defeater’’ to her credentials.
The political vanquishing of Henry in 1999 elevated Beyer to a more than 3000-vote victory in the Wairarapa electorate, a famous defeat in a so-called safe National seat that still grates for the television personality to this day.
‘‘I’m sorry for Paul, but to have his butt kicked by a tranny was a little bit of a rat for him to swallow, I suppose,’’ Beyer quipped.
More than a decade on, the world’s first transgender mayor and Member of Parliament can add Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit to her extensive list of labels – labels she’s worn with pride.
Beyer’s demonstrable contribution to the rainbow community has been recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday honours. And, whether Queen
Elizabeth II intended to or not, highlighting Beyer in this way has created a delightful synergy.
‘‘Thank you for giving me this royal ascent to this honour. One queen to another,’’ Beyer laughed.
‘‘Well, she was the first real queen I have ever met,’’ the former drag performer joked.
Beyer entered politics in the early 1990s and was elected to the Carterton District Council in a byelection in 1993. She was elected Carterton mayor in 1995 – a post she held for five years.
In 1999, Beyer then transitioned from local government to the Beehive, becoming MP for Wairarapa for two terms, before continuing as a Labour list MP from 2005 to 2007.
During her political tenure, Beyer championed LGBTIQA+ causes, including the Civil Union Act 2004, as well as supporting the Prostitution Reform Act.
Her strength of conviction often saw her face off with some formidable political and moral adversaries.
Staunchly clutching a rainbow flag, Beyer chose to confront
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki and his ‘‘henchmen’’ when the infamous Enough is Enough protest reached Parliament in 2004.
‘‘I was being verbally abused and I just lost it, and I marched across the forecourt of Parliament like some screaming banshee.
‘‘Luckily, the following day, Paul Holmes got me on doing a head-tohead with Brian Tamaki, so in a much different situation, and I’m cool, calm and collected, and boy am I on point,’’ she beams.
She looks back at her time as Wairarapa mayor with unequivocal affection.
‘‘I’m proud that [the Queen’s Birthday honour] is another feather in the cap for the rainbow community and the transgender community, but it wouldn’t have happened without the people of Wairarapa. Rural, conservative people who overlooked my colourful past, looked at the substance of me and gave me a shot,’’ Beyer said.
‘‘We made history together.’’
Elizabeth Knox’s first thought on hearing the news of a Queen’s Birthday honour was of her parents.
She suspects they would have been surprised to hear her named a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
A multi-award winning author and Arts Foundation Laureate, she lives in Wellington, her hometown, with her husband, Fergus Barrowman, and son, Jack.
The award was a progression from Officer of the Order, which she received in 2002.
She said it was ‘‘really nice’’ and very gratifying to be recognised.
‘‘The first thing I thought was what my parents would think,’’ she said. ‘‘They’d be amused.’’
They were always supportive, but wouldn’t have expected it.
Knox suspected she grew up with, and still felt the effects of, an undiagnosed learning disability such as dysgraphia, which affects the ability to put words to paper.
She was an avid reader as a child, and never had trouble with that, making her way through her father’s library of science fiction and classic poetry from the likes of Milton, Blake, and Walt Whitman.
She began writing as a way of documenting the long, imaginary stories she made up as a child, and in seventh form took a touchtyping class with the sixthformers to make her storytelling easier.
Despite that, to this day she preferred to write with pen and paper, harbouring a love of beautiful notebooks and pencils.
‘‘I find it easier to think,’’ she said.
‘‘You can carry it around, and lie in your bed to write,’’ something she did so often it led to back problems.
Since 2002 she has written 13 novels, three novellas, and a collection of essays, and describes her books as ‘‘literary nonrealism’’; fiction which has won her both national and international awards.
The first book in the series, Dreamhunter, won the 2006 Esther Glen Award and the 2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults award, was shortlisted for the 2006
Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and awarded a ‘White Raven’ by the International Youth Library in 2006.
Her most recent book, published in 2019, The Absolute Book, won the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.
When she isn’t working in her home office in Kelburn, she teaches a world-building fiction workshop at Victoria University of Wellington, and is in her fourth year of doing so.
The teacher in her was a passionate advocate for learning and giving things a go, encouraging anyone who had a story to tell to do so.
‘‘People can’t imagine that they can live that kind of life.
‘‘There is no typical type of writer. You don’t have to be upper middle class or good at writing at school.’’
Writing was about ‘‘the delight of invention’’, and she hoped to share that with her stories, and her teaching.