New Zealand trans trailblazer Georgina Beyer dies at 65
"Your love, compassion and all that you have done for the rainbow and many other communities will live on forever"
New Zealand’s trailblazing politician Georgina Beyer has passed away at the age of 65.
Beyer, who became the world’s first openly transgender member of Parliament in 1999, died on Monday (6 March), Time reports. Reportedly, she died peacefully in hospice care.
She had been fighting kidney disease but this has not been confirmed as the cause of death.
Beyer’s friends have described her, being of Māori descent, as a ‘taonga’ (national treasure)
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Beyer had made a formidable impression.
“I certainly think that Georgina has blazed a trail that has made it much easier for others to follow,” Hipkins said.
Malcolm Vaughan, a friend of Beyer, has released a statement with his husband Scott Kennedy.
As per Time, they wrote: “Georgie was surrounded by her nearest and dearest 24/7 over the past week.
“All that you have done for the rainbow and many other communities will live on forever”
“She accepted what was happening, was cracking jokes, and had a twinkle in her eye, right until the final moment.”
“Farewell Georgie, your love, compassion and all that you have done for the rainbow and many other communities will live on forever.”
In 1995, Beyer was elected mayor of the North Island town of Carterton. She had previously had worked as a sex worker and nightclub performer. This
She then represented the liberal Labour Party between 1999 and 2007.
During her political career, Beyer assisted in passing numerous pieces of landmark LGBTQ legislation.
In 2003, she helped pass the Prostitution Reform Act, which decriminalised sex work.
Speaking to parliament on the issue of prostitution reform, she said: “I support this bill for all the prostitutes I have ever known who have died before the age of 20 because of the inhumanity and hypocrisy of a society that would not ever give them the chance to redeem whatever circumstances made them arrive in that industry.”
In 2004, she also helped pass a law allowing same-sex civil unions. Nine years later, New Zealand passed a law allowing same-sex marriage.